Is U.S. Navy Sinking Under Weight of Diversity and Aversion to Bad Press?
“I guarantee you every unit in the Navy is up to speed on their diversity training. I’m sorry that I can’t say the same of their ship handling training.”
Legal Insurrection readers may recall a recent congressional hearing that featured whistleblower reports about the impact of Critical Race Theory (CRT) on members of the US military. We covered Sen. Tom Cotton’s intense grilling of several high-ranking service members about reading lists and the impact of racialist policies on morals and enlistments.
A new report titled “A Report on the Fighting Culture of the United States Navy Surface Fleet” has emerged due to Congressional Reps. Jim Banks, Dan Crenshaw, and Mike Gallagher and Cotton. Marine Lt. Gen. Robert Schmidle and Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, both retired, prepared the report based on recent US Navy incidents.
Their assessment, based on interviews with over 70 naval personnel, is chilling.
The authors conducted hour-long interviews with 77 current and retired Navy officers, offering them anonymity to identify issues they wouldn’t feel comfortable raising in the chain of command.
The report found that a staggering 94 percent of the subjects believed the recent Naval disasters were ‘part of a broader problem in Navy culture or leadership.’
‘I guarantee you every unit in the Navy is up to speed on their diversity training. I’m sorry that I can’t say the same of their ship handling training,’ said one recently retired senior enlisted leader.
…One of the key issues raised by the officers interviewed for the report was a concern that Navy leaders spend more time focusing on diversity training than on developing warfighting capacity and key operational skills.
‘Sometimes I think we care more about whether we have enough diversity officers than if we’ll survive a fight with the Chinese navy,’ lamented one lieutenant currently on active duty.
‘It’s criminal. They think my only value is as a black woman. But you cut our ship open with a missile and we’ll all bleed the same color,’ she added.
If “consensus” is the gold standard of acceptance, then the results are damming.
The goal “was to establish if these incidents were part of a series of isolated, unit-level breakdowns, or if they instead indicate larger institutional issues that are degrading the performance of the entire naval surface force,” reads the survey.
“There was a broad consensus across interviewees on numerous cultural and structural issues that impact the morale and readiness of the Navy’s surface force. These include: an insufficient focus on warfighting skills, the perception of a zero-defect mentality accompanied by a culture of micromanagement, and over-sensitivity and responsiveness to modern media culture.
Structural issues identified include lack of resources and consistency in surface warfare training programs and the Navy’s underwhelming commitment to surface ship maintenance—a problem that spans decades.”
Compounding problems is the palpable fear of bad press.
After negative news stories, the report found, “the senior ranks are perceived as quick to sacrifice junior personnel” to save their own tails. Discipline is “bent to the unsteady whims of public perception, not the Navy’s own standards and regulations.”
A command master chief told sailors to “clap like we’re at a strip club” when Vice President Mike Pence came aboard the carrier. He resigned, his 30-year career ending after one misjudgment. Admirals “hide in foxholes at the first sight of Military.com and the Military Times,” said one intelligence officer.
One of the incidents that lead to this report was the fire aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard, which we covered one year ago. The fire was so intense that authorities decommissioned the ship in April.
The incident’s investigation has concluded, but the Navy is still reviewing the results.
It has been a year since a fire broke out on the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard at Naval Station San Diego. Even after the ship’s decommissioning, and at least two separate, ongoing investigations, the public knows little about what sparked the blaze.
Last week, Lt. Katie Diener, a Navy spokeswoman, said that the investigation into the “facts and circumstances” surrounding the July 12, 2020, fire is complete, but the results are being reviewed.
…There could be several reasons for the silence and delay, according to Mark Nevitt, a former aviator and judge advocate attorney in the Navy, who spoke with Military.com about the investigation. Nevitt is now a professor at the Syracuse University College of Law.
Aside from the usual privacy and national security redactions, Nevitt said that pending criminal charges can delay an investigation.
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Comments
Are we at the point where China would win?
Maybe. Depends on the situation. I don’t think (and take with a grain of salt here, I’m no foreign-intel wonk) China’s got the force projection to, say, invade Alaska or the West Coast.
But gobble up Taiwan and a chunk of SE Asia? I kinda expect it before the end of the 2020’s, if not by 2024.
If they’re going to do it they’ll do it soon, while we have a senile, demented, feeble old pedophile in the oval.
A direct result of electing Communist’s.
If wars were fought by virtue signaling and denial of reality – USA would win decisively.
But wars are won by the side that is most clear on reality and most ready to actually fight (not signal that they can fight). On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being ready to fight and win a major conflict – USA is, at best, an 8.
How you you rate USA readiness?
I would rate it 5. After reading Crisis of Character, where the author explains what these policies of ‘diversity’ have done to our security forces, I doubt that we will have any readiness by the time there is a real conflict. Our enemies know how arrogant our government is right now. They have been reading us like a book for years and years.
No, China would not win, but not much longer.
The US allies in the Pacific must prepare to do battle on their own🌊 . India 🇮🇳 , Australia 🇦🇺 , Japan 🇯🇵 and maybe Korea 🇰🇷 ? Certainly Taiwan 🇹🇼 . Malaysia 🇲🇾 is certainly buying more jet fighters.
Yuri Bezmenov was right about the spread of anti-National politics and the spread of great confusion and hate in the USA.
The situation could deteriorate to the point in the USA where the left refuse to honour allies and the much hoped for and relied upon US stability-through-overhelming force is no longer a fact.
Let us imagine that someone like Ilhan Omar with the help of Soros co-funded Quincy Institute and Trita Parsi, who will bring along Ben Rhodes declare US armed intervention “racist”.
In the meantime millions of young voters think the USA is “racist hell 24/7”, who have been drilled in statesmenship and are willing puppets in at least weakinening the USA 🇺🇸 to the point where it may no longer afford the aircraft carriers, the large Air Force , a global Marine Corps 🌏 etc. Chinese tech is so good it is at least equal . Will the USA send thousands to die against China ?
Remember that Yuri Bezmenov said, there is no “take over”. There is simply a weakening and incoherence . That is all for the mice to dance on the table.
But we may witness a new period of US introspection. A well earned rest of this massive defense expenditure, which may partly get redirected to US cities and a new civilan investment in infrastructure and housing.
The USA inheriteted this role from WW2, and served it beyond the call. How long may this go on for ?
Trump was onto something.
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
A more fundamental question is: what is the role of the US military from now on? Keep in mind the Biden* administration has repeatedly said that terrorism from “white nationalism” is the greatest threat facing the US. Also remember that the “woke-ification” of the US military has been underway for some time, where certain portions of the US population – whites, Christians, gun owners, “Zionists” (read: Jews) – are relentlessly demonized and dehumanized as likely domestic terrorists. We have also seen US troops deployed on US soil – the Capitol – to guard against the threat of an insurrection that never happened. We have also seen efforts to identify and expunge soldiers who hold “racist” opinions.
To me the goal is clear: to transform the US military into an army loyal only to the ruling political party and which will be used to terrorize and subjugate American citizens who object. Whether the Biden* administration succeeds in accomplishing this is another matter.
Are we at the point where China has already won, and they’re just not telling us?
China WOULD win against just the US. The US Navy is a joke and losses would take literally YEARS to be replaced, if they could be replaced at all. China could throw away 10+ subs to kill a single carrier and come out victorious because they could quickly replenish them and we cannot.
Now, China would NOT win against the combined forces of Japan, S. Korea, Europe, and the US.
So the plan should be obvious. They need to get themselves in a position to take Japan and S Korea out of the equation without the US interfering, and THEN they’ll confront and destroy the US. After they’ve utterly destroyed the economy by collapsing the currency (which is currently ongoing).
Literally the only reason the dollar is worth spit right now is that the world is using it as a reserve currency. The second China convinces them to switch from the dollar to the yuan, the dollar won’t be worth wiping your ass with. Then in the turmoil that follows, that’s when they’ll look at actual military action against Japan and S Korea to start.
Due to no high school diploma, drug convictions, obesity, etc., fewer than 30% of our youth is even eligible for the military. Those who do join are almost exclusively from conservative or conservative leaning families. What young person who leans conservative will want to join a military where defending your country is secondary or tertiary to race base wok training? I predict the armed forces will have an extraordinarily difficult time meeting their recruitment goals and, when this happens, many Leftists will sit about crying up a blue streak wondering why we cannot defend our own country anymore.
Sorry Cleetus – in order for the Left to cry a blue streak they have to actually care.
I doubt any D-politician will actually say “not ready to fight? Too bad, so sad”,but I’m equally convinced not one D would ever ask any penetrating questions regarding readiness.
Nope – they will simply continue their circle reasoning of “the military leaders tell us their ready because we tell them what to say if they want to continue their career”.
Doubt it will be a war with China that reveals the state of our military. More likely would only take a war with another military super power………like say Principality of Liechtenstein 🇱🇮 or Republic of Naura🇳🇷
I hear Liecntenstein has a mean right hook.
Not only is Lichtenstein landlocked, they are surrounded by five other landlocked countries… and I would still bet on them having a better navy.
Why make waves over this person’s navy? Like Obama always said from his Chicago-nights period, it’s just better to lead from behind. Our able and other-abled sea persons are the envy of the world.
A lot of my shipmates used to make Waves, but then they changed the name to WIN: Women In Navy.
This is the direct result of the lefty revolution (or “radical transformation” as Obama put it). Revolutionaries are not practical people. They care only about purging the past. The future be damned.
It’s 100% about power — gaining power, and keeping it. Being in control is the goal, not having functional forces, or agencies. Anything functional that they don’t control is a threat to their power.
Current situation in Cuba kinda brings back 1960s and nukes. If Xi really wanted to reach for sky – quick once and done – he could reintroduce nukes in Cuba like kchev. Any response from joe and dr Jill – hardly a given- would require a Cuba blockade and US navy respond to any other pressure points where China is taking over.or causing trouble.
In any such scene bet draft kings will be giving points to the diversity team.
Xi doesn’t have to put IRBMs (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles) in Cuba, the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) and PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy – go figure) both have ICBMs fully capable of reaching the US. The latest PRC (People’s Republic of China) construction gives every appearance to be an ICBM “farm”* with ICBMs which can reach the US from there.
* ICBM Farm = Multiple launch sites in an coordinated installation – IIRC this one will have over 100 spread over hundreds of miles – not all need to contain a missile because we would have to target every one just in case.
A question I’ve asked in other places, but never gotten an answer to: why does the military need diversity training?
This training–by whatever name it is called–is being imposed in primary schools, secondary schools, and higher education. By the time a person joins the military they will have several years of such “training” under their belts. So why should the military have to expend scarce training resources for it?
Uh oh, You just had to go and ask a forbidden question, didn’t you? If Frau Doktor Jill or His Imperial Executiveness, Emperor Barak the Nonpareil believe the expenditure is necessary, it is not to be questioned.
Theoretical question: if a President and his administration plan to eventually use the military to subjugate its own citizens and keep them in line, do you need a surface navy to do that?
Remember that the Biden* administration has repeatedly said that “white nationalism” is the greatest threat the nation is facing (whatever happened to “climate change”?), and Lloyd Austin and others have called for a counterinsurgency to be fought on US soil to combat this phantom menace. If the Biden* administration is serious about fighting a counterinsurgency on US soil – and evidence strongly indicates they are – then it would be very interesting to see which parts of the US military are well armed and combat-ready.
Gotta do something about all of those Trump Flotillas
The Coast Guard would need to be beefed up to prevent people fleeing by sea. Sort of a reversal where in wartime the Coast Guard usually fills needed positions and tasks in conjunction with the Navy.
It’s not only the Navy, or even the entirety of the armed forces, but everything associated with government. And, it isn’t beginning now. What we’re seeing is the culmination of decades of people who will support Marxist government being promoted and appointed to senior leadership positions, and the recruitment and indoctrination of similar people into lower ranks.
Leftists in government have been building a structure to support their eventual rule, and if there isn’t a drastic purge and reorganization throughout government in the near future, they will rule. These people have been playing the long game — preparing the battlefield to give them certain victory (while their adversaries are distracted by opportunities for corruption, and arguing over nonsense).
Not just the Navy, all branches. The amount of hours on the training calender is finite. Every hour spent doing things other than core combat readiness tasks diverts and detracts from combat readiness.
Some of these tasks are worthwhile, many; hell most, are not. JR Officers and JR NCOs who are prevented by superfluous events from using and honing combat tasks and developing leadership and problem solving skills in tough, realistic, demanding training will not be prepared.
Not for the realities of combat nor for service at higher levels of responsibility. The progression from platoon leader to company commander to staff officer to battalion command shouldn’t be reduced to time served in these lower positions.
With no emphasis or grounding in basic tasks that require demonstrated performance and mastery of each progressive step up the ladder we will have unprepared and incompetent battalion and brigade commanders. In fact we already do.
Chief,
Can you recommend a reliable site that addresses the probability of a hot conflict between China and us, how and where it would be fought with what weapons, and the likely outcome?
There is no such site (i.e. “reliable”) because that’s not going to happen in the near future. China is still busy building its empire and its military/nukes, etc. They won’t be ready to take us on for at least a decade, probably much more because they are also helping NoKo which is having serious problems just feeding its people right now. China has other, much smaller, far easier fish to fry right now and is busily building territory (literally building islands) and taking it when they can (Hong Kong, next Taiwan, etc.).
There will be no near-term direct military conflict between China and the U.S., though proxie conflicts may happen should a Republican win the WH in 2024. China has no appetite to engage the U.S. on the ground (everyone here is armed to the teeth, and they know it), and we can’t be taken by even strategic nuke attacks, so they will bide their time. They have time on their side, after all, as we are busily destroying ourselves from within. Why would they interfere with that?
Another problem is China’s own foodstuffs situation. Evidently they have badly damaged their own arable land with pollution.
Suddenly their major inroads into Africa make a lot more sense.
@Slippers, thank you. But what did you read to arrive there?
And one more, U?S response to an attempted Chinese annexation concomitant with all those mystery-island military bases emerging to threaten shipping, free trade vis the South China Sea?
Nope. One more, vs China, do the military capabilities of Japan and India force Xi to be more circumspect in his stated plans to bloody everybody’s noses?
Shoot. Strength of hot internal opposition to The Chinese communist government?
I can still read some, but my 75-year-old memory is a catch-and-release system, one that rivals Old Joe Biden’s. My brain ought to be listed on one of those nearly extinct spotted owl lists.
Again, some catch-and-release sites?
Thanks, @thetaqjr. I didn’t read any single thing to make me come to this conclusion, and I could well be wrong. That said, I tend to be a “big picture” person and don’t get bogged down in the trees vs. the forest conundrum, so this seems kind of obvious to me (and again, could be totes wrong :P). But I don’t think so.
As to China’s annexing of any land that is not a U.S. state, commonwealth, or territory, the Biden admin will do nothing more than bluster and flail its arms while gently sniffing little girls’ hair and whispering creepily to her about how her mommy is helping #TheBigGuy bank.
I can’t speak to India and Japan, but I do know, as any person who was in K-12 or university knows, would know about world history knows, that China is on the march for global domination. That is their goal, sans the fat white cat on XI’s lap, it’s as clear as day.
This does not take special insight or knowledge, just common sense, an ability to detect patterns quite easily, and a knowledge of the history of mankind. It’s just logic. And again, I could be dead wrong. I often am.
Well, considering the Chinese people are cowed into fearful submission by their own government and are at all times viewed as potential enemies of the state for uttering a wrong thought or word, no, I don’t see an internal uprising there.
They have had their will, their very connection to humanity, severely diminished, severed through decades of rapes, torture, assaults, and the murder of innocent peoples.
Being a genocidal maniac who thinks he can mold the world and its people to his will is kind of a big red flag that something is wrong. You’d think they probably got that during the purge and “struggle sessions” that ended in the slaughter of (tens of? hundreds of? thousands of?) thousands of Chinese people.
The commies who want to destroy our nation, the great American experiment, would prefer to “win” without a single shot fired. And at the rate we are going, they may well get their wish.
Why would they screw that up by uniting our nation and its peoples with an attack on our homeland? (Because we all know, no matter how divided we are, the American people will rally and be chanting #USAUSAUSA in the streets, hugging and holding their fellow Americans, including, of course, those Americans from the “wrong” intersectional blah blah.
And the tens of millions who are armed will quickly rally to protect and preserve our great nation, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our fellow black, Hispanic, Asian, Native, and every other American. Heck, if some kind of foreign invasion occurred on our soil,
If you are interested in catch and release, you can do an internet search just as quickly and ably as I can. 😛 We have several posts on the topic here at LI, as well. Just click the tag cloud thingy and then choose what you want to read more about. Or if you prefer use the search function on the website (it is indicated by a magnifying glass icon).
I hope this helps!
Maybe indirectly. Two sites I find reliable are:
Small wars Journal
And
Long war journal
Small wars was created to allow those of with relevant experience to share tactics and procedures about insurgencies and counter insurgency doctrine in a semi academic format. As ops in Iraq and Afghanistan deceased the focus expanded to other military topics.
Long wars was always more strategic. It takes a more grand strategy focus on peer competitors and correlation of forces ECT. This is closer to what you are looking for.
There is no way to know until it happens. The next war will be fought (and decided) in ways much different from past wars. It will be decided by what Churchill called the “wizard war” — a matter of who has the technical superiority — weapons the other side can’t defend against, or defensive systems that make their opponents’ weapons worthless.
This will also include (as never before) a space war to cripple the enemy’s ability to use satellites for weapons, intelligence, targeting, communication, location, etc. The only thing that’s kept it from happening so far is that neither side can be sure of what its enemy has, or doesn’t have — which will be the difference between victory and defeat.
Technical superiority is fine, but who is fabricating the parts that go into that wizardry?
Any force with sane leadership will keep their most advanced weaponry secret, and manufacturing under their control. We no longer have sane leadership at the top, but there may be enough left at intermediate levels to provide some protection. If there isn’t, the US is finished.
In the next war – all satellites will be destroyed very early. Most developed countries and even some less developed ones have missile technology sufficiently to achieve this.
The winner will be the country that have an ability to gain an intelligence edge without satellites.
Maybe, maybe not — there are possibilities of countermeasures to everything, including anti-satellite weapons.
Ben,
The next war with whom? Obviously high tech is important but so are cheap low tech items repurposed to asynchronous warfare. The use of incendiary balloons against Israel as an example.
Civilian drones repurposed to swarm a warship just for harassment value. CPU hacks v smaller utilities like electric co-ops and smaller cities and towns without robust defenses or even major pipeline as we recently saw.
Anti ship missile tech is several orders more dangerous than the 1st Gulf War. Cheaper too. Very easy to use in concert with small, fast agile missile boats and drones to create area denial for our Navy. Especially coupled with large numbers of gen 4 aircraft which China does possess.
Hard to predict what and where or when. The tactics are defined mostly by the strategy chosen. No one, quite yet wants a straight up fight at sea the the US.
Carriers are becoming less relevant v peer or near peer competition. Too much risk of loss to effectively deploy them. One sunk carrier would be a huge loss of prestige, combat power and life.
No way in hell the US fights China in China. Not gonna happen. At sea, in the Pacific or Indian Ocean? Sure, for now. In the littoral waters of China? Nope, not unless we want to lose.
While pondering low-tech war vs high-tech war, everybody should read the short story Superiority by Arthur C. Clarke.
The vile Dhimmi-crats’ cancerous and corrosive “woke” totalitarianism is destroying the U.S. military, just as it’s corrupting and destroying every other institution that it permeates with its noxious ideas and agenda. The evidence is overwhelming. “Global warming” and “white supremacy” are treated as the U.S.’s alleged, primary national security threats, while China and Iran are totally undeterred and unrestrained in the belligerence, their bellicosity and their mischief-making. Greasy, self-serving, military brass gleefully recite the “woke” lexicon and buzzwords in hearings, in transparent attempts to further their careers and to ingratiate themselves with the Dhimmi-crat media. The moral/ideological rot is glaring, it is deep and it is pervasive.