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2024-01-10 Home Front: Politix
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Austin has completely failed. The US Army is run from a hospital bed
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Malek Dudakov
[REGNUM] A new scandal in Washington - US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was hospitalized. And at the same time, he did not bother to notify anyone of his incapacity - neither his subordinates at the Pentagon, nor his superiors in the White House. We learned about the illness of the head of the Pentagon almost by accident.
And this became the personification of the entire systemic crisis in which the US military machine now finds itself.
Lloyd Austin, a 70-year-old gerontocrat, found himself on the operating table on December 22. He was then quickly discharged, but on January 1, Austin began experiencing pain and complications. And he was hospitalized again, and for quite a long period of time, which already exceeded one week.
This was hidden in every possible way by Austin's inner circle. Only later, when the scandal broke out, did Austin have a telephone conversation with Joe Biden.
Republicans in Congress are furious.
Such clumsy secrecy is not the custom of the White House apparatchiks. They usually communicate health problems strongly in advance. This was the case, for example, with Colin Powell or George W. Bush, who also had to undergo surgical operations.
And Biden, although he tries not to advertise his health condition, honestly reported a broken foot after playing with a dog. Or about past chemotherapy.
In addition, Austin chose to leave the Pentagon in autopilot mode at the most inconvenient moment.
Indeed, right now, US military strategy faces a painful defeat in Ukraine after failing to carry out a counteroffensive. The situation at the front for Kyiv is sharply worsening, and military tranches have been greatly reduced.
At the same time, the United States is stuck in a proxy war in the Middle East, where it is not really able to cope with the Houthis and pro-Iranian forces in Iraq.
In parallel to this, a new escalation has begun on the Korean Peninsula - and the upcoming elections in Taiwan could lead to a conflict situation in the South China Sea.
Articles of impeachment against Austin have already been presented in the lower house of Congress. Among the reasons is the chaotic flight of the United States from Afghanistan, which undermined American positions in the Middle East. And also the failure to secure the US southern border, which is being stormed by hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. And the lag in the arms race from China.
Austin could be the first US minister in more than 150 years to be impeached by Congress.
The Senate also announced hearings with his participation. So that immediately after being discharged from the hospital, Austin would be dragged to explain his behavior to legislators. These hearings already promise to be very scandalous - and could be a strong blow to the position of the entire Biden team.
Austin's illness became a convenient occasion to once again criticize the state of affairs inside the Pentagon.
After all, the personal negligence of the current US Secretary of Defense is just the tip of the iceberg. The Pentagon now finds itself in its worst crisis since at least the Vietnam War. Moreover, the problems are getting worse in many directions at once.
In 2023, due to a severe shortage of recruits, the strength of the US Armed Forces has collapsed below 1.3 million soldiers. This is the minimum figure for more than 80 years - since the pre-war 1940. The situation is worst in the American army - here the reductions amounted to 8%. The Pentagon has been faced with a shortage of people willing to serve for a long time, but it was during the era of Biden and Austin that the problem became fundamental.
There are many reasons.
This is also the politicization of military service, where Democrats are imposing racial and gender theories with all their might and teaching the basics of BLM. And the deplorable state of the military infrastructure - the same barracks with mold, cockroaches and rats. But there is also simply a shortage of young Americans who would meet the physical standards of the service. And they would like to spend at least three to four years of their life in the military sphere.
The shortage of troops is already severely limiting the Pentagon's ability to be present in all hot spots.
Difficult choices have to be made—for example, starting in 2024, the White House is forced to reduce the contingent of American troops in Europe, redirecting some to the Middle East. In addition, Washington considers it necessary to maintain a large contingent in the Indo-Pacific region.
That is why the Pentagon is torn between all fronts, nowhere having an advantage over its opponents, be it Russia, China or the proxy forces of the Middle East.
The shortage of basic weapons is becoming increasingly apparent.
Over the two years of the Ukrainian conflict, the Pentagon has used up ten years of stockpiles of shells and missiles. Many of them had to be removed from their warehouses in Israel or South Korea. Now both countries are in dire need of ammunition amid the global escalation. But the US’s ability to support them is now limited.
Austin actively called on corporations in the military-industrial complex to increase weapons production. But so far without any clear success. It was only possible to double the production of shells - from 14 to 28 thousand per month. But this too is burned through on the Ukrainian front in a matter of days.
But, for example, there are problems with the production of the same Javelin anti-tank missile systems - they are produced at a rate of two thousand per year. And in this way, the United States will need twenty years to make up for what was lost in Ukraine.
The production of not only conventional ammunition, but also serious types of weapons is in crisis.
For example, the assembly time for one Virginia-class submarine has increased from six to nine years. The same applies to aircraft carriers of the latest modification, destroyers and torpedo boats. Corporations in the military-industrial complex are acutely short of engineering personnel and technological base to maintain production. And many simply do not have the motivation to develop - they are already monopolists who can always count on Pentagon contracts.
Therefore, it becomes obvious that the United States is lagging behind in the new arms race. And not only from Russia or China, but even from Iran and North Korea, which already have their own hypersonic missiles. And China is now demonstrating the first prototypes of electromagnetic weapons.
Similar developments were also carried out in the USA, but they ended in failure. And the creation of American hypersonics found itself in a comatose state after unsuccessful tests of Lockheed Martin missiles.
In fact, during the three years of Biden's presidency, he has not been able to boast of a single military success.
His team is only desperately trying to maintain the status quo - with US military dominance. But doing this is becoming increasingly difficult - after all, the Pentagon no longer has absolute superiority; only relative superiority remains in certain areas, and it is quickly fading away. Austin, like Biden, is a product of a different era, so they both don’t really know what to do in conditions where the United States is no longer the world’s first military force.
Well, now - against the backdrop of all the scandals - it’s hardly worth waiting for Austin’s resignation. He has completely failed to lead the Pentagon. But Austin knows how Washington works.
And he early on became a partner in a lobbying firm called Pine Valley Capital Partners, along with current Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He has very good connections with other Biden apparatchiks - and they will not hand over their man, fearing that he will leak dirt on them.
Therefore, the current scandal with Austin's disease is the personification of not only Washington bureaucracy and negligence, but also obvious corruption.
But for Democrats, this story will have unpleasant consequences in any case. After all, it will only add popularity to the proposals of Donald Trump, who promises, if he wins the election, to organize large-scale purges in the Pentagon and intelligence services, throwing out corrupt officials and slobs.
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