U.S. Department of War scorecard in President Trump’s 2nd term

What are the successes of the Department of War (DOW) since President Trump began his second term?  And what things are not going so well and why.

The Good News

In 3 major operations in a span of less than 8 months the U. S. military has demonstrated a spectacular level of courage, skill, innovation, precision, and lethality to advance top foreign policy objectives of the nation, fixing for what we hope and pray for all time, multiple intractable problems in both Iran and Venezuela.

• Finally, we are taking out the terrorist regime in Iran with major help from Israel and support from other Middle East partner countries including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, and the UAE. Iran’s attacks on civilization for over 47 years are well documented to have cost thousands of American lives and have led to death and destruction of countless others across the middle east and around the world.  While it is early days, the outset of this latest major military operation is continuing with the same kind of exquisite planning, precision, and deadly success as the two other recent major military operations.
• In a spectacular and successful surgical strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities last June we showed the formidable and sophisticated power that our military can employ.  Meticulously planned and executed, it proved our consummate sets of war-fighting skills and unique capabilities halfway around the world with complete surprise, devastating effect, and zero casualties.   Iran and the entire world were stunned by these magnificent operations and everyone all over the world took notice, especially our potential adversaries.
• Operations in Venezuela shortly later, conducted the same sort of thing on a smaller scale with stealth, precision, and flawless execution. The U. S. was able to successfully extract the criminal Maduro from his hideaway and whisk him off to New York to face charges that will no doubt keep him in prison for the rest of his life.
• Strikes on terrorist organizations in other locations have increased in frequency and success.  The U. S. military has been extremely effective at striking and inhibiting terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al-Qaeda in the Middle East and Africa including in Somalia, Nigeria, Iraq, and Syria. All these operations were successful with few civilian casualties.
• The Iranian proxy (the Houthi’s) was destroyed or suppressed and eventually defeated in the Red Sea and Yemen and the sea lanes were re-opened to commerce.
• Israel received substantial support from the U. S. military in defeating Israel’s enemy Hamas and other supporting terrorist organizations and restoring peace to Gaza.  The tremendous humanitarian effort was aided by our military forces.  Almost immediate food relief was provided by the military and over 1000 military personnel helping with that relief.  A total of over $9B in U. S. humanitarian aid was provided and an added $21B was provided to Israel in military aid.
• The U. S. military was mobilized to protect the border in support of the Department of Homeland Security and together the immense problem with illegal aliens entering America in droves was solved completely.
• With dozens of precision strikes on cartel and other criminal drug smuggling enterprises the U. S. military has effectively reduced greatly the flood of illegal drugs from entering the country.
• Under Secretary of War’s inspirational leadership, the Department of War has shown extremely high effectiveness and success on every single challenge presented to it since President Trump came into office for the start of his second term. In addition to the operational success summarized above, the leadership of the senior leaders including Secretary Hegseth, Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, USAF General Caine, the new Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Caudle and others have distinguished themselves with exemplary leadership and remarkable success.  While there was a total of 6 high ranking flags removed early on in Trump’s second term including the sitting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the CNO, the percent “fired” was a tiny fraction of the over 838 flags in the military at a rate of less than 1%.  So much for the histrionics and handwringing over the changing of the guard when Trump became President for the second time.  And, in a refreshing and overdue decision, the Secretary of War has canceled the military’s “educational” relationship with top schools like Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, MIT, Brown, Yale, and others, starting next academic year 2026-2027 due to their persistence in practices inimical to merit in the military.  Lastly, he has ordered a top-down review of all the war colleges to make sure they are laser focused on war fighting and preparing our nation’s warriors to fight and win wars and not sidetracked by distractions.
• Aid to law enforcement has been significant in this past year with successful national guard deployments in support of law enforcement and our immigration laws in multiple locations including Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Memphis, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
• Recruiting and Retention has been up above target since January 2025 in all services.  This is due to renewed confidence in our military under the current administration and the great leadership being provided by the leaders in the DOW from Secretary Hegseth on down.
• Significant readiness improvements have accelerated in INDOPACOM with U. S. partnerships with allies including Japan, the Philippines, Australia, and Taiwan itself.  Many of these improvements have been documented in the Patriot Post in my recent articles on Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines. Taiwan with our help and that of our staunch allies is in a far better position to defend itself from potential attack by the PRC.

Areas of Concern

• Shipbuilding: There has been plentiful publicity about building up the Navy with the announcement of the “Golden Fleet” and bringing back the battleship, a new class of battleship, and a lot of talk on the strategic importance of shipbuilding and shipbuilding infrastructure.   But what has really happened in this area?  The answer is practically nothing.  The Navy will lose ground again in 2026 ending with an estimated 287 combat force ships, a net loss of 5 ships over last year.  In an earlier article I outlined a “Manhattan Project for ships”.  No such herculean effort is underway.  It is not exactly business as usual as there are speeches and promises that the situation is going to turn around but there is scant evidence that what has happened so far is making a difference.  The Constellation class Frigate is a good example.  The Secretary of the Navy announced the termination of the program with only two ships under construction to be completed and years later at that.  Instead of a new frigate, the Navy announced that the new frigate class which will be a knockoff of a U. S. Coast Guard National Security cutter design with a far less robust weapons suite than was planned for the Constellation class.  The new frigate will have no VLS, no air area defense, no ASW suite, no strike weapons.  At the rate, the Navy is now going, FY 2027 ship numbers will be even less than 2026 and the numbers do not start to rise until FY 2030 and then they only get up to the level we started with in 2026.  Somehow, the nation must do better than this, but I see no sign of any plans to change this trajectory.  Neither Congress nor the people have awoken to the dire state of the Navy despite calls from prominent naval experts about the dangers of a weak Navy.
• DEI. Institutional DEI resistance and disloyalty continue to be a problem.  Despite Presidential and DOW written guidance to end all DEI in the military, DEI zealots stay in place and serve as an impediment to the mission. For example, when books advocating racism were removed from the Naval Academy library, multiple civilian faculty members spoke out in favor of keeping the books in the library and criticized the Navy decision to review books carried. An official of the Defense Schools establishment spoke out bragging about ignoring the mandate to remove DEI from the DOW school curriculum. Reports of resistance to orders was the subject of a STARRS townhall in 2025.  Another example of this institutional inertia or outright resistance is the extremely slow progress of reinstating members harmed by the Vax mandate or DEI.  Thousands were hounded out of the service due to vax policy, a mandate found to be illegal by multiple courts and a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or whose careers were damaged or ruined by misguided DEI policy but very few have been reinstated, only a handful.  DOW can do better to restore those harmed by the illegal and destructive policies the last administration.

CAPT Brent Ramsey, (U.S. Navy, ret.) has written extensively on Defense and policy matters. He is a director with Calvert Task Group whose recent book, Don’t Give Up the Ship, was strongly endorsed by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Board of Advisors member for STARRS and the Center for Military Readiness, and member of the Military Advisory Group for Congressman Chuck Edwards (NC-11).   He supports many other military advocacy organizations such as Flag Officers 4 America, Veterans for Fairness and Merit, the Heritage Foundation, and the MacArthur Society of West Point Graduates.