A Trump-Worthy Year for the Military | The American Spectator

President Trump has done a lot to and for the military this year. Overall, it’s been a very good year for our men and women in uniform.

Trump has restored pride in the force. You can see that in the recruitment numbers which have reached a 15-year high after the awful slump under Biden. Trump has rid the force of the “woke” ideology that Biden forced on it as well as the DEI nonsense.

The president tried to help our military members with his $1776 “warrior bonus.” Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines have been underpaid for far too long. The bonus has to help if only a bit.

Trump’s use of our military has ranged from the excellent to the not so good. The issue is whether we have a vital national security interest in one war or another making it necessary for us to employ the military. In some we have those interests, and in some we haven’t.

In March through May, Trump ordered strikes on the Houthis of Yemen. We don’t have a vital national security interest at stake in Yemen, but the Iranians choose to, and they sponsor Houthi terrorism.

The Israelis have been hitting the Houthis for quite a while. But their sponsors in Iran have, so far, had the last word. The Houthis haven’t been destroyed by us or the Israelis: they have barely been slowed down. Instead, they’re aiding the Somali gangs to resume their piracy of ships in the Indian Ocean. The Houthis haven’t resumed their raids on Red Sea shipping but that cannot be far behind.

Trump ordered a B-2 stealth bomber strike on Iran’s deeply-buried nuclear sites in June. Three sites — Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan — were, we think,  all heavily damaged in the raid. We — and the NATO nations, Israel, Saudi Arabia and other allies — have a vital national security interest in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

We really don’t know how badly the three sites were damaged. The hope is that we have set Iran back by years from achieving nuclear weapons. The Israelis’ strikes on Iranian air defenses prove that they can — as can we — operate in Iranian airspace whenever we choose because of the stealth aircraft.

Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, declared his nation was at “total war” with the U.S., Israel, and Europe. Iran should become the world’s most unlucky nation with things getting blown up frequently. If we — or the Israelis — are accused of responsibility we should deny it and just shrug.

Our military has been striking at Venezuelan and Colombian drug boat since September. Those strikes are of questionable legality but they are very popular among Americans and they are bringing down the amount of dangerous drugs imported into the U.S.

Our military and Coast Guard have been seizing oil tankers coming out of Venezuela. There is clear legal authority for these seizures. Trump is trying to force Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro out of office but Maduro is not giving any sign of resigning. Trump has threatened to mount ground operations in Venezuela but hasn’t yet done so.

We do have a vital national security interest in Venezuela because it has allied itself with Russia, China, and Iran. Iranian-backed Hizballah terrorists are free to operate from Venezuela. It’s a situation that we cannot tolerate but Trump is, quasi-peacefully, taking his time in trying to force Maduro out. We can certainly outlast Maduro.

The seizures of oil tankers out of Venezuela has a side benefit in strangling the post-Castro regime in Cuba. The Cuban economy, already on its last legs, is trying desperately to obtain aid from the usual suspects (Russia, China, and Iran) but so far they haven’t come through for the Cubans.

Trump’s Christmas Day attack on ISIS in Nigeria is highly questionable from a national security standpoint. We have a great humanitarian interest in Nigeria because the terrorists — ISIS and others — have murdered tens of thousands of Christians and burned hundreds of churches. Nigeria’s air defenses are weak, as the attack proved. But a ground invasion of Nigeria would not be worth the risk of American lives.

The biggest problem is what the president is spending — and not spending — on the military. Just what do we get for the nearly $1 trillion defense budget?

What we get is not what the Pentagon needs most urgently.

Trump wants to build two “Trump Class” battleships which will cost at least $8 billion. Nevertheless, the Air Force and the Navy need a lot more in modernization funds.

The Air Force, as I have written elsewhere, is the indispensable force. No operation and clearly no war can be fought without the participation of major parts of the Air Force. But the Trump budget leaves it without any funds for modernization.

We cannot win big wars without the Navy. While Trump wants to build “Trump Class” battleships, they won’t revive American shipbuilding or be the deadliest ships on the seas. The fact is that the design — or what we can see of it in the artists’ renderings — will not be at all stealthy. Every ship the Navy needs must be stealthy if they are to win the fights they are designed to fight. That means that the era of the aircraft carrier is over.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is apparently oblivious to these urgent needs. Unless he awakes to them we can only fight small battles like the strikes on Iran, the Houthis, and Nigeria. We may be headed to disaster in fights with China, Russia, or even Iran if he doesn’t.

(Author’s note: for those few who miss my year-end column of political nonsense, this year I surrendered to the humor of Sen. John Kennedy (R-La) who is the only wit in the senate. For example, he said of Alexandria Cutie-Cortez, that she’s the reason we have directions on shampoo bottles. I may resume in January gathering political idiocy for a 2026 year-ender.)

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