This is a time of great turmoil in the US government. Trump remains the most controversial president to date with vast changes even in just his very first week as the 47th president. And yet, he has the highest presidential approval rate ever in US history, likely only lower than George Washington, who never surveyed his population to estimate his approval rate. However, despite controversy, approval, or anything in-between, you can gamble your life savings safely on this fact: the US Armed Forces are here to stay. But how has the US military changed due to Trump’s administration, and what can we expect in the next few years? Is it for the better, or for the worse?
The most concrete cause of change in the US Armed Forces comes in the form of former Fox News weekend host Pete Hegseth taking the reins of the Department of Defense. Like most Fox News personalities, Hegseth is a rather conservative person, and can be expected to reflect those beliefs in his leadership. Trump himself has already signed bills repealing DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) policies in government workplaces. How does this affect the military? You can likely expect to see fewer minorities in the forces, because the mostly-white male recruiters no longer have incentive to hire non-white males, of which there is no shortage in the United States. The shift in racial makeup of the military will not be nearly as drastic a shift, however, when compared to the forecasted decrease of women in the forces. As long as women have served, their fitness requirements have been markedly lower than those of their male counterparts. Going forward, a woman seeking to serve will likely have to match the physical abilities of the above-average male, an extreme feat for most women.
Hegseth is expected to repeal policy allowing transgender soldiers in our forces. This follows yet another Trump policy that essentially invalidates gender non-conforming Americans. The proportion of transgender people in the US is small, approximately 1%, and is smaller still in the Armed Forces, about 0.6%. However, the US military has been relatively good at ensuring their “diversity” hires (for lack of a better phrase) are qualified for their jobs and positions; therefore a transgender ban in the forces can be seen as firing (or not hiring) otherwise competent people. As such, it’s a bias-based ban, and is not purely based on effectiveness of service. So how can the Pentagon justify this? The average person in the US military is either uncomfortable or less comfortable serving with transgender soldiers, and does not feel like they could trust a transgender comrade with their life. A ban in transgender service-members would be for morale and cohesion purposes, then, which has always been a top priority of militaries worldwide and has been one of, if not the most prominent reason for success in military operations. Because of this, the decision to ban transgender soldiers would ultimately be a utilitarian decision, and not solely due to personal and/or unfounded biases in the effectiveness of transgender service-members. But is it the right thing to do? Is sacrificing America’s position as the melting-pot and beacon of freedom to discriminate against people who wish to present themselves differently “good”?
Another change in the works would be to fully ban women from serving in combat roles. The idea behind this ban is that women are biologically weaker than men and usually require much more training to reach a similar level of combat readiness than for an average man. However, everything in the Armed Forces costs money, and training soldiers is a relatively small cost especially when compared to equipment and operating costs. So why else would women not be allowed to serve in frontline roles? Once again, many people see women in combat positions as a cohesion disruptor, as most military-style bonding is based on the experience of men and how they form brotherhood bonds with their fellow men. This is the traditional view on women in service, but women serving in combat roles during the Gulf War and occupation has evidenced the contrary. By and large women are adequately effective in combat roles and due to this, there is likely no good reason to ban women from serving in frontline positions.
Outside of infantry changes, Trump seeks to implement a large-scale missile defense system in the US similar to Israel’s Iron Dome, which fires missiles to intercept incoming missiles from enemy sources. Israel’s Iron Dome is equipped with expensive tracker missiles that cost about $50,000 each to produce, and usually defend against cheaply made missiles costing less than $1,000 each. The proposed “Golden Dome” system for the US would be much larger-scale, and interceptor missiles could likely be expected to cost over $500,000 apiece, and would have the ability to shoot down much larger and even more expensive missiles, making the waging of missile warfare against the US worthless. However, missile warfare has already been obsolete in peer-to-peer conflicts like the US would be worried about, so the concept has been viewed as a frivolous display of power by Trump.
The military can be expected to change greatly over the next several years as we prepare for a potential large-scale and global peer-to-peer war with either China or Russia. One thing that will not change is the exorbitant amount of money spent on the US military. Power projection is the most important geopolitical goal of the US and power projection costs “hecka moneys” as the youths say.
