The people of the United States depend on a solid, capable, high-performance military for security. When confidence in the armed forces established to keep Americans safe gets wobbly, something needs to change quickly. In a recent Reagan National Defense Survey, fewer respondents than before showed confidence in the ability of the nation’s new, more woke military to perform its national security mission. In five years, the level of "trust and confidence" Americans have in the US military has declined dramatically. It seems the politically motivated leadership’s chickens have come home to roost.
No Trust in Woke Military Leadership?
According to the survey, "Americans want the United States to lead and be more engaged in the world." The problem is that more Americans are losing trust and confidence that military decision-makers can achieve global leadership aspirations. If the US is going to be a prominent force in persuading allies and friends to stand up to adversaries, one would hope Americans would see military leaders as up to the challenge. Unfortunately, the percentage of those polled who are convinced US military leadership was the best "in the world" compared with the militaries of other nations went from 33% in 2021 to 25% in the 2022 survey.
In the Reagan poll, when it comes to winning future wars, respondents' confidence declined from 57% in the 2021 survey to 50% in 2022. The most prominent reason for the low level of confidence was the "overly politicized military." In an interview with Fox News, Reagan Institute Policy Director Rachel Hoff said unequivocally, "what's driving the trend really [are] these concerns about politicization."
The survey is important because it validates what Americans have recognized as an accelerating inclination, more so under the Biden administration, of senior US military leadership to put political objectives before national security aims. And this should come as no surprise. Operational failures like the haphazard and ham-fisted withdrawal from Afghanistan, the failure to meet military service recruiting goals, and numerous examples of Pentagon leadership foisting divisive policies on the troops and pushing ideologies like Critical Race Theory (CRT) at the military academies are diminishing Americans' trust in its national security leadership. The resulting steep decline in trust should have been expected. "No other public institution asked about—including the Supreme Court, Congress, the Presidency, the news media, or law enforcement—has seen as sharp a decline in public trust over this time," the report explained.
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In the last year, similar surveys of the US public's perception of America's armed forces have produced similar results. "The share of Americans who say they have a great deal of confidence in the military to act in the public's best interests has fallen 14 points, from 39% in November 2020 to 25% in the current survey," concludes a February 2022 Pew Research study.
The American public's support of our armed forces is critical to our national security. The results of the Reagan Institute survey are not merely indicative of competing management or leadership philosophies. The findings are a bellwether on America remaining a world power. Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened the use of nuclear weapons to further his expansionist goals in Ukraine. Having confidence in the Department of Defense's moral authority to deter the Putins of this world is an existential matter of life or death – and woke military leadership doesn’t inspire such belief. In a democracy, moral authority accrues from the confidence of the citizens in the institutions given that authority.
These surveys show that Americans lack faith in military leadership's willingness to put the nation's safety first, to do what it takes to deter aggression. "Americans want their military to focus on preventing or winning the next war, not on serving the latest political fashion," The Wall Street Journal's editorial board concluded. Our nation's adversaries are emboldened when they sense weakness in America's capability to defend its national security interests. Making America confident in its military again must be a priority.
The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliation.
