Project 2025 is a well-researched, well-orchestrated, deep-dive into the operation of government as we have known it for many decades; a government under constant improvement through Roosevelt’s New Deal, to Johnson’s Great Society, to Biden’s Build Back Better. These presidents, and every president in between, re-thinking the purpose of government in order to best serve the people of the United States and make the Federal government an instrument of relief from economic hardship, a safety net for those suffering from illness or discrimination.
Former National Security Adviser John Bolton observed that President Trump approached his stewardship of government – approached each and every issue of national or international concern – through the lens of “how can this benefit Donald Trump.” Project 2025 is the ultimate example— a comprehensive plan to deconstruct what Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner have called the “Administrative State” and replace it with a blueprint for dictatorship.
Having a career in the military I was most interested in the military portion of project 2025, which is a reflection of the mind, the prejudices, and the loose allegiance to truth that one is exposed to at a Trump rally. However, unlike Trump’s profound ignorance on almost every subject, this document was drafted by people in-the-know about military force structure, weapons capabilities and the weapon’s procurement process. It makes for a unique experience as one reads perfectly acceptable analysis of military capabilities, constantly laced with right-wing propaganda and blatant untruths.
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The document shifts constantly from factual/professional language, to extreme bias and ludicrous declarations. The author, Christopher C. Miller, acting defense secretary in the final days of the Trump administration following the firing of Mark Esper, displays a grasp of military operations, but frequently engages in partisan sound bites. Some of the blatant fabrications redundantly laced throughout the section titled “The Department of Defense,” include the insistence that the Department emphasizes leftist policies over military readiness, and that current military leadership prioritizes social engineering over their core roles in defense of the nation (social engineering a buzz-word for a leftist or “woke” agenda). Miller, like his former boss, has the audacity to declare things that simply do not exist in the military environment. He states that “polarizing issues” like critical race theory and climate change are weakening our Armed Forces and hurting enlistment. In fact, military research was instrumental in establishing global warming as man-made. And critical race theory is not part of any military training. This is not a professional analysis but a manifesto meant for a particular audience.
One of the glaring omissions throughout this military readiness document is the threat of Russia. China is declared to be the major threat and this is repeated throughout – but Russia, the number one threat to the United States in my 30-year career, and currently at war with an American ally, is given a pass. This is so obviously deliberate that it takes on an ominous tone when one thinks of the extensive obstruction of justice committed by Trump and all the president’s men convicted following the investigation of Russian cyber warfare and interference in the 2016 election. Trump’s calling Putin a genius for invading Ukraine and murdering tens of thousands of Ukrainians, Trump declaring NATO obsolete, and the recent revelations that Trump has continued a relationship with Putin as a private citizen, only make the omission of Russian criticism more disturbing.
This analysis of our military strength would require a lengthy essay to cover the assessment of Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Space Command and Cyber Security, but here is a short list of bullet points:
1. A call to decapitate military leadership, of what Miller refers to as “Barack Obama’s generals,” and a plan to prevent their promotions, to force early retirements, and replace them with Trump/MAGA loyalists. (88 & 104)
2. False accusations that President Biden has normalized and lauded Chinese behavior, when it is Trump who has lauded President Xi, who “fell in love” with Kim Jong Un, and actually invited Putin “to do whatever the hell you want” to our NATO allies. (89)
3. Plans to eliminate the Department of Homeland Security and calls for a new stand-alone immigration agency at the Cabinet level. (133)
4. Develop legislation for funding outside the traditional Secretary of Defense planning and budget estimate submission (the DOD portion of the president’s budget). (96)
5. Terminate outdated and underperforming programs (the criteria not revealed here but open to “a conservative president who examines recommendations … develops strategy for implementing what the Administration considers in the best interest of the American people). (96)
6. Strengthen American defense industrial base (at least 50% domestically produced products). (97)
7. Help small businesses become medium or large vendors. (97)
8. Decentralize Defense Acquisition University (DAU) to include accreditation of non-DOD institutions (grant accreditation to non-Department of Defense institutions outside of government regulations and controls). (98)
9. Accelerate prototype cycle to meet immediate battlefield needs (moving new technologies more rapidly to conflict zones). (99)
10. End Congressional notification “tiered review” of weapons sales because it slows the delivery process. (101)
Some of these recommendations may be reasonable but, overall, the suggested changes, under the argument of eliminating bureaucracy, also eliminate checks and balances and give more decision-making power to the president. It would also allow, through defense contracts, the opportunity to line the pockets of those already receiving the largest tax cuts.
Miller keeps coming back to social issues like eliminating “politicization” of the military (an imagined woke military which does not exist). But a military of right-wing extremism could soon exist if Project 2025 were implemented.
A good example is the mandate to “strengthen protection of chaplains to carry out their ministry according to the tenets of their faith.” Every chaplain is already allowed to minister according to their faith under military doctrine, but this is a green light for Chaplains, permission to blur the lines established to proselytize or perhaps convert military members to their faith, a loophole to violate the First Amendment guarantee of separation of church and state. Project 2025 calls for reinstatement of members who refused Covid vaccines despite the military’s long history of mandatory vaccinations, especially for overseas deployments to combat zones. It calls for the elimination of Marxist Doctrine (which does not exist) and to abolish Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) offices and staff. There is a promise to stop “social evolution” in the Army and a complaint that the Army no longer reflects national demographics. This is not explained but since minorities are overrepresented statistically in the military it could easily be interpreted as a call for increased Caucasian enlistments.
Project 2025 calls for a build up of the Army, Navy, Air Force, an increase in the capabilities of cyber warfare, and Space Command; and a complete revamping of our nuclear arsenal. The scale outlined in this document of upgrading our nuclear triad would be enormously expensive. Knowing Trump’s penchant for power and his pathological lying, it is like putting a kid in a candy store. Not only is he the opposite of Ronald Reagan, who wanted the total elimination of nuclear weapons, and accomplished a 50% reduction with Michael Gorbachev, he has threatened North Korea with total annihilation. Project 2025 also declares the United States will operate “at will” in space and that Space Force will establish offensive capabilities and no longer rely on our present defensive strategy.
READ: Republican Project 2025 Takes Dead Aim at Veterans’ Health and Disability Benefits
In the end, Miller is constructing a recruiting tool for young people who will be the exact opposite of what we want in the military. Like Donald Trump himself, we will have recruits who cannot live up to the only oath they are required to take—to defend the Constitution of the United States. Miller declares that most of our lower ranking troops are overwhelmingly patriotic but that they are having “leftist policies” imposed from above. He gives no factual evidence to back that up. The military has always been apolitical. In my 30 years in the military, not once was I asked if I was a Democrat or Republican, nor did I ask anyone else what party they belonged to. It is irrelevant! We are all on the same team! I served under six Commanders in Chief: Carter, Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, W. Bush and Obama, three Democrats and three Republicans. They were all fit for command.
Project 2025 is designed to replace a government of checks and balances with a government of unprecedented one-man-rule. Miller is repeatedly derogatory to Presidents Obama and Biden, proving that the intended audience is not the citizens of the United States but those sympathetic to the MAGA movement.
In the past two weeks, more and more retired military generals and admirals have gone public endorsing VP Harris and stating that Trump is unfit for office. General Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has called Trump a Fascist, just as former Secretary State Madeleine Albright did in her book Fascism: A Warning. And right on cue Trump declared in a rally speech that the real threat to America was “the enemy within” much more than Russia or China; and he called for military intervention to deal with that enemy.
On June 18, 2019, in Orlando, FL, Trump told his crowd of supporters that Democrats were out to destroy them and out to destroy the country. The Commander in Chief was publicly declaring that a third of the military (and their families) were out to destroy this country. The implications of this to military readiness and morale was ignored by Congress, by the media, and by the American people. Project 2025 is an extension of these same anti-American/anti-Constitutional beliefs, and that, as Abraham Lincoln once warned us, is the real enemy within.
