Click to see the full-size image
Written by Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher
If President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his campaign promises in his victory speech, the Pentagon could see personnel fired, especially “woke” generals who have embraced progressive movements associated with racial and social issues.
In his last term, Trump faced numerous forms of resistance, especially from the Pentagon, largely due to his position on security issues such as NATO or his willingness to put troops on the streets to suppress protests in the US. Former generals and defence secretaries have been some of the former president’s fiercest critics, labelling him a fascist and saying he was unfit to be president, a Reuters investigation found.
Having gained experience in his first term, Trump is expected to prioritise loyalty in key elements of his administration, which could lead to the removal of military officers and career civil servants he deems disloyal.
In June, when questioned by Fox News, Trump said he would fire generals described as “woke.”
“I would fire them. You can’t have (a) woke military,” Trump said.
According to the Reuters investigation, sources believe that the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr, a former fighter pilot and widely respected black military commander, is in Trump’s crosshairs after he spoke out on racial discrimination in the US following the May 2020 killing of George Floyd.
During the election campaign, Vice President-elect JD Vance expressed his opinion during an interview by stating that political leaders have to “get rid of them and replace” the people who are not aligned with the political vision that the head of state is trying to implement.
This speech corroborates the fear of some of the American elite who understand that this anti-woke movement by Trump could become broad.
Trump’s strongest anti-woke messaging during the election campaign aimed at transgender troops, and it is recalled that he had previously banned transgender service members, posting a campaign ad on X portraying them as weak, with the vow that “WE WILL NOT HAVE A WOKE MILITARY!”
Removing woke ideology from the US military is seen as imperative by Trump, especially after US News & World Report ranked Russia, and not the US, as having the world’s “strongest military.” Therefore, Trump will not only purge woke ideologues from the military but also those responsible for the war in Ukraine since, as it turns out, the war is responsible for strengthing Russia instead of weakening it.
US military figures facing repercussions for their fervent support for the war in Ukraine is something welcomed by Moscow, which has consistently called for peace negotiations, while the Kiev regime has consistently rejected them despite losing the war and experiencing catastrophic economic decay and demographic decline.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Trump’s statements in favour of peace in Ukraine differentiate him from other political figures in the US.
“At least [Trump] is talking about peace [in Ukraine]. He is not talking about confrontation, about the desire to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. This distinguishes him favourably from the current US administration. It is difficult to predict what will come next,” Peskov told Rossiya 1 television.
At the same time, Peskov noted that Trump is “less predictable” than current US President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris, the failed Democratic candidate and rival in the presidential race. According to the Kremlin spokesman, it is not possible to say now whether Trump will stick to the pacifist statements he made during his election campaign.
However, what is certainly predictable is that Trump’s war on “woke” ideology in the US military will not be limited to the purging of generals but also career civil servants at the Pentagon, who could be subjected to loyalty tests, according to current and former officials.
A senior US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters there was increasing concern within the Pentagon that Trump would purge career civilian employees from the department.
“I’m deeply concerned about their ranks,” the official said, adding that several colleagues had expressed concern about the future of their jobs.
“This will be 2016 on steroids and the fear is that he will hollow out the ranks and expertise in a way that will do irreparable damage to the Pentagon,” the official predicted.
In effect, it appears that great changes are coming to the Pentagon and US military once Trump enters the White House on January 20. How this reflects on policy remains to be seen, but it can be expected that the president-elect will focus more on challenging China and supporting Israel against Iran than the current administration’s priority of challenging Russia and supporting Ukraine.
MORE ON THE TOPIC:
time to fight back. i’m taking up the gauntlet against all the trolls who steal my nick and twist everything i write. first, it must be admitted that the “quality” of the sf articles is appalling. it always turns out that putin is a genius, whatever he screws up is taken as some kind of 3d chess. they (sf) will claim russians keep winning, even though they are sitting on the butts and destroying own territory, which they given to yatsenyuk gratis = without fight couple of years ago.
so my conclussion here is simple and unchanged from the very beginning of maidan coup. putin is an imbecile. his generals are morons. the objective of so called “smo” (ukraine war) failed. everybody knew it was not a special operation, but proxy war of the usa/nato against russia, except of putin, who tried to mislead his naive voters. putin never started to fight nato. no u.s. airplane was shot down over the black sea, not a single missile was fired against nato military targets.
putin explains his “weakness” as a display of reasonableness and strength, but weakness is only a weakness. the whole ukraine mess could be avoided and the u.s. thinktanks should see russians are determined to resist hot war against nato, not to evade it at all costs. instead, nato used putin’s weakness and doubled down on their provocations, first sending bulletproof vests, then small arms, then heavy arms as tanks and mlrs, then fighter jets and soon long range nuclear capable missiles.
the problem of the russian weakness is caused by obsolete military doctrine. in fact, russia tried in ukraine fast maneuver warfare, aka “blitzkrieg” and reached kiev quite fast but it turned out to be a disaster as nato used time during infamous “minsk agreements” to prepare ukraine armed forces to counter that. it only illustrates how naive russian command really is and how miserably and amateurishly work russian intelligence services
every military doctrine in the west recommend heavy bombing of enemy territory by strategic bombers before a ground invasion, but that idiot putin sent lightly armed special forces without any preparation there, so the ukrainians shot elite russians from ambush like pigeons. so easily and effectively, that russia lost the professional core of their army. the rest who survived (quite understandably) quit in the army and got hired by prygozhin
of course, prygozhin had successes, but this led to the envy of putin’s incompetent generals and coused the anger of putin himself. that person is so pathologically vain, stupid and arrogant that he simply does not tolerate success next to himself. the next problem was that russian mic was unprepared for the intensity of prygozhin’s demands, as he was the only one doing something, instead of sitting on his butt.
that’s why he was not provided even with basic stuff like ammunition and fuel for his units. hence the mutiny started, but prygozhin was pro-russian and not very intelectual man. he probably never read anything about rubicon and “alea iacta est”. if he got rid of putin, shoigu etc. the miserable “smo” could be already half an year over with the russian victory, but prygozhin was murdered and the misery continues
the tragedy for the russians is the fact that nothing has improved, no lesson was learned. the russian army relies on conscripts and uses them as worthless material, because lives in russia are worthless. this is the reason for “sit-down” war. with the army command in complete disarray, there is no coordination, supply deliveries are unreliable and slow, communication between ground and air force is zero, and any rapid movement would wreak havoc on an already poorly organized war effort.
no, wrong as usual. war is a gamble. russia nearly won that one, with subsequent negotiations being sabotaged by the west. any outcome now would be on similar terms. its victory then would have avoided huge loss of both ukrainian and russian lives as well as all the subsequent devastation.
the western militaries are getting rid of all the “useless white men” and replacing them with gays, trannies and wimmin. a (preferably black) gay and tranny army should work wonders for battlefield success. imagine what that austrian gentleman could have achieved if his panzer divisions had been staffed entirely by gays/ trannies/ wimmin and illegal immigrants. he would have been invincible. but no, he relied on those prussian generals instead. so short sighted.
not so shortsighted actually. ernst röhm, head of nazist party’s stormtroopers, was a faggot. mad adolf wasn’t married till his last day of life in april 1945. no kids, like the most leaders in eu now.
“woke” is a general rightist insult of anyone with views more modern than the fourteenth century. as a con-man trump would be in the world’s third or fourth oldest professions.
threatened with losing a job, the only one they could get, they will all suddenly change opinions (colors), as seen during the covid shit-show. they would have to work on historic evidence, no “test” will be comprehensive enough, perhaps it would work on the hard-core woke queens. anyways, it is going to be a circus well worth watching. trump is an impressive entertainer
chumpo may go so far as disbanding elite units like transsexual team six, the 3rd heavy lesbians, and the president’s own san francisco gays.