Secretary Blinken Claims U.S. Is Ready for War – DoD Realities Say He’s Wrong

The world is once again on the precipice of war, this time with the potential to grow much larger than the wars our country has faced since WWII.  The argument could be made that the wheels of this war had been turning for a while and that we are merely at the beginning of an inevitable international conflict that could determine the next world order.

Senior government officials and Biden administration appointees have publicly and privately stated their concerns and warnings to those who might choose to speed up this worldwide eruption. The common theme is that the United States is ready to meet force with force if need be, and that threat is meant to be a deterrence to our enemies and the enemies of our allies.

However, just because someone says they are ready for something doesn’t always mean they are, and in this case, the United States should stop trying to fake it, hoping they will make it. It’s time to pull the reality from the rhetoric and face the music – the United States is not ready for World War III.

Vague threats, empty hopes

This week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States does not want to see any peripheral conflict due to the Israeli war against Hamas, stating:

“This is not what we want, not what we’re looking for. We don’t want escalation.”

The Secretary goes on to claim:

“We don’t want to see our forces or our personnel come under fire. But if that happens, we’re ready for it.”

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin echoed the same sentiment in another statement touching on the increased activity in the region against U.S. troops:

“What we’re seeing is a prospect of a significant escalation of attacks on our troops and our people throughout the region.”

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The escalation isn’t a prospect at this point, with Iranian-backed terrorist militias already launching multiple drone attacks on U.S. troops stationed in Iraq and Syria. (Yes, we have troops there. You didn’t know?)

The SECDEF went on to warn:

“We’re going to do what’s necessary to make sure that our troops are in that position and they were protected and that we have the ability to respond.”

Something about all this seems familiar; history seems quite literally to be repeating itself.

Same old, same old

Forty years ago, a suicide bomber hit the American barracks at Beirut International Airport, killing 241 American service members. Today, we have an active war in Israel against the terrorist group Hamas, with all signs pointing to escalation with Hezbollah in the north and other Iranian-backed groups throughout the region. 

After the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford got into position with other warships in the Mediterranean this week, a Hezbollah supporter took to TikTok and issued this chilling statement:

“It seems that Uncle Joe did not tell the commanders of these warships and aircraft carriers about what happened on October 23, 1983.”

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What will be the next devastating attack on U.S. troops in the Middle East? Will it be the sinking of one of our warships or an attack on the 2,500 American soldiers in Iraq or 900 in Syria who are on “missions against the Islamic State group” – whatever that means? 

In a very real way, the United States is to blame for the two brewing wars between Ukraine and Russia and Israel and Hamas. It’s not just that the United States has a failed foreign policy; it’s that the U.S. has no foreign policy and a defense complex equally as lost. 

The face of the force

The United States military is not made up of the types of Americans one thinks of when reminiscing about the past World Wars. In some ways, this is a positive, with more Americans allowed to serve their country in uniform; after all, I would not have been able to dedicate my life to the military simply because I am a woman back in the days of WWI and WWII. 

However, the makeup of the military today has more weaknesses than bolstered capabilities, primarily due to the misguided overreach of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion cult. It was just a little shy of a year ago that the United States Army had to investigate officers who were wearing leather fetish dog masks while in uniform on social media. 

At the time, the Army office of the Chief of Public Affairs wrote:

“All U.S. Army soldiers are expected to uphold high standards of personal conduct and to avoid discrediting the service and the uniform, both in person and across social media.”

And yet today, TikTok is riddled with videos of soldiers transforming into sexualized drag queens while in uniform. These are hardly the images that strike fear into our enemies, particularly the ones willing to blow themselves and their own families up in an attempt to kill just one American or just one Israeli. 

Our culture, both within the military and at large, sends the message that the United States has been asleep at the wheel and now is the time to strike. That message is being heard and not just from Iran and the terrorist cells they support.

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A shell game

The Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States released a report that indicates the United States is not ready for “it,” as Secretary Blinken dubbed escalation.

The chair of the commission, Madelyn Creedon, stated that the United States is on the cusp of:

“…a fundamentally different global setting for which we did not plan and we are not well prepared.”

The global setting Ms. Creedon refers to is the inevitable two-front major war with our fellow nuclear powers – China and Russia. The report highlighted various areas the DoD is defunct in, including the industrial base, which is:

“…out of date, unusable, or in some case, literally falling down.”

The report explained how our nuclear capabilities are behind our two competitors and that the need to bolster conventional forces as a deterrent is also behind, as evidenced by the military branch’s dismal recruiting numbers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin brushed off talk that the United States should prepare for war with them or China, stating:

“I don’t think these are healthy thoughts in the minds of healthy people, because to say that the United States is preparing for war with Russia, well we are all preparing for war because we follow the ancient principle: if you want peace, get ready for war.”

However, the evidence indicates that the United States has not been getting ready for war within our defense complex nor with our foreign policy, and we have shown that we are easily distracted. This past Sunday, a Chinese coast guard ship rammed two Philippine military vessels during a routine resupply mission.

This news should’ve been widely reported, but instead, all eyes are on the Middle East. Was that a convenient distraction for China, or is this an orchestrated purposeful misdirection? 

Either way, President Joe Biden’s foreign policy of “Don’t, don’t, don’t” to our adversaries will hardly deter any serious aggressor. When “it” happens, which it will, we will not be prepared.