Trump’s expected military reset: Culture war counteroffensive

President-elect Trump is expected to transform the U.S. military from the Pentagon, with promises to slash spending, thin the top ranks and roll back efforts to make the military more inclusive to transgender and women soldiers. 

While Trump has not presented clear policies for the Defense Department or yet named a nominee to head the Pentagon, his allies and former administration officials have laid out a blueprint for deep change. 

The plan includes controversial cultural war issues, reducing wasteful defense spending and decreasing the number of generals in the military, although it also includes less divisive measures, such as enhancing nuclear strategy, prioritizing China and building a resilient military. 

The 2024 Republican platform promises that the GOP “will ensure our military is the most modern, lethal and powerful force in the world.” 

“We will invest in cutting-edge research and advanced technologies, including an Iron Dome Missile Defense Shield, support our troops with higher pay,” the platform reads, and “get woke leftwing Democrats fired as soon as possible.” 

Peter Feaver, a professor of political science and public policy at Duke University who studies civil-military relations, said there remains “genuine confusion” as to what Trump’s actual policy priorities will be.

“Personnel is policy, so some of the confusion will be sorted out once we know who's going where,” he said. “There are some ideological divisions within Team Trump, and we don't know which division will win in the national security space,” he said.  

“There's some traditional hawks, and there's some neo-isolationist doves, and they all wrap themselves in the mantle of MAGA. And so we'll see which prevails.” 

The Republican party has focused on so-called “woke” policies that they accuse the Biden administration of implementing, including efforts on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), which the GOP says is harming military readiness by focusing on gender identify and race instead of strength. Democrats argue the DEI policies make the military more inclusive and therefore stronger through a diverse population that better represents America.  

Since taking over the House in January 2023, Republicans have tried to push through several provisions targeting DEI in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), but negotiators ultimately took out the most controversial GOP measures. 

Trump will have wide latitude to institute reforms at the Pentagon. But he will also have allies in Congress. Republicans have retaken control of the Senate and appear to be on track for a thin majority in the House. 

On the campaign trail, Trump has pledged to reverse transgender student protections and prevent transgender athletes from competing on sports teams that match their gender identity.  

Trump has been less clear on how he would address DEI in the military, but he previously imposed a ban on transgender service in the military, which Biden later reversed.

Though Trump has distanced himself from the “Project 2025” proposal created by the conservative Heritage Foundation, it may hold clues to how his administration will address the issue of transgender troops, along with other reforms. 

Christopher Miller, who was Trump’s acting secretary of defense from Nov. 9, 2020, until Jan. 20, 2021, wrote a chapter in the “Project 2025” blueprint about Pentagon reform. 

Miller outlined one major priority is to “eliminate Marxist indoctrination and divisive critical race theory programs and abolish newly established diversity, equity, and inclusion offices and staff.” 

“Reverse policies that allow transgender individuals to serve in the military. Gender dysphoria is incompatible with the demands of military service, and the use of public monies for transgender surgeries or to facilitate abortion for servicemembers should be ended,” Miller writes. 

Miller also called to reinstate servicemembers who were fired for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine, which the GOP-led House passed in a draft version of the NDAA earlier this year; to instruct officers to avoid carrying out a “social engineering agenda”; and to restrict “Marxist” teachings at military academies. 

The America First Policy Institute, a think tank closely aligned with Trump, also released a vision for transforming the military that includes efforts to “eliminate non-military issues such as climate change and democracy promotion from military doctrine and defense policies.” 

The think tank takes aim at Critical Race Theory, an academic concept that considers racism to be systemic, and wants to “review and revise” how the Pentagon filters servicemembers out for extremism.  

While it has not been explicitly mentioned, the Biden administration’s controversial policy to provide paid leave and reimbursement for servicemembers who travel for abortions could also be on the chopping block. 

These efforts would undo much of the Biden administration’s four years of policies, which have worked to root out extremist anti-government actors and ensure transgender and LGBTQ members can serve in the military and protect servicemembers right for reproductive freedom. 

The liberal American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said that Trump’s expected anti-transgender proposals, including preventing members from serving openly in the military, would mark a significant setback in rights for the community. 

“The effects of these cruel – and unconstitutional – discrimination efforts would be devastating,” the ACLU wrote in a June post.

In his “Project 2025” chapter, Miller also writes about reducing the number of generals, criticizing “rank creep” and the enlarging ratio of high-ranking officers to lower-ranking servicemembers. 

The criticism comes from the fact that today, there are more than 900 active-duty general and flag officers to some 1.3 million troops, while in World War II, there were some 2,000 officers for more than 12 million servicemembers. The ratio today is 1 officer for every 2,000 members, while in World War II, it was 1 for every 6,000 members.

Critics say the high ranks are too bloated and add an unnecessary level of bureaucracy to the military. 

“Every general has a staffing of colonels and majors chasing after him, and it just generates a whole bunch of excess bureaucracy,” said Dan Grazier, a senior fellow for the National Security Reform Program at the Stimson Center.   

But Feaver, from Duke University, said there is a real fear that reducing the number of generals will simply allow the Trump administration to politicize the military.

“The way that issue was framed, at least among folks during the campaign, was as a way to justify firing lots and lots of generals so that they could promote more politically loyal generals,” he said. “It was really an argument for politicizing the general-type officer ranks rather than improving it.” 

The America First Policy Institute also proposed eliminating waste from the defense budget, which is closing in on $900 billion, a price tag that has drawn concern from the far left and far right on Capitol Hill. 

In its proposal, the think tank argues that “tax dollars spent in the name of ‘defense’ that do not directly contribute to this mission are a diversion from it,” and criticized the “quasi-monopoly” of defense companies that serve the Pentagon and are accused of overcharging the federal agency.

Carlton Haelig, a fellow in the defense program at the Center for a New American Security, said the Pentagon could benefit from a more competitive defense industry, if that ends up being the aim of a Trump administration.

“I'd hope to see them encourage but also enable greater competition for new entrants to the defense industrial complex, because I do think that it's a stronger defense department when there's more options and there's more competition,” he said. 

Besides slashing DEI efforts, Republicans in Congress are likely to back eliminating steps the Biden administration has taken to prepare the military for climate change, including a plan to transition non-tactical vehicle fleets to clean or alternative energy by 2030. 

But it’s unclear whether there will be support from mainstream Republicans on reducing the defense budget any further. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who is poised to be chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has called for a “generational” increase in defense spending. 

Katherine Elgin, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, said there are unlikely to be dramatic defense cuts under the Trump administration, but it was dependent on who was leading the Pentagon. 

“We're likely to see either stability or an increase,” she said. “Who he chooses is going to be a real sign of what the priorities are going to be.”