After the Reagan National Defense Forum and Survey

A few days after last weekend’s Reagan Presidential Foundation National Defense Forum and the National Defense Survey that preceded it, Reagan Institute Washington director, Roger Zakheim, summed up the mood at the national security conference.

“There is building consensus on what we need to do in terms of what’s required vis-a-vis China, supporting Ukraine and Taiwan. There was bipartisan support for a robust defense budget – perhaps not what the Biden administration and the Secretary of Defense had proposed. At a national defense policy and strategy level there’s significant alignment on problems but varying views on whether or not we’re executing at the right clip or whether execution will happen. These things were amplified.”

Before attendees including Secretary of Defense Austin showed up, the Foundation’s Reagan National Defense survey sought to spotlight a number of issues worth discussing at the conference. Foremost among them was the question of Americans’ trust in the military and willingness to serve in it.

The survey found that trust in the military has declined markedly. Five years ago, 70% of respondents said they had a “great deal” of trust and confidence in the military. In 2021 that number had decreased to 45% – the first time that a minority of Americans had the highest level of confidence in the military. This year, the number nudged to 48%. The lack of trust expressed has a telling corollary; just 13% of those surveyed said they are highly willing to join the military.

Not surprisingly, the survey illustrated a relationship between how people feel about America (62% said it’s headed in the wrong direction) and how well they think its military is doing. Only 50% have high confidence that the U.S. military can keep the country safe. Just 44% are highly confident it can win a war overseas. Its ability to deter aggression was rated as high by only 44% and its ability to act in a professional and nonpolitical manner was seen as robust by just 35%.

Politicization of the military was cited as a key factor in decreased public confidence. A multi-partisan majority (62%) of those surveyed said politicization has decreased their confidence. This includes 60% of Democrats, 60% of Independents, and 65% of Republicans.

Half of respondents (largely Republicans) expressed concern over woke practices in the military while 46% (largely Democrats) said that so-called far-right or extremist individuals serving in the military decreased their confidence in the armed forces. The latter perception appears to be held despite the fact that the Biden administration’s “Countering Extremist Activity Working Group” identified fewer than 100 cases of extremism from the 2.1 million active forces, a rate of .005%.

The trust, recruitment and politicization questions made waves according to Zakheim who cited articles in the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post and television news coverage covering elements of the survey.

They were addressed at the Simi Valley meeting as well Reagan Institute policy director, Rachel Hoff, said. “The survey came up throughout the Forum at the opening plenary, at panels on recruiting challenges and the trends around declining trust and confidence, on Ukraine and China panels, and in the ‘fireside chat’ with the director of national intelligence.”

Secretary Austin did not mention politicization in his speech and while a question on politicization was asked of DNI, Avril Haines, she deflected it Zakheim says, claiming that she could only speak for the intelligence community, not the military.

However, a panel including congressman and former Marine, Mike Gallagher (R-WI), under-secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, Gil Cisneros, and senator and former Army Reserve officer, Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) directly addressed politicization and other survey issues. Their views generally aligned with their party or administration affiliations.

“There was clearly a difference of opinion over what the reality is,” Zakheim says, “but the survey made it clear that there is at least a perception [of politicization] on the part of the American people that needs to be addressed.”

Public perception of China and Russia as threats to America has solidified according to the survey; three-quarters of respondents now view China as an enemy, up from 65% in 2021 and 55% in 2018 while perception of Russia as a serious threat doubled, to 31% from 14% in 2021. The perception of increased threats and simultaneous decreased trust in the American military’s ability to thwart them was discussed at the Forum but opinions on linkage between the two were apparently hard to come by.

So was acknowledgment of serious military readiness challenges from the DoD civilian and uniformed contingent on hand Zakheim says. “The commandant of the Marine Corps surprised me. He was not willing to go there. During his panel, the Indo-Pacific commander [Admiral John C. Aquilino] did highlight his concerns that our posture and capacity is lagging behind.”

The lack enthusiasm for discussing readiness stands in contrast with the findings of the survey. “The American people are very concerned about China and they no longer believe that America’s military is the best,” Zakheim added. “They believe it’s one of the best.”

The areas in which the survey found a majority of Americans no longer believe the U.S. military is the best, merely “one of the best” globally include the areas of conventional weaponry, traditional manpower, cyber warfare/technology, high tech (artificial intelligence and missile technology) and notably, military leadership. The same held true for the military’s civilian leadership—meaning the Secretary of Defense and civilian leadership at the Department of Defense.

Survey respondents appear not to believe the U.S. has articulated a meaningful strategy for managing China. Over half (54%) of those polled say the country does not have a clear strategy while only 27% say yes, and 20% do not know.

Did these impressions have any obvious impact on the assembled military and DoD civilian officials at the Forum? “I think they’re making an impression in congress,” Zakheim opined. “As for the Pentagon, they’re marching to the same beat as their Secretary. I was impressed that, given all the uniformed and civilian leadership there, they lined up where Secretary Austin was in his speech.”

“If you talked to some of the under-secretaries like [Dr. William La Plante, under secretary defense, Acquisition and Sustainment],” Zakheim continues, “he feels there’s more work to be done in terms of increasing military capacity… But the [leadership] was generally pretty uniform in its message following Secretary Austin.”

Support for Ukraine, for continued supply of weapons and training assistance, was strong across Forum participants though some Republicans raised the issue of funding accountability. That feeling mirrored the survey results which illustrated a 57% majority affirming that the U.S. must continue to stand with the people of Ukraine but disagreement on the level of support with 39% of responders saying that America has sent about the right amount, 25% saying it has sent too little, and 24% asserting it has sent too much.

Concern over U.S. defense-industrial capacity was expressed, particularly in view of the munitions and weapons the Pentagon has sent to Ukraine. During another panel on the subject, Raytheon CEO, Greg Hayes, said that the conflict’s rate of consumption of U.S. munitions stockpiles has vastly outstripped current American industrial capacity. He pointed out that since last February transfers to Ukraine have eaten up five years of Javelin production and 13 years of production for portable anti-aircraft Stinger systems. “So the question is: How are we going to resupply, restock the inventories?” Hayes said.

“There was a lot of focus on what we have do to re China to make sure our military has the capacity in terms of munitions to deter and, if necessary, prevail,” Zakheim affirms, noting that senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) linked the challenge of supplying Ukraine to the even more daunting problem of provisioning U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific.

There were also examples of dissonance at the Forum. For example, DNI Haines called the degree to which China is developing frameworks for collecting foreign data “extraordinary” in response to a panel question about TikTok.

She went on to cite the risks presented by China’s propensity to use such information to target audiences including children for information campaigns and store for future uses. Despite speaking in front of an audience of present and past military, Haines said nothing about the widespread use of TikTok by American service members.

To the degree that the public outside defense policy circles paid attention to the Reagan Defense Forum, its Saturday schedule, displays of official consensus, policy disagreements and ambiguity is unlikely to change an unsettling trend seen in the survey that preceded it.

The number of Americans who say they are “very willing” to join the military and, if necessary, fight, is smaller by nearly half than the number (20%) who responded they are “not willing at all.”