If anyone really wanted to start a war against the U.S., or a war involving a U.S. interest, now would be the time. The U.S. military is a mess, thanks to Trump and Hegseth. I recommend Hegseth’s Pentagon Lurches off the Rails by Tom Nichols at The Atlantic.
It’s gotten so bad that some top brass warned Hegseth that the Iran war cannot continue as it has for much longer, as it’s draining the military to a ruinous degree. “Hegseth’s response to this story was to send his spokespeople out to castigate the press for revealing classified information,” Nichols writes.
Hegseth has purged many top-ranked, seasoned officers in favor of people who are loyal to him. The result, as we’ve seen, is a military that can’t even manage basic logistics. The Iran debacle has depleted the nation of weapons and oil. Assets have been pulled away from other parts of the world and sent to Iran, leaving areas especially vulnerable to other powers, such as China. It’s a terrible mess.
The result of all this is that the United States is losing a war to a third-rate power in the Middle East. The Russians, meanwhile, are continuing their rampage in Europe and apparently considering things so perilous that the CIA director had to fly to Moscow just to warn the Kremlin off of whatever it was thinking of doing. The Chinese are watching as Trump and Hegseth have stripped the Pacific theater of its only American aircraft carrier. In the midst of this chaos, Hegseth does chin-ups while he ponders calling all of America’s admirals and generals back to another mass meeting so he can again carp at them about fat soldiers and bearded sailors.
See also Military Officers Can’t Look Away From This Any Longer by Frank Kendell in the New York Times. Kendell was the secretary of the Air Force from 2021 to 2025, and he. says too many officers are still trying to pretend that everything is normal, as if clinging to the appearance of normality will save them.
Many lower-level officers I have spoken with are privately appalled but afraid to challenge what they are seeing. The collective hope seems to be that if they can all just go on as if nothing unusual is occurring, that this time will pass and nothing bad will happen to them — no loss of position, no demotion or forced retirement, no loss of reputation, no removal from a promotion list by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
I question whether this state of denial or whatever it is can last for 28 more months, to the end of Trump’s term, without major breakdowns. Indeed, we’re having some breakdowns already.
Meanwhile, Mary Ilyushina reports in the Washington Post that Putin pledges support to Iran, rallies leaders to challenge U.S. Will Trump notice and respond to this? I’m not holding my breath. Trump is still pretending that Putin is his good buddy. He even invited the Russian finance minister to a G20 meeting this week, much to the outrage of the rest of the attendees. For that matter, China is still buying Iran’s oil and keeping Iran’s economy from total collapse. And Trump is still pretending that Xi Xinping is his good buddy, too. Is there any precedent for this? That the U.S. is at war with some other country but acting as if the enemy’s allies are our BFFs? It’s just so … odd.
Elsewhere — as my fundraiser is kind of dying I will talk it up some more. I don’t like to complain about being poor, but today was the day I got a free ride to a grocery store, courtesy of a local government program. But I’m a couple of days away from my social security deposit. So I was a bit nervous about whether I could afford groceries. But by being very careful I managed to not overdraw what’s left in my bank account. This is my life. But I won’t starve, anyway.
I’m having a small fundraiser because I have a couple of medical bills Medicare/Medicaid didn’t cover, totaling $180. A bigger bill is for an identity protection plan I took out a couple of years ago after someone made charges on one of my credit cards. The bank caught it, so I didn’t lose any money, but I was rattled enough to want help. But it’s due for annual renewal soon at $200. If I have to cancel it so be it, but I’d like to keep it. Later this month I have an appointment to audition for a local community chorus, because singing is one of my favorite things, but if they accept my I’ll have to pay $150 in dues for the semester. Plus I’ve got a ton of doctor’s appointments this month and no car, So I’m anticipating transportation expenses. And I’m trying to not run up the credit cards in case of a dire emergency, such as my aging laptop crashing. I am hoping to scare up a little extra to get me through the month, and then I should be good for a while. And as you can see I have no advertisements and don’t ask people to subscribe. Here is a GoFundMe link, or you can use the donate buttons on the top right-hand column of the home page. Thamks for all help.
I put in a small donation. You mentioned an annual bill for an identity protection service – $200 seems excessive. I did some research earlier this year, and settled on Aura. If you decide to go with them, never pay list price, there's always some kind of coupon or break you can get by watching a "review" and using their link. I got in under $100.
My research indicated that other providers do well at particular aspects of identity protection, Aura tries to provide soup-to-nuts, broad coverage of all aspects. But it's good to watch a couple reviews to get a sense of their approach, and whether this sounds right or better for you.
One of the things I like about Aura is that their dashboard is intuitive and easy to use. It might be false security, but I feel they're better than nothing, and worth the price.
Aura is what I have. I got the first year with a coupon, but this is for the third year. And I’m pretty sure this is higher than it was last year. They must have raised their prices.
Ouch! Good to know…
Pardon me for being paranoid but I think Whisky Pete is safe because he's willing to do the job Trump hired him for. And it has little to do with operating a military as the founders planned. To drop back in history, the founders were concerned about a standing military AT ALL, because whoever controlled the military could us those weapons against citizens.
IMO, that's the eventuality Pete is trying to whip the military into – Trump's private army for rape and plunder. Pete has permission to fire anyone who will stand up for the Constitution and their oath if/when they are instructed to do something illegal. Trump has always known that could be the end game if he failed and president and in the eyes of the voting public. And he's there – a failed POTUS, with over two years to go.
I'm sorry to predict that the loyalty of the US military to their oath of office will be tested. (Trump made a demand this weekend for Chicago's mayor or Illinois' governor to request troops. The cours have struck down his power to invade without an invitation.) My opinion is that Trump wants a huge military presence there but it only has to do with suppressing protest.
The article in the Atlantic is excellent, but the author is too professional to connect the dots I have, for being to speculative. Maybe, but I'm in the same paranoid boat as the founding fathers who feared a standing army precisely becouse of nuts like Trump.
"…That the U.S. is at war with some other country but acting as if the enemy’s allies are our BFFs? It’s just so … odd."
I don't have any particular information that leads me to this but, I don't think it's odd at all. My guess/suspicion is that some of our "enemy's allies" are … BFFs to POTUS, because one or more of those allies of our enemy (Iran) have kompromat on somebody. Possibly on several people among those who are directing our federal govt and in particular our military. It is a guess on my part. All I have is: If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.
IMO the entire global ruling class is a den of thieves, and they all have dirt on everybody else in the den.
Similarly the lower level officers in the military are stuck in a catch-22: If they refuse to carry out an order that violates international or domestic law, they'll get fired and have no income; but if they carry out the illegal order, the superiors will know it and document it so that the lower level officer will henceforth be owned.
Iran is "our" "enemy"? I don't buy it. That's false framing – propaganda *intentionally* used to normalize killing lotsa people on the other side of the world.
Trump ordered the US military to attack them (twice!), because Netanyahu talked/bribed/extorted him into it. Epstein tapes are the real "kompromat" motivating Trump (and too many other US politicians), and Bibi balanced his use of that stick with plenty of carrot juice (Adelson $$$).
In Trump's mind, it was when he attacked it. We're talking about Trump here.
An army (or any other branch of service) travels on its stomach. No, that old saying does not mean they crawl everywhere. It means you must feed them and resupply them in other ways if you can. They call it logistical support.
One nightmare tends to lead to another, and a leadership nightmare has led to a logistical one. Oops, another rookie blunder.
Inside Supplying U.S. Warships During the Iran War – The New York Times
I agree with the general point of Maha's OP – that Trump & Cronies are screwing up the US military – but I strongly disagree with some of the details.
First, "If anyone really wanted to start a war against the U.S.", this would be a terrible time to do it. The US military still very capable of delivering lotsa bombs pretty much anywhere on Earth, and that military is commanded by a vengeful madman. Any country which attacks us now risks destruction of crucial infrastructure ("strategic" bombing is still our specialty). Iran is fighting back *now* because it has reason to believe that the USA (prompted by Israel) would abrogate any negotiated peace.
Secondly, the current logistics mess is the result of long-term problems, not Hegseth's shenanigans. Yes, of course, the US Navy must have known that it couldn't sustain a long war on Iran, but Bibi promised Trump that it would only take a couple weeks to plop Pahlavi Jr "back" on the Peacock Throne, and the Navy had to go along.
With our navy bases in the Persian Gulf wrecked and inaccessible, the Navy has to supply fleets in the Arabian Sea from bases thousands of miles away. The US Navy had a similar problem in the Pacific during WWII, which it solved by (1) commandeering the US Merchant Marine fleet and (2) building hundreds of new supply ships. Those options are not available now, because (1) our Merchant Marine fleet is almost non-existent (always cheaper to hire foreign seamen), and (2) we don't build ships in the USA anymore (always cheaper to buy ships built elsewhere). All because Wall Street prioritizes profits over national security…
The other big supply problem for the US military these days is Air Defense (AD) weapons (Patriot, THAAD, etc), and again, the problem is two-fold.
The longer-term aspect is the hollowing out of the US industrial base. In WWII, we were able to convert thousands of factories to military production; that's impossible now, because Wall Street moved all those factories to China. It will (would?) take decades to rebuild that infrastructure and train the workforce to run it; until we do that, we physically *cannot* build new military equipment quickly.
The shorter-term problem is that we have backed into fighting two air wars at once (with no Congressional Declaration of War). The US has been supplying – directly or indirectly, overtly or covertly – AD weapons to Ukraine, despite Russia's purported control over Trump. US policy in the Middle East since Carter has been based on providing "protection" for the Arab Monarchies of the Persian Gulf, so we had supplied them with lotsa AD, too; and of course, overwhelming bipartisan Congressional support for Israel means that they are always first in line for US AD weapons. When Iran surprised "everyone" by fighting back, it became apparent that AD weapons aren't very cost-effective: they can be overwhelmed by (much) cheaper offensive missiles.
So, now, we've burned through most of our existing stockpile of AD weapons, at the same time that we have extended the umbrella of commitments to defend other countries, and we can't build new AD fast enough to replenish that stockpile.
Sure, Hegseth is an idiot and a jerk (I'm using that euphemism out of respect for Maha's Bad Word policy!), but he didn't create *that* problem. OTOH, his misguided attempt to push Trump's MAWA (W = White, straight, male, etc) policies on the US military *is* causing morale problems, at a time when morale is already challenged by having to fight a war *which we started* for reasons that keep changing…
From comment to Logistics Nightmare Facing U.S. Warships: Credit John from Boston
Jeremy Leads, Buffalo
From Lost Sailor, USA:
And Marty in Seattle:
This is Trump's version of Putin's Ukrainian War.
Does anyone think that the Iran War will conclude before Trump's current term is over? My concern is will it continue through the end of this decade (or even the next decade).
Trump won't end it, certainly. But I think it will end pretty quickly once he has left the White House. Whenever that is.
To be brutal, the biggest question is, *can* he end it? Why would the Iranians listen to anything he said? He was negotiating peace, and started bombing, assassinating many of Iran's top leaders. Who would ever trust him, ever again, after a stunt like that? And then, he announces Iran made promises they sure didn't make (or, at least, I assume I should trust them, over Trump, regarding what their own promises are/were!). What sane national leader would want to have an agreement with Trump? They want an agreement with the EU, with NATO\USA (math for "NATO, excluding the USA"), with Russia, with China, but not with Trump.
There's a song, "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover" that covers it. Trump can't end the war on terms that will be mutually acceptable, but he can pull the fleet out and quit bombing Iran.
War over. But there will be repercussions.
The Gulf States will know they've been abandoned, and they will shut down the US bases within their territory, if we haven't pulled out. Because any friend of the US is an enemy of Iran, and Iran will have the big stick when the US pulls out. The only reamining US buddy in the region will be Israel.
If Trump stays in Iran for two more years, (and he could) the Gulf States will be on the ropes financially, even if Iran only hits one tanker a month – because most of tankers will avoid an active war zone. Gas prices will stay high and a president who follows Trump won't need to defer to citizens who think we have to continue the war for 'honor.'
Exactly. Why would anyone?
Why did anyone?
I'd have to resort to: We all need work on our skepticism. If it looks or sounds too good to be true it probably isn't.
Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada said when working on agreements with the USA, "We recognized that sometimes its signature was written in pencil".
Actually it's written with disappearing ink.