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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE Christopher Miller

he Constitution requires the federal government to “provide for the

common defence.”! It assigns to Congress the authority to “raise and

support Armies” and to “provide and maintain a Navy”? and specifies that the President is “commander in Chief” of America’s armed forces.* Ever since our Founding, Americans have understood that the surest way to avoid war is to be prepared for it in peace—but when deterrence fails, we must fight and win.

The Department of Defense (DOD) is the largest part of our federal government. It has almost 3 million people serving in uniform or a civilian capacity throughout the world and consumes approximately $850 billion annually—more than 50 percent of our government’s discretionary spending.

The DOD is also a deeply troubled institution. Historically, the military has been one of America’s most trusted institutions, but years of sustained misuse, a two-tiered culture of accountability that shields senior officers and officials while exposing junior officers and soldiers in the field, wasteful spending, wildly shifting security policies, exceedingly poor discipline in program execution, and (most recently) the Biden Administration’s profoundly unserious equity agenda and vaccine mandates have taken a serious toll.

Our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, our impossibly muddled China strategy, the growing involvement of senior military officers in the political arena, and deep confusion about the purpose of our military are clear signals of a disturbing decay and markers of a dangerous decline in our nation’s capabilities and will. Additionally, more than 100,000 Americans die annually in large measure because