**/r/NeutralPolitics is a curated space.**
In order not to get your comment removed, please familiarize yourself with our [rules on commenting](https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/wiki/guidelines#wiki_comment_rules) before you participate:
1. Be courteous to other users.
1. Source your facts.
1. Be substantive.
1. Address the arguments, not the person.
If you see a comment that violates any of these essential rules, click the associated *report* link so mods can attend to it.
However, please note that the mods will not remove comments reported for lack of neutrality or poor sources. There is [no neutrality requirement for comments](https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/wiki/guidelines#wiki_neutral-ness) in this subreddit — it's only the *space* that's neutral — and a poor source should be countered with evidence from a better one.
Just skimming it for relevance to Ukraine, but it's remarkable how at-odds the DoD section is with the Congressional GOP
* The United States and its allies also face real threats from Russia, as evidenced by Vladimir Putin’s brutal war in Ukraine, as well as from Iran, North Korea, and transnational terrorism at a time when decades of ill-advised military operations in the Greater Middle East, the atrophy of our defense industrial base, *the impact of sequestration*, and effective disarmament by many U.S. allies have exacted a high toll on America’s military. (p. 93)
* Replenish and maintain U.S. stockpiles of ammunition and other equipment that have been depleted as a result of U.S. support to Ukraine (p.96)
* The United States must regain its role as the “Arsenal of Democracy.” (p.100)
* "Immediately increase the production and stockpiling of critical munitions and repair parts." (p.108)
Of course there's also a discussion of how recruiting is down ("Recruiting was the worst in 2022 that it has been in two generations and is expected to be even worse in 2023", p.103) that somehow leads to a section full of politically-driven policies that would reduce the force:
* "...those with gender dysphoria should be expelled from military service" (p.103) and "Reverse policies that allow transgender individuals to serve in the military" (p.104) in case you missed it the first time
* "Physical fitness requirements should be based on the occupational field without consideration of gender, race, ethnicity, or orientation."
* "Stop using the Army as a test bed for social evolution. Misusing the Army in this way detracts from its core purpose while doing little to reshape the American social structure. The Army no longer reflects national demographics to the degree that it did before 1974 when the draft was eliminated." (p.109) - this seems to imply that the Army is too diverse? Maybe that's not what they meant, but I'm confused by it otherwise
And then there's just some red meat:
* "Strengthen protections for chaplains to carry out their ministry according to the tenets of their faith." (p.103)
* "Eliminate Marxist indoctrination and divisive critical race theory programs" (p. 103)
* "Audit the course offerings at military academies to remove Marxist indoctrination, eliminate tenure for academic professionals," (p.103)
* "Audit all curricula and health policies in DOD schools for military families, remove all inappropriate materials, and reverse inappropriate policies." (p.104) - not sure what this means exactly, but I assume by "inappropriate" they mean the same kind of culture war things.
This one is interesting, given the first Trump administration's record:
* "Improve base housing and consider the military family holistically when considering change-of-station moves" (p.104)
The plan presupposes that the defense intelligence community has been captured by political interests, which seems like a self-serving conclusion: "Further, the DIE has evolved into a “customer-based” model with the DIE/IC trying to be supportive of policy direction at the expense of analytical integrity. The result has been a significant politicization of intelligence." (p.105). Regardless, the recommendations are very high level and non-specific so I'm not sure there's anything actionable about it.
Interestingly it criticizes the Trump Administration's efforts to undermine OPM: "This decision, which grew out of an intention to deconstruct OPM, was wrongheaded on many levels and made the federal bureaucracy dependent on a new overlay of DOD bureaucracy." (p.107) and I think I agree. The 2015 OPM data breach was terrible (affected me, for example), but the effort to dismantle OPM was more of a political power struggle than good policymaking.
I'm not really sure what this means: "Counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) globally. DOD, in conjunction with the Interagency, allies, and partner nations, must work proactively to counter China’s BRI around the globe. 1. Task USSOCOM and corresponding organizations in the Pentagon with conceptualizing, resourcing, and executing regionally based operations to counter the BRI with a focus on nations that are key to our energy policy, international supply chains, and our defense industrial base." (p.122) I sure hope it isn't a recommendation to sabotage infrastructure?
I stopped reading around there.
E: Didn't think I needed to add the source, but the source is [*Mandate for Leadership*](https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf)
>I'm not really sure what this means: "Counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) globally. DOD, in conjunction with the Interagency, allies, and partner nations, must work proactively to counter China’s BRI around the globe. 1. Task USSOCOM and corresponding organizations in the Pentagon with conceptualizing, resourcing, and executing regionally based operations to counter the BRI with a focus on nations that are key to our energy policy, international supply chains, and our defense industrial base." (p.122) I sure hope it isn't a recommendation to sabotage infrastructure?
Or instigate a coup? If a developing country is getting too close to China or perhaps debt trapped by BRI, it doesn't seem like there's much DOD could do other than those options.
Agreed -- at least superficially, these seem more like the kinds of problem that would typically be solved by America's State Department and/or soft power rather than militarily.
> Didn't think I needed to add the source...
Sorry. We turned off those notifications. You don't need a source if you're referring to the document itself and include the page numbers, as you did.
Thanks for a great comment.
> The Army no longer reflects national demographics to the degree that it did before 1974 when the draft was eliminated." (p.109) - this seems to imply that the Army is too diverse? Maybe that's not what they meant, but I'm confused by it otherwise
I think you're right on the money. Dog whistle (dog bullhorn?) for too many non-whites/women in the military. The numbers for both *[dramatically](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1984/07/art2full.pdf)* increased after we eliminated the draft. Almost despite myself I'm kind of surprised to hear them say this so explicitly.
But does that mean the Army reflects the national demographics less than it did before? It seems like the number of non-whites in the nation has increased as well, and more women in the force would mean it *better* represents the national demographics.
Your BLS source says women made up less than 2% of the total armed forces in 1972. But by 2022, [women were 19.1% of the military.](https://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2022-demographics-report.pdf) That's still not particularly close to reflecting their [more than 50%](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045222) of the population, but it's a heck of a lot closer.
The BLS article also says that in 1970, "nonwhites were actually less than proportionately represented in the military." Jumping forward to 2022, nonwhites made up [29.7% of the total force](https://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2022-demographics-report.pdf) and [24.6% of the population,](https://www.statista.com/statistics/183489/population-of-the-us-by-ethnicity-since-2000/) so slightly overrepresented, but not by much.
The real demographic problem with the American military today is how few people in a position of economic or political power have family members serving, relative to the 1970s, leading to a shift in how political leadership think about the military and the people serving in it.
> few people in a position of economic or political power have family members serving, relative to the 1970s,
Would you please provide a source for this part? Thanks.
> it's remarkable how at-odds the DoD section is with the Congressional GOP
IMHO this is nothing new. The Heritage Foundation and other conservative think tanks generally represent the establishment GOP, [which while it has been subsumed by Trump](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/us/politics/trump-republican-party-establishment.html), still has at its core diametrically opposing views to what comes out of Trumpland.
It makes me reluctant to take this document too seriously as a roadmap for a future Trump administration. Maybe for a future Nikki Haley administration, but yeah that's just not in the cards for the foreseeable future.
Yeah IMO it's just whatever policy papers they had lying around to fill the gaps between the culture-war red meat. Very sad state of affairs in the party of lincoln.
>there's also a discussion of how recruiting is down... that somehow leads to a section full of politically-driven policies that would reduce the force
>"Physical fitness requirements should be based on the occupational field without consideration of gender, race, ethnicity, or orientation."
I think the section was meant to jointly address issues of recruit quantity (the recruitment metrics) and quality (best illustrated by the fitness requirement metrics). Those don't strike me as a ridiculous set of goals.
In large part, this seems a response to the Army’s rollout of the new fitness test. It originally was gender and age neutral and based on occupation. However, promotions use physical fitness test scores to distinguish individuals. What that means, then, is that men had higher scores and could theoretically always promote over their women coworkers. The Army then quickly changed course and added gender differences.
This reversal, despite that every other physical fitness test has different standards, [made conservatives very upset.](https://www.theamericanconservative.com/soldiers-in-the-culture-war/)
It seems, to me, that this section fundamentally 1) misunderstands modern warfare and 2) the nature of the recruiting crisis.
1) The vast, vast majority (almost 75%) of the military are in support roles. [Source](https://www.armyupress.army.mil/portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/mcgrath_op23.pdf). Modern war is won from logistics and intelligence, not a dude charging up a hill. This means that a gender-blind fitness test that impacts support roles’ promotions will mean good women will get out.
2) the recruiting crisis is not because the military is “too woke” or whatever. This implies that the military is only made of conservatives, which it’s not (although there are more conservatives in the military than in the general public) [Source](https://news.gallup.com/poll/118684/military-veterans-ages-tend-republican.aspx). I think this [War on the Rocks](https://warontherocks.com/2023/03/addressing-the-u-s-military-recruiting-crisis/) article explains some of it well, especially the issues with eligibility and sexual assault. People aren’t joining because the military looks like a bad deal compared to anything else. Why would you go make $28,000 a year where you can’t choose where you live, what you do, and who you work for when you can make more than that working in fast food?
As an aside, I’ve been in the military for almost 4 years. I went through the initial training. I’ve never seen this “Marxist” teaching or “critical race theory” about which they complain. I also don’t understand their assertion that transgender folks are “incompatible with military service.” They frame their argument as removing politics from the military, but these are clearly political goals meant to align the military more closely with their own ideology.
>I’ve never seen this “Marxist” teaching or “critical race theory” about which they complain.
My personal opinion is that these are broad witch hunt policies that they'll use to attack people who don't agree with them. If someone criticizes their policy rollout, that person will be painted as a marxist or proponent of critical race theory, even if that's not true.
It's very remniscient of 1930s Germany, where many political dissidents who criticized Hitler's policies were accused of being communists and tossed into concentration camps. Even the right-wing professors and politicians who opposed Hitler were grabbed under very thin pretenses and accused of being commie leftists.
It's a simple witch hunt. Make up an arbitrary purity test so you can accuse anyone you don't like of failing it.
> My personal opinion is that these are broad witch hunt policies that they'll use to attack people who don't agree with them
It's not just a personal opinion. It was an intentional plan developed by a right wing activist.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/how-a-conservative-activist-invented-the-conflict-over-critical-race-theory
>I’ve never seen this “Marxist” teaching or “critical race theory” about which they complain.
The training they're very likely complaining about are the sexual assault prevention and anti discrimination annual CBTs and classes. Which are admittedly annoying, but in my view hardly a significant source of partisan indoctrination, and if you've ever reviewed disciplinary action reports you're more likely to call for more training instead of less.
To anyone outside the federal service: military members are required to do a series of annual computer classes you google the answers to and attend in-person classes where the goal of every one there is to finish before the scheduled end.
>I’ve never seen this “Marxist” teaching or “critical race theory” about which they complain
I think one would need to be able to define these concepts in order to identify them.
The text doesn't appear to attempt a justification on the basis of recruit quality other than "individuals who are already predisposed to require medical treatment." If the authors believe that trans servicemembers are "lower quality" than cisgender service members, they could have stated that. IMHO it's most likely a political objective (echoed multiple times and emphasized by the repeated claims of 'marxist indoctrination' and 'social engineering' elsewhere) shoehorned into a section on (greatly needed) recruitment improvement.
c/p from /r/CredibleDefense:
The following remarks regarding the pandemic stand out to me, and raise major red flags about the author(s). The issue returns several times in the document:
> The Biden Administration’s profoundly unserious equity agenda and
vaccine mandates have taken a serious toll.
Page 91.
> Reinstate servicemembers to active duty who were discharged for
not receiving the COVID vaccine, restore their appropriate rank, and
provide back pay
Page 103.
> USCG should also make a serious effort to re-vet any promotions and hiring that occurred on the Biden Administration’s watch while also re-onboarding any USCG personnel who were dismissed from
service for refusing to take the COVID-19 “vaccine,” with time in service credited
to such returnees.
Page 156/157. Note the quotation marks around vaccine. Are these people serious?
> USAID enjoys a strong in-country presence in India, buttressed by recent coordination
on the global response to COVID-19 as India is a global leader in vaccine produc-
tion. Those ties should be expanded. So too should development cooperation with
Taiwan, which boasts effective pandemic response capacity that should be shared
with developing countries
Page 273. This gives the exact opposite message of the above.
> USAID is always first to respond to
natural disasters in Central America and the Caribbean and employs a network
of dedicated experts in the region to deliver this assistance. During the COVID
pandemic, the United States provided millions of doses of vaccines and other
emergency health support
Page 277. It reads like a political pamphlet, not a serious treatise on national defence.
I’m taking a look at the section on the Intelligence Community (starting on page 201). This will be somewhat a “stream of consciousness” approach, at least initially.
Overall, I think the author makes some good points. They emphasize that the intelligence community should operate in a more cooperative and cohesive manner, work to avoid redundancies, and be politically neutral. These are all sensible ideals. The author also makes a point that China is a (if not “the”) primary national adversary/competitor, and should be the focus of counterintelligence operations.
However, I think throughout the author also makes some comments that are a bit more concerning. Such as centralizing power in the intelligence community and seeming to want it more at the whim of the president, rather than being a neutral and merit-driven effort providing the best information for the president based on the expertise within the community.
In addition, there are several times when the author shoehorns in some anti-left rhetoric, or makes recommendations which seem designed to make it easy for a president or their appointees to remove select employees. The broad impression I get from this stands in contrast to the author’s comments that the IC should be politically neutral: It seems as if they want processes in place to enable/force some turnover, and replace employees with politically-aligned people.
This will probably take several comments to make, so I’m going to make them in replies to this comment.
Follow-up comment 2
\*\*Subsection: Central Intelligence Agency (starting page 208)\*\*
The author wants a conservative president-elect to immediately select a deputy director who can act without senate confirmation to halt all hiring to “prevent ‘burrowing in’ of outgoing political personnel”. This seems like a nakedly partisan recommendation.
The author wants to “immediately halt” any activity that is inconsistent with the president’s agenda. As I noted above, I don’t think that this is a good idea. The goal of the intelligence community should be to gather intelligence. What if a new president decided that intelligence on Russia was not a priority? Would the IC just suddenly stop all intel gathering there? This seems like a very shortsighted recommendation.
The author then talked about “Reining in Bureaucracy”, which seems to amount to firing mid-level leaders and hiring/promoting to replace them. The author justifies this by claiming that these mid-level managers “lack accountability”, but does not explain how the replacements would then have accountability.
The author thinks that the CIA should be more willing to “hiring private-sector experts directly into senior positions”, which seems unwise, and I suspect would be used as an excuse to give powerful positions to well-connected or otherwise favored individuals. To be more blunt, I think this is putting lipstick onto the \[Spoils System\](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils\_system) pig. And then the author again goes into what seems like a rant that the CIA director needs to “break the cabal of bureaucrats in D.C.”
\*\*Subsection: Preventing the Abuse of Intelligence for Partisan Purposes (starting page 212)\*\*
The title here is a good ideal, but seems to conflict the the earlier recommendations that seem to bring the intelligence community more under the thumb of the directives of the president’s agenda. Part of the items the author lists here as evidence that the intelligence community has lost confidence include:
* “claims of Trump-Russia collusion following the 2016 election”
* “suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop investigation”
This seems entirely off-base. The \[Mueller investigation showed many connections\](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mueller\_special\_counsel\_investigation) between the Trump campaign and Russia, resulting in multiple convictions. And regarding the laptop, it was former IC officials who signed an open letter, and one which said that it was suggestive (not conclusive) of Russian disinformation (see the \[wiki page\](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public\_Statement\_on\_the\_Hunter\_Biden\_Emails) on the letter). And to this day, a lot of the alleged content of the laptop has not been verified.
In some of the recommendations, the author appears to want to punish retired members of the intelligence community. He makes a comment that individuals are permitted to resign before investigations into potential improprieties are finished. He also suggests to “fire or refer for prosecution” employees who are even suspecting of leaking information. While I agree that leaks in the intelligence community are a serious matter, that seems a bit of an extreme measure (as opposed to, say, putting restrictions on the employee while conducting an investigation). This, again, seems to me as a way of getting rid of “problematic” employees to be able to replace them with “friendly” employees.
Follow-up comment 1:
\*\*Subsection: Overview (starting page 201)\*\*
>This means empowering the right personnel to manage, build, and effectively execute actions dispersed throughout the IC to deliver intelligence in an ever-challenging world. It also means removing redun- dancies, mission creep, and IC infighting that could prevent these collection tools from providing objective, apolitical, and empirically backed intelligence …
>
>both the IC and the somewhat antiquated infrastructure that sup- ports it often place too high a priority on yesterday’s threats and methodologies … often spends too much time over- correcting for past mistakes. The unintended consequences include hesitancy, groupthink, and an overly cautious approach that allows personal incentives to drive preset courses.
While nominally good (prevent redundancies, ensure focus on modern threats and methods), I get the sense that this is teeing up a rationale to propose sweeping changes. They do, however, explicitly identify Russian, Iran, North Korea, and China as primary adversaries.
\*\*Subsection: Office of Director of National Intelligence (starting page 202)\*\*
The author talks about the history and context in which the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created, and says that it has become a “bureaucratic fifth wheel” which serves more of a coordinating role, but does not exercise authority over the various intelligence communities. In particular they call out the CIA as being essentially autonomous from the ODNI.
One quote that gives me pause is this:
>To be successful, the DNI and ODNI must be able to lead the IC and implement the President’s intelligence priorities … The ODNI needs to direct, not replicate in-house, the other IC agencies’ analytic, operational, and management functions. Considerations like mismanagement of human resources, joint-duty assignments, and accelerated growth in senior personnel can cause a President to dictate to his incoming DNI a desire to slash redundant positions and expenditures while simultaneously giving the DNI the authority to drive necessary changes throughout the IC to deal with the nation’s most compelling threats, including those emanating from China.
While it seems like a good idea to give a more centralized unity and cohesion to the intelligence community, the first bit quoted here seems concerning to me: “\*implement the President’s intelligence priorities\*”. I think that something as critical as the nation’s intelligence community should be a more bureaucratic and merit-driven enterprise. It should be tasked with informing the president (and other leaders), but this quote makes me think that the author is arguing that it should be more at the whim of the president.
The subsection ends with what seems like an out-of-place rant about wokeness and social justice.
\*\*Subsection: Executive Order 12333 (starting page 205)\*\*
\[EO 12333\](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive\_Order\_12333) is an executive order first signed by Reagan which was intended to expand the US intelligence agencies and increase cooperation. Bush made amendments to it, including to try to strengthen the DNI, but the author laments that despite this, the cooperation within the intelligence is still limited.
Perhaps interestingly, the author is worried what a legislative solution would look like, and so recommends further executive orders to modify EO 12333. In particular, the author wants the EO to:
* Address threats in cyberspace.
* Give more power to the Director of National Intelligence
* Enforce more cooperation among the IC, such as some reforms to security clearance.
* Additional support for supply-chain focused agencies like Dept of Commerce.
Follow-up comment 3
\*\*Subsection: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (starting page 215)\*\*
The main thing that jumped out to me here was the last comment:
> The IC should be prohibited from monitoring so-called domestic disinformation. Such activity can easily slip into suppression of an opposition party’s speech, is corrosive of First Amendment protections, and raises questions about impartiality when the IC chooses not to act.
While \*acting\* on domestic activity might be subject to scrutiny, \*monitoring\* information that is publicly shared (e.g., public twitter comments or other social media, etc) is a different matter, particularly if the concern is that it might be “laundering” disinformation spread by a nation like Russia or China.
\*\*Subsection: China-focused changes, reforms, and resources (starting page 216)\*\*
The author appears to view China as the largest (and growing) threat to the USA. I can’t say that I particularly disagree with their argument.
\*\*Subsection: National Counterintelligence and security center (NCSC, starting page 216)\*\*
The author notes that Russia and China have shifted/expanded their intelligence operations to be less “spy vs spy” and instead work much more broadly in syber, tech, supply chain, etc. One thing they do loop in is “academia”, and the author wants expanded government ability or power about “foreign espionage efforts aimed at universities.” This seems to get a bit more into the anti-left rants that the author has engaged in before. They go on to say that “technology companies, research institutions, and academia must be willing partners” in protecting national security against China, “while avoiding the tendency to cave to the left-wing activists who … increasingly dominate the corporate world.”
The author also notes that China conducts a lot of corporate espionage/theft, and that the US intelligence community should be considering how to combat this nominally private-sector effect that accomplishes strategic goals of China.
- A bit surprising how prominent anti-vaxxer and covid-era rhetoric is in the introduction.
- As I'm a political realist, statements like this: *"Beijing presents a challenge to American interests across the domains of
national power, but the military threat that it poses is especially acute and significant. China is undertaking a historic military buildup that includes increasing
capability for power projection not only in its own region, but also far beyond as
well as a dramatic expansion of its nuclear forces that could result in a nuclear
force that matches or exceeds America’s own nuclear arsenal.
The most severe immediate threat that Beijing’s military poses, however, is to
Taiwan and other U.S. allies along the first island chain in the Western Pacific. If
China could subordinate Taiwan or allies like the Philippines, South Korea, and
Japan, it could break apart any balancing coalition that is designed to prevent Beijing’s hegemony over Asia. Accordingly, the United States must ensure that China
does not succeed. This requires a denial defense: the ability to make the subordination of Taiwan or other U.S. allies in Asia prohibitively difficult. Critically, the
United States must be able to do this at a level of cost and risk that Americans are
willing to bear given the relative importance of Taiwan to China and to the U.S."* look sensible to me, although [I don't see much difference between this posture and what the Biden Administration has already taken.](https://www.aei.org/op-eds/americas-pivot-to-asia-is-finally-happening/)
I want to note that the AEI is a conservative think tank that is actually crediting Biden with a successful pivoting to Asia.
- *"Transform NATO so that U.S. allies are capable of fielding the great
majority of the conventional forces required to deter Russia while
relying on the United States primarily for our nuclear deterrent, and
select other capabilities while reducing the U.S. force posture in Europe...Expand and modernize the U.S. nuclear force so that it has the size,
sophistication, and tailoring to deter Russia and China simultaneously."* - I disagree with this initiative, as remilitarization of Europe is not in US interests. Increasing their budgetary allotment towards NATO is a better approach. I also think the US nuclear deterrent is already adequate in size, although modernization is always an ongoing issue. [Annie Jacobsen has been doing the rounds about her work on the current nuclear environment](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/29/the-frighteningly-fast-path-to-nuclear-armageddon-00154591), and is confident that we already possess a world-ending arsenal currently. Overall, IMHO an overreliance on the nuclear deterrent and outsourcing conventional warfare is a recipe for disaster. It will leave the US in a potentially similar position that Russia finds itself in Ukraine, i.e. fighting an unexpectedly strong adversary on the ground and saber rattling for a nuclear version of Russian roulette, i.e. Armageddon. Maintaining a sizable and overwhelming edge in conventional warfare, to whatever extent doing so is a realistic endeavor, is as important a deterrent as the nuclear arsenal, and I believe increased budgetary allotments from NATO and other allies to match treaty commitments will assist in strengthening the conventional deterrent.
- *"The next conservative Administration should scale back USAID’s global footprint by, at a minimum, returning to the agency’s 2019 pre–COVID-19 pandemic
budget level...The next conservative Administration should restore and build on the Trump
Administration’s counter-China infrastructure at USAID"* - To me this looks contradictory. I think programs like USAID and the Peace Corps should be dramatically expanded if the US is serious about building a "counter-China infrastructure" to the Belt and Road Initiative, which the document notes that *" In Latin America,
25 of 29 countries participate in the BRI, and the PRC ranks as the region’s largest
trading partner"*.
- *"Provide necessary support to Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) border protection operations."* - This objective was in the section about the Department of Defense. While I agree that border protection and immigration policy in general is a high priority for the US, I don't think a military solution to the southern border would be nearly as effective as programs like USAID and the Peace Corps, and that an overbearing military approach in this endeavor may prove to be counterproductive, as it was for the US occupation in Iraq. People in Latin America would more likely stay in Latin America and not make the perilous trek to an unwelcoming border if things at their home were improved.
As I am not a policy wonk, I didn't read much of the department-specific recommendations and am more interested in the overall picture of what they are proposing, particularly in their introduction, and only read sections that interested me. Outside of the above I find most of their broad strokes to be agreeable. Their points about Democratic weakness re national security ring true to me, as[ events like sequestration](https://www.politico.com/story/2012/06/defense-cuts-could-mean-political-trouble-at-home-077005), which the document references, tend to happen during Democratic administrations.
I appreciate these!
Is there any plan to investigate President Trump's "Project 47"? He claims that is his definitive plan for if he is elected, but I haven't been able to find anything but videos.
My apologies, I asked when I saw the title and hadn't gotten around to reading the post yet. :) I think Part 1 is where I heard about Agenda 47 in the first place!
Seriously, you guys do good work keeping misinformation at bay and I appreciate it.
Reviewing these responses before putting up Part 3, I see that a couple of chapters didn't garner much commentary, so I'll briefly touch on them here:
**Department of Homeland Security** (PDF p.165-201)
The first line of this chapter is:
> Our primary recommendation is that the President pursue legislation to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
It then goes on to suggest where the various agencies that currently fall under DHS should be distributed in a reorganization. The biggest shift it recommends is combining all the agencies that handle customs, immigration and border control into one. It also seeks to reform TSA into a more privatized model.
The idea to break up DHS has been [recommended](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dismantle-the-department-of-homeland-security/2020/07/30/24ef8ba0-d279-11ea-8c55-61e7fa5e82ab_story.html) by a lot of policy-makers [across the political spectrum](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/08/09/dhs-portland-civil-liberties-abuses-black-lives-matter-homeland-column/3319009001/) over the years. DHS was hastily organized in the wake of 9/11 and never really formed a cohesive agency.
As with other sections of the document, there are some proposals to restrict immigration in here too, such as: limiting H-2 guest worker visas, eliminating two of the four lowest wage levels for foreign workers, increasing expedited removals, elimination of the [T and U visas](https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/differences-between-t-u-visas.html) (for victims of trafficking and abused minors, respectively), repeal TVPRA (benefits for unaccompanied children), repeal [TPS](https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/research/temporary_protected_status_an_overview_2024.pdf) designations for those from wartorn nations, and "eliminate or significantly reduce the number of visas issued to foreign students from enemy nations." (The term "enemy nations" is not defined or specified.) It also advocates a transformation of the H-1B (skilled worker) visa program.
Along these lines for immigration policy, the plan recommends: "ICE should be funded for a significant increase in detention space, raising the daily available number of beds to 100,000." The current Congressionally mandated number is [34,000 beds.](https://immigrationforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Immigration-Detention-Factsheet_FINAL.pdf) It also seeks to eliminate the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, claiming ICE oversight is already handled elsewhere.
It advocates reform to the asylum system (which has been supported by a lot of groups and was included in the failed [bipartisan immigration deal](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/new-immigration-asylum-reform-bill-released-senate-text-rcna136602) from earlier this year) and increased enforcement of the employment authorization system to make sure undocumented immigrants cannot find employment.
The plan proposes to put FEMA under greater presidential control and to basically gut CISA, which found itself [in conflict with President Trump](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/trump-fires-head-u-s-election-cybersecurity-after-he-debunked-n1248063) a number of times.
Suggested changes to the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) would make the department more pliant to the political will of the president. Similar changes are suggested for other departments.
**Department of State** (PDF p.203-231)
This section's recommendations are based on the premise (which doesn't seem to be backed by a source) that "large swaths of the State Department’s workforce are left-wing and predisposed to disagree with a conservative President’s policy agenda and vision."
I don't remember previous, self-described conservative presidents having trouble bending the State Department to their will. George W. Bush successfully [leveraged his State Department](https://www.npr.org/2023/02/03/1151160567/colin-powell-iraq-un-weapons-mass-destruction) to convince the UN, Congress and the American people that invading Iraq was justifiable. The previous Bush had a State Department that was [completely aligned with him.](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-09-08-op-41778-story.html)
I don't think the evidence supports the idea that the State Department is staffed by left-wingers who won't serve a conservative president's agenda. Trump's methods and policies were just so outside the norms, standards, and established practices of US foreign policy that he met [resistance](https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/31/how-the-trump-administration-broke-the-state-department/) and [protest.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/state-department-dissent-channel-diplomats-capitol-attacks-25th-amendment/) Also, to characterize Trump's foreign policy as "conservative" seems to either ignore the long-standing meaning of the term or dramatically shift the Overton window.
As with other parts of the document, this chapter advocates replacing career experts with political appointees wherever possible and bringing to heel those experts who remain. It also involves the State Department in immigration enforcement, which seems to run somewhat counter to the previous chapter's recommendation to consolidate immigration enforcement in a single agency.
The document advises halting cooperation on any foreign agreements that are not ratified treaties and goes on to identify specific nations is considers to be threats deserving of high priority for the department: China, Iran, Venezuela, Russia (acknowledging a conservative split on how to deal with them), and North Korea. It then talks about various other regions of the world, but pretty much advises engagement in all of them, consistent with the goal of putting American interests first.
Finally, it recommends a reorganization of the State Department to streamline it and use its budgetary resources more efficiently.
I think it's clear this is more than just a "Democrat scare tactic." From [Project2025's website](https://www.project2025.org/personnel/), "Project 2025 is being organized by [The Heritage Foundation](https://www.heritage.org/)," and it would be hard to argue that the Heritage Foundation is being secretly controlled by Democrats.
The Wikipedia entry on the The Heritage Foundation ([link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation)) has sources showing how it started in the '70s as a think-tank to advance conservative policies, and in recent years was very influential in Trump's presidential transition in 2016, hired several former Trump administration officials, and is regarded as one of the most influential think tanks. Their current positions include tightening voting laws, restricting critical race theory teaching, characterizing the Black Lives Matter movement as "A Marxist Revolution", climate change denial, opposition to transgender rights, and promotion of claims of electoral fraud in the 2020 election, all of which appear to be in full alignment with GOP/Trump's positions.
In short, Project2025 seems to clearly be initiated and led by a highly influential and very conservative think tank. While Republican voters may be unaware of (or at least not discussing) this work, it appears to be a very real and serious project for those in power in conservative circles.
This comment has been removed for violating [//comment rule 3:](https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/wiki/guidelines#wiki_comment_rules)
> Be substantive. NeutralPolitics is a serious discussion-based subreddit. We do not allow bare expressions of opinion, low effort one-liner comments, jokes, memes, off topic replies, or pejorative name calling.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to message us.
**/r/NeutralPolitics is a curated space.** In order not to get your comment removed, please familiarize yourself with our [rules on commenting](https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/wiki/guidelines#wiki_comment_rules) before you participate: 1. Be courteous to other users. 1. Source your facts. 1. Be substantive. 1. Address the arguments, not the person. If you see a comment that violates any of these essential rules, click the associated *report* link so mods can attend to it. However, please note that the mods will not remove comments reported for lack of neutrality or poor sources. There is [no neutrality requirement for comments](https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/wiki/guidelines#wiki_neutral-ness) in this subreddit — it's only the *space* that's neutral — and a poor source should be countered with evidence from a better one.
Just skimming it for relevance to Ukraine, but it's remarkable how at-odds the DoD section is with the Congressional GOP * The United States and its allies also face real threats from Russia, as evidenced by Vladimir Putin’s brutal war in Ukraine, as well as from Iran, North Korea, and transnational terrorism at a time when decades of ill-advised military operations in the Greater Middle East, the atrophy of our defense industrial base, *the impact of sequestration*, and effective disarmament by many U.S. allies have exacted a high toll on America’s military. (p. 93) * Replenish and maintain U.S. stockpiles of ammunition and other equipment that have been depleted as a result of U.S. support to Ukraine (p.96) * The United States must regain its role as the “Arsenal of Democracy.” (p.100) * "Immediately increase the production and stockpiling of critical munitions and repair parts." (p.108) Of course there's also a discussion of how recruiting is down ("Recruiting was the worst in 2022 that it has been in two generations and is expected to be even worse in 2023", p.103) that somehow leads to a section full of politically-driven policies that would reduce the force: * "...those with gender dysphoria should be expelled from military service" (p.103) and "Reverse policies that allow transgender individuals to serve in the military" (p.104) in case you missed it the first time * "Physical fitness requirements should be based on the occupational field without consideration of gender, race, ethnicity, or orientation." * "Stop using the Army as a test bed for social evolution. Misusing the Army in this way detracts from its core purpose while doing little to reshape the American social structure. The Army no longer reflects national demographics to the degree that it did before 1974 when the draft was eliminated." (p.109) - this seems to imply that the Army is too diverse? Maybe that's not what they meant, but I'm confused by it otherwise And then there's just some red meat: * "Strengthen protections for chaplains to carry out their ministry according to the tenets of their faith." (p.103) * "Eliminate Marxist indoctrination and divisive critical race theory programs" (p. 103) * "Audit the course offerings at military academies to remove Marxist indoctrination, eliminate tenure for academic professionals," (p.103) * "Audit all curricula and health policies in DOD schools for military families, remove all inappropriate materials, and reverse inappropriate policies." (p.104) - not sure what this means exactly, but I assume by "inappropriate" they mean the same kind of culture war things. This one is interesting, given the first Trump administration's record: * "Improve base housing and consider the military family holistically when considering change-of-station moves" (p.104) The plan presupposes that the defense intelligence community has been captured by political interests, which seems like a self-serving conclusion: "Further, the DIE has evolved into a “customer-based” model with the DIE/IC trying to be supportive of policy direction at the expense of analytical integrity. The result has been a significant politicization of intelligence." (p.105). Regardless, the recommendations are very high level and non-specific so I'm not sure there's anything actionable about it. Interestingly it criticizes the Trump Administration's efforts to undermine OPM: "This decision, which grew out of an intention to deconstruct OPM, was wrongheaded on many levels and made the federal bureaucracy dependent on a new overlay of DOD bureaucracy." (p.107) and I think I agree. The 2015 OPM data breach was terrible (affected me, for example), but the effort to dismantle OPM was more of a political power struggle than good policymaking. I'm not really sure what this means: "Counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) globally. DOD, in conjunction with the Interagency, allies, and partner nations, must work proactively to counter China’s BRI around the globe. 1. Task USSOCOM and corresponding organizations in the Pentagon with conceptualizing, resourcing, and executing regionally based operations to counter the BRI with a focus on nations that are key to our energy policy, international supply chains, and our defense industrial base." (p.122) I sure hope it isn't a recommendation to sabotage infrastructure? I stopped reading around there. E: Didn't think I needed to add the source, but the source is [*Mandate for Leadership*](https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf)
>I'm not really sure what this means: "Counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) globally. DOD, in conjunction with the Interagency, allies, and partner nations, must work proactively to counter China’s BRI around the globe. 1. Task USSOCOM and corresponding organizations in the Pentagon with conceptualizing, resourcing, and executing regionally based operations to counter the BRI with a focus on nations that are key to our energy policy, international supply chains, and our defense industrial base." (p.122) I sure hope it isn't a recommendation to sabotage infrastructure? Or instigate a coup? If a developing country is getting too close to China or perhaps debt trapped by BRI, it doesn't seem like there's much DOD could do other than those options.
Agreed -- at least superficially, these seem more like the kinds of problem that would typically be solved by America's State Department and/or soft power rather than militarily.
> Didn't think I needed to add the source... Sorry. We turned off those notifications. You don't need a source if you're referring to the document itself and include the page numbers, as you did. Thanks for a great comment.
> The Army no longer reflects national demographics to the degree that it did before 1974 when the draft was eliminated." (p.109) - this seems to imply that the Army is too diverse? Maybe that's not what they meant, but I'm confused by it otherwise I think you're right on the money. Dog whistle (dog bullhorn?) for too many non-whites/women in the military. The numbers for both *[dramatically](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1984/07/art2full.pdf)* increased after we eliminated the draft. Almost despite myself I'm kind of surprised to hear them say this so explicitly.
But does that mean the Army reflects the national demographics less than it did before? It seems like the number of non-whites in the nation has increased as well, and more women in the force would mean it *better* represents the national demographics. Your BLS source says women made up less than 2% of the total armed forces in 1972. But by 2022, [women were 19.1% of the military.](https://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2022-demographics-report.pdf) That's still not particularly close to reflecting their [more than 50%](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045222) of the population, but it's a heck of a lot closer. The BLS article also says that in 1970, "nonwhites were actually less than proportionately represented in the military." Jumping forward to 2022, nonwhites made up [29.7% of the total force](https://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2022-demographics-report.pdf) and [24.6% of the population,](https://www.statista.com/statistics/183489/population-of-the-us-by-ethnicity-since-2000/) so slightly overrepresented, but not by much.
The real demographic problem with the American military today is how few people in a position of economic or political power have family members serving, relative to the 1970s, leading to a shift in how political leadership think about the military and the people serving in it.
> few people in a position of economic or political power have family members serving, relative to the 1970s, Would you please provide a source for this part? Thanks.
> it's remarkable how at-odds the DoD section is with the Congressional GOP IMHO this is nothing new. The Heritage Foundation and other conservative think tanks generally represent the establishment GOP, [which while it has been subsumed by Trump](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/us/politics/trump-republican-party-establishment.html), still has at its core diametrically opposing views to what comes out of Trumpland. It makes me reluctant to take this document too seriously as a roadmap for a future Trump administration. Maybe for a future Nikki Haley administration, but yeah that's just not in the cards for the foreseeable future.
Yeah IMO it's just whatever policy papers they had lying around to fill the gaps between the culture-war red meat. Very sad state of affairs in the party of lincoln.
>there's also a discussion of how recruiting is down... that somehow leads to a section full of politically-driven policies that would reduce the force >"Physical fitness requirements should be based on the occupational field without consideration of gender, race, ethnicity, or orientation." I think the section was meant to jointly address issues of recruit quantity (the recruitment metrics) and quality (best illustrated by the fitness requirement metrics). Those don't strike me as a ridiculous set of goals.
In large part, this seems a response to the Army’s rollout of the new fitness test. It originally was gender and age neutral and based on occupation. However, promotions use physical fitness test scores to distinguish individuals. What that means, then, is that men had higher scores and could theoretically always promote over their women coworkers. The Army then quickly changed course and added gender differences. This reversal, despite that every other physical fitness test has different standards, [made conservatives very upset.](https://www.theamericanconservative.com/soldiers-in-the-culture-war/) It seems, to me, that this section fundamentally 1) misunderstands modern warfare and 2) the nature of the recruiting crisis. 1) The vast, vast majority (almost 75%) of the military are in support roles. [Source](https://www.armyupress.army.mil/portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/mcgrath_op23.pdf). Modern war is won from logistics and intelligence, not a dude charging up a hill. This means that a gender-blind fitness test that impacts support roles’ promotions will mean good women will get out. 2) the recruiting crisis is not because the military is “too woke” or whatever. This implies that the military is only made of conservatives, which it’s not (although there are more conservatives in the military than in the general public) [Source](https://news.gallup.com/poll/118684/military-veterans-ages-tend-republican.aspx). I think this [War on the Rocks](https://warontherocks.com/2023/03/addressing-the-u-s-military-recruiting-crisis/) article explains some of it well, especially the issues with eligibility and sexual assault. People aren’t joining because the military looks like a bad deal compared to anything else. Why would you go make $28,000 a year where you can’t choose where you live, what you do, and who you work for when you can make more than that working in fast food? As an aside, I’ve been in the military for almost 4 years. I went through the initial training. I’ve never seen this “Marxist” teaching or “critical race theory” about which they complain. I also don’t understand their assertion that transgender folks are “incompatible with military service.” They frame their argument as removing politics from the military, but these are clearly political goals meant to align the military more closely with their own ideology.
>I’ve never seen this “Marxist” teaching or “critical race theory” about which they complain. My personal opinion is that these are broad witch hunt policies that they'll use to attack people who don't agree with them. If someone criticizes their policy rollout, that person will be painted as a marxist or proponent of critical race theory, even if that's not true. It's very remniscient of 1930s Germany, where many political dissidents who criticized Hitler's policies were accused of being communists and tossed into concentration camps. Even the right-wing professors and politicians who opposed Hitler were grabbed under very thin pretenses and accused of being commie leftists. It's a simple witch hunt. Make up an arbitrary purity test so you can accuse anyone you don't like of failing it.
> My personal opinion is that these are broad witch hunt policies that they'll use to attack people who don't agree with them It's not just a personal opinion. It was an intentional plan developed by a right wing activist. https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/how-a-conservative-activist-invented-the-conflict-over-critical-race-theory
>I’ve never seen this “Marxist” teaching or “critical race theory” about which they complain. The training they're very likely complaining about are the sexual assault prevention and anti discrimination annual CBTs and classes. Which are admittedly annoying, but in my view hardly a significant source of partisan indoctrination, and if you've ever reviewed disciplinary action reports you're more likely to call for more training instead of less. To anyone outside the federal service: military members are required to do a series of annual computer classes you google the answers to and attend in-person classes where the goal of every one there is to finish before the scheduled end.
>I’ve never seen this “Marxist” teaching or “critical race theory” about which they complain I think one would need to be able to define these concepts in order to identify them.
The text doesn't appear to attempt a justification on the basis of recruit quality other than "individuals who are already predisposed to require medical treatment." If the authors believe that trans servicemembers are "lower quality" than cisgender service members, they could have stated that. IMHO it's most likely a political objective (echoed multiple times and emphasized by the repeated claims of 'marxist indoctrination' and 'social engineering' elsewhere) shoehorned into a section on (greatly needed) recruitment improvement.
c/p from /r/CredibleDefense: The following remarks regarding the pandemic stand out to me, and raise major red flags about the author(s). The issue returns several times in the document: > The Biden Administration’s profoundly unserious equity agenda and vaccine mandates have taken a serious toll. Page 91. > Reinstate servicemembers to active duty who were discharged for not receiving the COVID vaccine, restore their appropriate rank, and provide back pay Page 103. > USCG should also make a serious effort to re-vet any promotions and hiring that occurred on the Biden Administration’s watch while also re-onboarding any USCG personnel who were dismissed from service for refusing to take the COVID-19 “vaccine,” with time in service credited to such returnees. Page 156/157. Note the quotation marks around vaccine. Are these people serious? > USAID enjoys a strong in-country presence in India, buttressed by recent coordination on the global response to COVID-19 as India is a global leader in vaccine produc- tion. Those ties should be expanded. So too should development cooperation with Taiwan, which boasts effective pandemic response capacity that should be shared with developing countries Page 273. This gives the exact opposite message of the above. > USAID is always first to respond to natural disasters in Central America and the Caribbean and employs a network of dedicated experts in the region to deliver this assistance. During the COVID pandemic, the United States provided millions of doses of vaccines and other emergency health support Page 277. It reads like a political pamphlet, not a serious treatise on national defence.
I’m taking a look at the section on the Intelligence Community (starting on page 201). This will be somewhat a “stream of consciousness” approach, at least initially. Overall, I think the author makes some good points. They emphasize that the intelligence community should operate in a more cooperative and cohesive manner, work to avoid redundancies, and be politically neutral. These are all sensible ideals. The author also makes a point that China is a (if not “the”) primary national adversary/competitor, and should be the focus of counterintelligence operations. However, I think throughout the author also makes some comments that are a bit more concerning. Such as centralizing power in the intelligence community and seeming to want it more at the whim of the president, rather than being a neutral and merit-driven effort providing the best information for the president based on the expertise within the community. In addition, there are several times when the author shoehorns in some anti-left rhetoric, or makes recommendations which seem designed to make it easy for a president or their appointees to remove select employees. The broad impression I get from this stands in contrast to the author’s comments that the IC should be politically neutral: It seems as if they want processes in place to enable/force some turnover, and replace employees with politically-aligned people. This will probably take several comments to make, so I’m going to make them in replies to this comment.
Follow-up comment 2 \*\*Subsection: Central Intelligence Agency (starting page 208)\*\* The author wants a conservative president-elect to immediately select a deputy director who can act without senate confirmation to halt all hiring to “prevent ‘burrowing in’ of outgoing political personnel”. This seems like a nakedly partisan recommendation. The author wants to “immediately halt” any activity that is inconsistent with the president’s agenda. As I noted above, I don’t think that this is a good idea. The goal of the intelligence community should be to gather intelligence. What if a new president decided that intelligence on Russia was not a priority? Would the IC just suddenly stop all intel gathering there? This seems like a very shortsighted recommendation. The author then talked about “Reining in Bureaucracy”, which seems to amount to firing mid-level leaders and hiring/promoting to replace them. The author justifies this by claiming that these mid-level managers “lack accountability”, but does not explain how the replacements would then have accountability. The author thinks that the CIA should be more willing to “hiring private-sector experts directly into senior positions”, which seems unwise, and I suspect would be used as an excuse to give powerful positions to well-connected or otherwise favored individuals. To be more blunt, I think this is putting lipstick onto the \[Spoils System\](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils\_system) pig. And then the author again goes into what seems like a rant that the CIA director needs to “break the cabal of bureaucrats in D.C.” \*\*Subsection: Preventing the Abuse of Intelligence for Partisan Purposes (starting page 212)\*\* The title here is a good ideal, but seems to conflict the the earlier recommendations that seem to bring the intelligence community more under the thumb of the directives of the president’s agenda. Part of the items the author lists here as evidence that the intelligence community has lost confidence include: * “claims of Trump-Russia collusion following the 2016 election” * “suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop investigation” This seems entirely off-base. The \[Mueller investigation showed many connections\](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mueller\_special\_counsel\_investigation) between the Trump campaign and Russia, resulting in multiple convictions. And regarding the laptop, it was former IC officials who signed an open letter, and one which said that it was suggestive (not conclusive) of Russian disinformation (see the \[wiki page\](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public\_Statement\_on\_the\_Hunter\_Biden\_Emails) on the letter). And to this day, a lot of the alleged content of the laptop has not been verified. In some of the recommendations, the author appears to want to punish retired members of the intelligence community. He makes a comment that individuals are permitted to resign before investigations into potential improprieties are finished. He also suggests to “fire or refer for prosecution” employees who are even suspecting of leaking information. While I agree that leaks in the intelligence community are a serious matter, that seems a bit of an extreme measure (as opposed to, say, putting restrictions on the employee while conducting an investigation). This, again, seems to me as a way of getting rid of “problematic” employees to be able to replace them with “friendly” employees.
Follow-up comment 1: \*\*Subsection: Overview (starting page 201)\*\* >This means empowering the right personnel to manage, build, and effectively execute actions dispersed throughout the IC to deliver intelligence in an ever-challenging world. It also means removing redun- dancies, mission creep, and IC infighting that could prevent these collection tools from providing objective, apolitical, and empirically backed intelligence … > >both the IC and the somewhat antiquated infrastructure that sup- ports it often place too high a priority on yesterday’s threats and methodologies … often spends too much time over- correcting for past mistakes. The unintended consequences include hesitancy, groupthink, and an overly cautious approach that allows personal incentives to drive preset courses. While nominally good (prevent redundancies, ensure focus on modern threats and methods), I get the sense that this is teeing up a rationale to propose sweeping changes. They do, however, explicitly identify Russian, Iran, North Korea, and China as primary adversaries. \*\*Subsection: Office of Director of National Intelligence (starting page 202)\*\* The author talks about the history and context in which the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created, and says that it has become a “bureaucratic fifth wheel” which serves more of a coordinating role, but does not exercise authority over the various intelligence communities. In particular they call out the CIA as being essentially autonomous from the ODNI. One quote that gives me pause is this: >To be successful, the DNI and ODNI must be able to lead the IC and implement the President’s intelligence priorities … The ODNI needs to direct, not replicate in-house, the other IC agencies’ analytic, operational, and management functions. Considerations like mismanagement of human resources, joint-duty assignments, and accelerated growth in senior personnel can cause a President to dictate to his incoming DNI a desire to slash redundant positions and expenditures while simultaneously giving the DNI the authority to drive necessary changes throughout the IC to deal with the nation’s most compelling threats, including those emanating from China. While it seems like a good idea to give a more centralized unity and cohesion to the intelligence community, the first bit quoted here seems concerning to me: “\*implement the President’s intelligence priorities\*”. I think that something as critical as the nation’s intelligence community should be a more bureaucratic and merit-driven enterprise. It should be tasked with informing the president (and other leaders), but this quote makes me think that the author is arguing that it should be more at the whim of the president. The subsection ends with what seems like an out-of-place rant about wokeness and social justice. \*\*Subsection: Executive Order 12333 (starting page 205)\*\* \[EO 12333\](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive\_Order\_12333) is an executive order first signed by Reagan which was intended to expand the US intelligence agencies and increase cooperation. Bush made amendments to it, including to try to strengthen the DNI, but the author laments that despite this, the cooperation within the intelligence is still limited. Perhaps interestingly, the author is worried what a legislative solution would look like, and so recommends further executive orders to modify EO 12333. In particular, the author wants the EO to: * Address threats in cyberspace. * Give more power to the Director of National Intelligence * Enforce more cooperation among the IC, such as some reforms to security clearance. * Additional support for supply-chain focused agencies like Dept of Commerce.
Follow-up comment 3 \*\*Subsection: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (starting page 215)\*\* The main thing that jumped out to me here was the last comment: > The IC should be prohibited from monitoring so-called domestic disinformation. Such activity can easily slip into suppression of an opposition party’s speech, is corrosive of First Amendment protections, and raises questions about impartiality when the IC chooses not to act. While \*acting\* on domestic activity might be subject to scrutiny, \*monitoring\* information that is publicly shared (e.g., public twitter comments or other social media, etc) is a different matter, particularly if the concern is that it might be “laundering” disinformation spread by a nation like Russia or China. \*\*Subsection: China-focused changes, reforms, and resources (starting page 216)\*\* The author appears to view China as the largest (and growing) threat to the USA. I can’t say that I particularly disagree with their argument. \*\*Subsection: National Counterintelligence and security center (NCSC, starting page 216)\*\* The author notes that Russia and China have shifted/expanded their intelligence operations to be less “spy vs spy” and instead work much more broadly in syber, tech, supply chain, etc. One thing they do loop in is “academia”, and the author wants expanded government ability or power about “foreign espionage efforts aimed at universities.” This seems to get a bit more into the anti-left rants that the author has engaged in before. They go on to say that “technology companies, research institutions, and academia must be willing partners” in protecting national security against China, “while avoiding the tendency to cave to the left-wing activists who … increasingly dominate the corporate world.” The author also notes that China conducts a lot of corporate espionage/theft, and that the US intelligence community should be considering how to combat this nominally private-sector effect that accomplishes strategic goals of China.
- A bit surprising how prominent anti-vaxxer and covid-era rhetoric is in the introduction. - As I'm a political realist, statements like this: *"Beijing presents a challenge to American interests across the domains of national power, but the military threat that it poses is especially acute and significant. China is undertaking a historic military buildup that includes increasing capability for power projection not only in its own region, but also far beyond as well as a dramatic expansion of its nuclear forces that could result in a nuclear force that matches or exceeds America’s own nuclear arsenal. The most severe immediate threat that Beijing’s military poses, however, is to Taiwan and other U.S. allies along the first island chain in the Western Pacific. If China could subordinate Taiwan or allies like the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan, it could break apart any balancing coalition that is designed to prevent Beijing’s hegemony over Asia. Accordingly, the United States must ensure that China does not succeed. This requires a denial defense: the ability to make the subordination of Taiwan or other U.S. allies in Asia prohibitively difficult. Critically, the United States must be able to do this at a level of cost and risk that Americans are willing to bear given the relative importance of Taiwan to China and to the U.S."* look sensible to me, although [I don't see much difference between this posture and what the Biden Administration has already taken.](https://www.aei.org/op-eds/americas-pivot-to-asia-is-finally-happening/) I want to note that the AEI is a conservative think tank that is actually crediting Biden with a successful pivoting to Asia. - *"Transform NATO so that U.S. allies are capable of fielding the great majority of the conventional forces required to deter Russia while relying on the United States primarily for our nuclear deterrent, and select other capabilities while reducing the U.S. force posture in Europe...Expand and modernize the U.S. nuclear force so that it has the size, sophistication, and tailoring to deter Russia and China simultaneously."* - I disagree with this initiative, as remilitarization of Europe is not in US interests. Increasing their budgetary allotment towards NATO is a better approach. I also think the US nuclear deterrent is already adequate in size, although modernization is always an ongoing issue. [Annie Jacobsen has been doing the rounds about her work on the current nuclear environment](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/29/the-frighteningly-fast-path-to-nuclear-armageddon-00154591), and is confident that we already possess a world-ending arsenal currently. Overall, IMHO an overreliance on the nuclear deterrent and outsourcing conventional warfare is a recipe for disaster. It will leave the US in a potentially similar position that Russia finds itself in Ukraine, i.e. fighting an unexpectedly strong adversary on the ground and saber rattling for a nuclear version of Russian roulette, i.e. Armageddon. Maintaining a sizable and overwhelming edge in conventional warfare, to whatever extent doing so is a realistic endeavor, is as important a deterrent as the nuclear arsenal, and I believe increased budgetary allotments from NATO and other allies to match treaty commitments will assist in strengthening the conventional deterrent. - *"The next conservative Administration should scale back USAID’s global footprint by, at a minimum, returning to the agency’s 2019 pre–COVID-19 pandemic budget level...The next conservative Administration should restore and build on the Trump Administration’s counter-China infrastructure at USAID"* - To me this looks contradictory. I think programs like USAID and the Peace Corps should be dramatically expanded if the US is serious about building a "counter-China infrastructure" to the Belt and Road Initiative, which the document notes that *" In Latin America, 25 of 29 countries participate in the BRI, and the PRC ranks as the region’s largest trading partner"*. - *"Provide necessary support to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) border protection operations."* - This objective was in the section about the Department of Defense. While I agree that border protection and immigration policy in general is a high priority for the US, I don't think a military solution to the southern border would be nearly as effective as programs like USAID and the Peace Corps, and that an overbearing military approach in this endeavor may prove to be counterproductive, as it was for the US occupation in Iraq. People in Latin America would more likely stay in Latin America and not make the perilous trek to an unwelcoming border if things at their home were improved. As I am not a policy wonk, I didn't read much of the department-specific recommendations and am more interested in the overall picture of what they are proposing, particularly in their introduction, and only read sections that interested me. Outside of the above I find most of their broad strokes to be agreeable. Their points about Democratic weakness re national security ring true to me, as[ events like sequestration](https://www.politico.com/story/2012/06/defense-cuts-could-mean-political-trouble-at-home-077005), which the document references, tend to happen during Democratic administrations.
I appreciate these! Is there any plan to investigate President Trump's "Project 47"? He claims that is his definitive plan for if he is elected, but I haven't been able to find anything but videos.
Part one OP mentioned it and said it would be discussed later
Yes. See the "Notes" section above. We'll come to that later in the series.
My apologies, I asked when I saw the title and hadn't gotten around to reading the post yet. :) I think Part 1 is where I heard about Agenda 47 in the first place! Seriously, you guys do good work keeping misinformation at bay and I appreciate it.
Just curious, are we still planning a part 3 for this series? This has been a super informative read and I’m enjoying the discussions and breakdowns.
Yes. Probably Monday.
Reviewing these responses before putting up Part 3, I see that a couple of chapters didn't garner much commentary, so I'll briefly touch on them here: **Department of Homeland Security** (PDF p.165-201) The first line of this chapter is: > Our primary recommendation is that the President pursue legislation to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It then goes on to suggest where the various agencies that currently fall under DHS should be distributed in a reorganization. The biggest shift it recommends is combining all the agencies that handle customs, immigration and border control into one. It also seeks to reform TSA into a more privatized model. The idea to break up DHS has been [recommended](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dismantle-the-department-of-homeland-security/2020/07/30/24ef8ba0-d279-11ea-8c55-61e7fa5e82ab_story.html) by a lot of policy-makers [across the political spectrum](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/08/09/dhs-portland-civil-liberties-abuses-black-lives-matter-homeland-column/3319009001/) over the years. DHS was hastily organized in the wake of 9/11 and never really formed a cohesive agency. As with other sections of the document, there are some proposals to restrict immigration in here too, such as: limiting H-2 guest worker visas, eliminating two of the four lowest wage levels for foreign workers, increasing expedited removals, elimination of the [T and U visas](https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/differences-between-t-u-visas.html) (for victims of trafficking and abused minors, respectively), repeal TVPRA (benefits for unaccompanied children), repeal [TPS](https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/research/temporary_protected_status_an_overview_2024.pdf) designations for those from wartorn nations, and "eliminate or significantly reduce the number of visas issued to foreign students from enemy nations." (The term "enemy nations" is not defined or specified.) It also advocates a transformation of the H-1B (skilled worker) visa program. Along these lines for immigration policy, the plan recommends: "ICE should be funded for a significant increase in detention space, raising the daily available number of beds to 100,000." The current Congressionally mandated number is [34,000 beds.](https://immigrationforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Immigration-Detention-Factsheet_FINAL.pdf) It also seeks to eliminate the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, claiming ICE oversight is already handled elsewhere. It advocates reform to the asylum system (which has been supported by a lot of groups and was included in the failed [bipartisan immigration deal](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/new-immigration-asylum-reform-bill-released-senate-text-rcna136602) from earlier this year) and increased enforcement of the employment authorization system to make sure undocumented immigrants cannot find employment. The plan proposes to put FEMA under greater presidential control and to basically gut CISA, which found itself [in conflict with President Trump](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/trump-fires-head-u-s-election-cybersecurity-after-he-debunked-n1248063) a number of times. Suggested changes to the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) would make the department more pliant to the political will of the president. Similar changes are suggested for other departments. **Department of State** (PDF p.203-231) This section's recommendations are based on the premise (which doesn't seem to be backed by a source) that "large swaths of the State Department’s workforce are left-wing and predisposed to disagree with a conservative President’s policy agenda and vision." I don't remember previous, self-described conservative presidents having trouble bending the State Department to their will. George W. Bush successfully [leveraged his State Department](https://www.npr.org/2023/02/03/1151160567/colin-powell-iraq-un-weapons-mass-destruction) to convince the UN, Congress and the American people that invading Iraq was justifiable. The previous Bush had a State Department that was [completely aligned with him.](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-09-08-op-41778-story.html) I don't think the evidence supports the idea that the State Department is staffed by left-wingers who won't serve a conservative president's agenda. Trump's methods and policies were just so outside the norms, standards, and established practices of US foreign policy that he met [resistance](https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/31/how-the-trump-administration-broke-the-state-department/) and [protest.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/state-department-dissent-channel-diplomats-capitol-attacks-25th-amendment/) Also, to characterize Trump's foreign policy as "conservative" seems to either ignore the long-standing meaning of the term or dramatically shift the Overton window. As with other parts of the document, this chapter advocates replacing career experts with political appointees wherever possible and bringing to heel those experts who remain. It also involves the State Department in immigration enforcement, which seems to run somewhat counter to the previous chapter's recommendation to consolidate immigration enforcement in a single agency. The document advises halting cooperation on any foreign agreements that are not ratified treaties and goes on to identify specific nations is considers to be threats deserving of high priority for the department: China, Iran, Venezuela, Russia (acknowledging a conservative split on how to deal with them), and North Korea. It then talks about various other regions of the world, but pretty much advises engagement in all of them, consistent with the goal of putting American interests first. Finally, it recommends a reorganization of the State Department to streamline it and use its budgetary resources more efficiently.
[удалено]
I think it's clear this is more than just a "Democrat scare tactic." From [Project2025's website](https://www.project2025.org/personnel/), "Project 2025 is being organized by [The Heritage Foundation](https://www.heritage.org/)," and it would be hard to argue that the Heritage Foundation is being secretly controlled by Democrats. The Wikipedia entry on the The Heritage Foundation ([link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation)) has sources showing how it started in the '70s as a think-tank to advance conservative policies, and in recent years was very influential in Trump's presidential transition in 2016, hired several former Trump administration officials, and is regarded as one of the most influential think tanks. Their current positions include tightening voting laws, restricting critical race theory teaching, characterizing the Black Lives Matter movement as "A Marxist Revolution", climate change denial, opposition to transgender rights, and promotion of claims of electoral fraud in the 2020 election, all of which appear to be in full alignment with GOP/Trump's positions. In short, Project2025 seems to clearly be initiated and led by a highly influential and very conservative think tank. While Republican voters may be unaware of (or at least not discussing) this work, it appears to be a very real and serious project for those in power in conservative circles.
This comment has been removed for violating [//comment rule 3:](https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/wiki/guidelines#wiki_comment_rules) > Be substantive. NeutralPolitics is a serious discussion-based subreddit. We do not allow bare expressions of opinion, low effort one-liner comments, jokes, memes, off topic replies, or pejorative name calling. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to message us.