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ASVAB-Paragraph-comp
ASVAB Section 8: Paragraph comprehension
http://killexams.com/pass4sure/exam-detail/ASVAB-Paragraph-comp Question: 143
Due process, the guarantee of fairness in the administration of justice, is part of the 5th Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution. The 14th Amendment further requires states to abide by due process. After this amendment was
enacted, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down many state laws that infringed on the civil rights guaranteed to
citizens in the Bill of Rights.
According to the above passage, it’s reasonable to assume that the 5th Amendment ___________.
A. is about taxes
B. guarantees due process in all criminal and civil cases
C. guarantees due process in federal law
D. should never have become part of the Bill of Rights Answer: C
Because the 14th Amendment guarantees due process in states’ laws, the 5th Amendment must guarantee due
process only in federal law. Nothing in the passage implies that the 5th Amendment is about taxes, so Choice " is
about taxes " is wrong.
Because the passage states that the 14th Amendment had to be enacted to require states to abide by due process,
Choice "guarantees due process in all criminal and civil cases" is incorrect. Choice "should never have become
part of the Bill of Rights" is neither stated nor implied in the passage. Question: 144
High-school and college graduates attempting to find jobs should participate in mock job interviews. These mock
interviews help students prepare for the types of questions they’ll be asked, make them more comfortable with
common interview formats, and help them critique their performance before facing a real interviewer. Because
they’re such a valuable aid, schools should organize mock job interviews for all of their graduating students.
The above passage states that mock job interviews ___________.
A. frighten students
B. should be offered to the best students
C. help prepare students for real job interviews
D. should be organized by students Answer: C
The passage doesn’t say anything about mock job interviews being frightening, so Choice "frighten students" is
wrong.
The passage says that mock job interviews should be available to all students, so Choice "should be offered to the
best students" is wrong. The passage says that schools, not students, should organize mock interviews, so Choice
"should be organized by students" is incorrect. Question: 145
High-school and college graduates attempting to find jobs should participate in mock job interviews. These mock
interviews help students prepare for the types of questions they’ll be asked, make them more comfortable with
common interview formats, and help them critique their performance before facing a real interviewer. Because
they’re such a valuable aid, schools should organize mock job interviews for all of their graduating students.
From the above passage, it is reasonable to assume that ___________.
A. mock interviews can increase a student’s confidence when he or she goes into a real job interview
B. mock interviews are expensive to organize
C. few students are interested in mock interviews
D. students don’t need job interview preparation Answer: A
Choices "mock interviews are expensive to organize", "few students are interested in mock interviews", "students
don’t need job interview preparation" are the opposite of what the paragraph states and implies. Question: 146
I returned from the City about three o’clock on that May afternoon pretty well disgusted with life. I had been three
months in the Old Country and was fed up with it. If people had told me a year ago that I would’ve been feeling
like that I should’ve laughed at them; but there was the fact. The weather made me liverish, the talk of the ordinary
Englishman made me sick, I couldn’t get enough exercise, and the amusements of London seemed as flat as soda
water that had been standing in the sun.
The author is speaking of his travels in __________.
A. Spain
B. Great Britain
C. Germany
D. Scotland Answer: B
The words London and Englishmen make it clear that the author is speaking of his travels in England (Great
Britain). Question: 147
Surveys show that the average child under the age of 18 watches four hours of television per day. Although some
of the programming may be educational, most isn’t. Spending this much time watching television interferes with a
child’s ability to pursue other interests, such as reading, participating in sports, and playing with friends.
The author of this passage would agree that ___________.
A. television viewing should be restricted
B. parents who let their children watch this much television is neglectful
C. reading, participating in sports, playing with friends, and watching television should all be given equal
time
D. adults over 18 can watch as much television as they want Answer: A
The author makes no reference to parents in the passage, so Choice "parents who let their children watch this
much television is neglectful" is incorrect.
The author doesn’t imply anything about all these interests requiring equal time, so Choice "reading, participating
in sports, playing with friends, and watching television should all be given equal time" is incorrect. The passage is
about children under 18; no conclusion can be drawn about what the author thinks people over 18 should do, so
Choice "adults over 18 can watch as much television as they want" is incorrect. Question: 148
To write or not to write – that is the question. If assigned a writing task, there’s no option. However, if someone is
looking for a specific answer, find out if they need a short answer or a detailed one. Can the requirement be met
with a telephone call, e-mail, or short note, or is something more necessary? A former CEO of a major corporation
once commented that he had looked at 13,000 pieces of paper in a 5-day period. Think how much easier and more
economical it would be if people would use the telephone, send an e-mail, or write a short note.
The main point of this passage is ___________.
A. Written records are important as they provide detailed documentation.
B. More business people should invest time and energy improving their writing skills.
C. Writing may not be the best way to communicate information.
D. It’s pointless for business people to spend time improving their writing skills. Answer: C
Choices "Written records are important as they provide detailed documentation." and "More business people
should invest time and energy improving their writing skills." may be true in certain situations, but they’re not the
point of this particular paragraph.
The passage doesn’t say anything about working to improve writing skills being a waste of time, so Choice "It’s
pointless for business people to spend time improving their writing skills" is incorrect. The main point of the
paragraph is that writing may not be the most efficient way of communicating, depending on the situation. Question: 149
The transistor, a small, solid-state device that can amplify sound, was invented in 1947. At first, it was too
expensive and too difficult to produce to be used in cheap, mass-market products. By 1954, though, these cost and
production problems had been overcome, and the first transistor radio was put on the market.
According to this passage, ___________.
A. there was no market for transistors before 1954
B. when transistors could be produced cheaply and easily, the transistor radio was put on the market
C. transistors were invented in 1947 by order of the Department of Defense
D. transistors are still expensive to produce Answer: B
Products with transistors weren’t widely sold before 1954 because of the expense and difficulty of production, not
because markets didn’t exist; so Choice "there was no market for transistors before 1954" is incorrect. Choices
"transistors were invented in 1947 by order of the Department of Defense" and "transistors are still expensive to
produce" aren’t supported in the passage. The passage states that the problem of transistors being expensive and
difficult to produce was solved by 1954. Question: 150
The success or failure of a conference lies largely with its leader. A leader’s zest and enthusiasm must be real,
apparent, and contagious. The leader is responsible for getting the ball rolling and making the attendees feel as if
the meeting is theirs and its success depends on their participation. A good, thorough introduction helps establish
the right climate.
A good title to this paragraph would be ___________.
A. Lead by Example
B. The Importance of Proper Introductions
C. Leading a Successful Conference
D. Conference Participation Basics Answer: C
Choice "Lead by Example" is always a good philosophy but isn’t pertinent to the main point of the passage.
Choices "The Importance of Proper Introductions" and "Conference Participation Basics" are subpoints, which
support the main point of the passage, which is how to lead a successful conference. Question: 151
Cloud seeding is accomplished by dropping particles of dry ice (solid carbon dioxide) from a plane onto super-
cooled clouds. This process encourages condensation of water droplets in the clouds, which usually, but not always,
results in rain or snow.
From this passage, it’s reasonable to assume that __________.
A. cloud seeding could be used to end a drought
B. cloud seeding is prohibitively expensive
C. cloud seeding is rarely used
D. cloud seeding can be accomplished by using regular ice Answer: A
One can assume that causing rain or snow would end a drought. Nothing in the passage has to do with expense, so
Choice "cloud seeding is prohibitively expensive" is incorrect.
The passage says nothing about how frequently the process is used, so Choice "cloud seeding is rarely used" is
incorrect.
The passage specifies that dry ice (solid carbon dioxide) is used; solid water (regular ice) is a different chemical,
so Choice "cloud seeding can be accomplished by using regular ice" is wrong. Question: 152
Indo-European languages consist of those languages spoken by most of Europe and in those parts of the world that
Europeans have colonized since the 16th century (such as the United States). Indo-European languages are also
spoken in India, Iran, parts of western Afghanistan, and in some areas of Asia. The author of this passage would
agree that ___________.
A. Indo-European languages are spoken in areas all over the world
B. Indo-European languages include all the languages spoken in the world
C. only Europeans speak Indo-European languages
D. Indo-European language speakers can easily understand one another Answer: A
Many languages are excluded from the Indo-European language group, so Choice "Indo-European languages
include all the languages spoken in the world" is incorrect.
Indians, Iranians, Asians, and Afghans aren’t Europeans, so Choice "only Europeans speak Indo-European
languages" is incorrect.
The passage gives no evidence to support Choice "Indo-European language speakers can easily understand one
another", which isn’t true. Question: 153
In privatization, the government relies on the private sector to provide a service. However, the government divests
itself of the entire process, including all assets. With privatized functions, the government may specify quality,
quantity, and timeliness requirements, but it has no control over the operations of the activity. Also, the government
may not be the only customer. Whoever the government chooses to provide the services would likely provide the
same services to others.
This paragraph best supports the statement that __________.
A. the government must closely supervise privatized functions
B. privatized functions consist of a mixture of government employees, military personnel, and private
contractors
C. privatized functions are those institutions that provide services only to a government agency
D. privatized functions provide essential services to the government Answer: D
Privatized functions operate independently of the government, making Choices "the government must closely
supervise privatized functions" and "privatized functions consist of a mixture of government employees, military
personnel, and private contractors" incorrect.
The passage states that privatized functions may sell goods and services to other customers as well as the
government, so Choice "privatized functions are those institutions that provide services only to a government
agency" is also incorrect.
Choice "privatized functions provide essential services to the government" is the correct answer, as privatized
functions do perform essential services to government agencies. Question: 154
An important stage of personal time management is to take control of appointments. Determined by external
obligation, appointments constitute interaction with other people and an agreed-on interface between your activities
and those of others. Start with a simple appointment diary. List all appointments including regular and recurring
ones. Now, be ruthless and eliminate the unnecessary. There may be committees where you can’t productively
contribute or where a subordinate may be able to participate. Eliminate the waste of your time.
Effectively managing your appointments allows you to __________.
A. spend more time with your subordinates
B. delegate responsibility to subordinates
C. make more efficient use of your time
D. attend only the most important meetings Answer: C
Effective appointment management eliminates the waste of your time, as explained in the last sentence of the
passage. Question: 155
The U.S. Congress consists of 100 senators and 435 representatives. Two senators are elected from each state. The
number of representatives from each state is based on population, although each state has at least one
representative. Senators serve six-year terms and representatives serve two-year terms.
According to this passage, ___________.
A. there are an equal number of senators and representatives
B. the number of representatives from each state is decided by a lottery
C. it’s possible for a state to have no representatives
D. senators and representatives have different term lengths Answer: D
The passage gives the numbers of senators and representatives, so Choice "there are an equal number of senators
and representatives" is incorrect.
The passage states that each state’s population determines the number of representatives a state has, so Choice
"the number of representatives from each state is decided by a lottery" is incorrect. As stated in the passage, each
state has at least one representative, so Choice "it’s possible for a state to have no representatives" is incorrect.
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The Military Science Program offers classes open to all Santa Clara students and the Bronco Battalion, an Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) battalion of cadets from Santa Clara University, Stanford University, San Jose State University, and UC Santa Cruz. We are designed to develop management skills and leadership abilities for successful careers in both the corporate world and the military.
Sun, 09 Jul 2023 09:53:00 -0500entext/htmlhttps://www.scu.edu/cas/military-science/Military & DefenseNo result found, try new keyword!but it looks to be going after different targets Ukraine struck a new $250 million Russian artillery radar system right after the military touted its arrival A Ukrainian unit rescued a captured ...Wed, 03 Jan 2024 05:04:00 -0600en-UStext/htmlhttps://www.businessinsider.com/defenseMilitary Student Admission
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Military Veterans
We recognize the challenges that can come when transitioning from a military career to an academic one, and we work hard to make the move easy.
For those students looking to become commissioned officers in the military, SLU proudly participates in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) programs for both the U.S. Army and Air Force. Scholarships are available through both programs.
Fri, 27 Oct 2023 04:59:00 -0500entext/htmlhttps://www.slu.edu/admission/military/index.phpMilitary Capabilities
Janes verified and validated, structured orders of battle draw on and link data sets, including more than 9,200 military installations; 18,800 military units; and 9,000 inventoried weapon and support systems. In addition to being linked to parent and subordinate units, installations, and equipment, military units are classified by service, status (active/reserve), echelon, domain, and role.
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Janes has the most comprehensive and updated unclassified military inventory database in the world, with more than 8,000 lines of land and air forces inventory covering 190 countries. Each line of inventory includes the platform, manufacturer, by service operator, and number of systems in service, as well as order numbers and initial delivery dates where available. Janes naval inventory includes more than 22,000 vessels of 2,400 different classes broken down by country. Â
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Connected, structured equipment data that delivers unique insights
With more than 41,000 profiles, Janes offers the only single resource for comprehensive, unclassified, and up-to-date intelligence on military equipment (air, sea, land, and space) in production and in use around the globe. By structuring and connecting this data to the inventories for more than 190 countries, orders of battle for 18,600 military units, and 9,200 bases, Janes is uniquely positioned to provide you with timely, accurate, and validated intelligence to support entity recognition, capability assessment, and market analysis
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The example below shows Janes analysis of Airbus Defence and Space imagery of Iranian S-300PMU-2 deployments at Mashhad, Iran
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Identify, analyse, and forecast risk over the next 12 months for your chosen country. Ratings are based on qualitative analysis from the previous month across five main categories – political, infrastructure, internal security, external, and economic – and 20 sub-categories.Â
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Wed, 04 Oct 2023 15:47:00 -0500entext/htmlhttps://www.janes.com/osint-capabilities/military-threat-intelligence/military-capabilitiesNation's military mobilized for annual training
The Chinese military has opened its annual training sessions for 2024, focusing on improving combat capability.
On Tuesday, the People's Liberation Army Ground Force held a launch ceremony at a training ground in Guangdong to mark the beginning of the annual training.
General Li Qiaoming, commander of the Ground Force, and General Qin Shutong, the force's political commissar, took part in the ceremony and addressed more than 3,000 troops from a combined brigade.
After the ceremony, Li and Qin and other top commanders instructed troops and also checked other units' training via video link.
Combat ships, submarines and aircraft from the PLA Navy have been mobilized for live-fire exercises. Sailors and naval aviators honed their skills in gunfire, missile launching, electronic warfare operations and air-defense and anti-submarine tasks.
The PLA Air Force said its aviation and air-defense units have taken part in intense drills since the beginning of the new year, publishing a video showing aircraft, radars and missile launchers in action.
The People's Armed Police Force also organized mass gatherings at its units' training grounds across the country, putting officers and soldiers in realistic battle scenarios.
Meanwhile, all of the PLA's regional theater commands — central, northern, eastern, southern and western — have ordered forces under their direct control to carry out training and exercises according to the latest annual plans. Commanders stressed that troops must continue to improve their joint operational capabilities.
In another development, the PLA Southern Theater Command announced that it has organized naval and air forces to conduct routine patrols in the South China Sea on Wednesday and Thursday.
It said its forces always remain on high alert and will resolutely defend national sovereignty, security, and maritime rights and interests.
Any military activities by foreign forces aiming to cause disturbances and tensions or sensationalize regional situations in the South China Sea are under close watch by the armed forces, the command noted.
Thu, 04 Jan 2024 23:43:00 -0600text/htmlhttps://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202401/05/WS6597628fa3105f21a507aba5.htmlRussian military
Updates on the Russian military. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is the world's fifth-largest military force and Russian President Vladimir Putin is the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. With a budget of nearly $70 billion, Russia's armed forces holds the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world and the world's second largest fleet of ballistic submarines.
The video appears to be shot from a Ukrainian airborne drone and shows targets being struck from a distance.
By Isabel van Brugen On 1/5/24 at 8:17 AM EST
If Russia's Kinzhal missiles struck their targets on Tuesday, "the consequences would be catastrophic," Ukraine's lead commander said.
By Ellie Cook On 1/4/24 at 10:35 AM EST
The reported incident comes not long after Ukraine claimed Russia had lost three of its $50 million Sukhoi Su-34 bombers in a single day.
By Isabel van Brugen On 1/4/24 at 7:31 AM EST
Igor Trifonov's lawyer said he went to fight in Ukraine because "wanted to prove to his homeland that he did not do this."
By Isabel van Brugen On 1/3/24 at 9:10 AM EST
Russia's Defense Ministry said that it had targeted ammunition depots in a battle in the Donetsk oblast.
By Brendan Cole On 1/2/24 at 8:50 AM EST
A Ukrainian Air Force spokesman stressed that the country's stock of Patriot systems was still limited.
By Thomas Kika On 12/31/23 at 5:19 PM EST
"Our young generation are being killed," one unnamed Russian man said. "So many of them. We didn't need this war."
By Thomas Kika On 12/31/23 at 12:33 PM EST
Some Russian snipers are reportedly using Western-made rifle scopes along the frontlines in Ukraine.
By Kaitlin Lewis On 12/26/23 at 1:30 PM EST
"Russia's dominance in the Black Sea is now challenged," the U.K. Defense Secretary, Grant Shapps, said on Tuesday.
By Ellie Cook On 12/26/23 at 8:28 AM EST
"In total, five 'Su' aircraft were shot down in the week before Christmas," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday.
By Ellie Cook On 12/26/23 at 7:56 AM EST
The Ukrainian air force claimed to have destroyed the "Novocherkassk," although Moscow only admitted the vessel had been damaged.
By Giulia Carbonaro On 12/26/23 at 4:10 AM EST
Kremlin propagandist and television presenter Vladimir Solovyov wants Russia to take over United States military bases in Europe.
By Gabe Whisnant On 12/25/23 at 3:36 PM EST
Moscow's troops have focused on making "several smaller" advances along the front lines and have regained momentum, but at the cost of high casualty rates.
By Kaitlin Lewis On 12/22/23 at 6:51 PM EST
The Russian commander has been ordered to pay about 14 million rubles ($151,500) in damages.
By Isabel van Brugen On 12/22/23 at 9:59 AM EST
Russia has lost more than 350,000 Russian troops in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched by Vladimir Putin, Kyiv said.
By Isabel van Brugen On 12/21/23 at 10:40 AM EST
A U.S. volunteer told Newsweek that recovery teams say "this is the most Russian bodies they've seen" in the war.
By Isabel van Brugen On 12/21/23 at 6:43 AM EST
The Kremlin has accused so-called "saboteurs" of being behind a number of incidents on Russian soil since the war began.
By Isabel van Brugen On 12/18/23 at 8:06 AM EST
The Institute for the Study of War said that a Russian victory in Ukraine would put significant pressure on NATO.
By Giulia Carbonaro On 12/15/23 at 5:13 AM EST
Moscow has lost a total of 342,800 troops since February 24, 2022, Kyiv's military said on Thursday.
By Ellie Cook On 12/14/23 at 6:28 AM EST
Moscow's troops have sustained heavy losses in terms of vehicles in their slow advance around the town of Adviivka, with Kyiv putting up fierce resistance.
By Ellie Cook On 12/12/23 at 5:19 AM EST
Several local leaders have announced plans to cut back on holiday celebrations and instead send money to Russia's troops on the front lines.
By Kaitlin Lewis On 12/8/23 at 7:38 PM EST
The soldier attempted to say he had received a key tip that has helped him carry out offensives in Ukraine unharmed.
By Isabel van Brugen On 12/6/23 at 12:26 PM EST
Eastern Ukrainian towns caught in the frontlines between Russia and Ukraine have been nearly completely ruined.
By Kaitlin Lewis On 12/5/23 at 2:18 PM EST
Soldiers are being thrown into battle as part of "meat assaults" to seize Avdiivka, even if they have injuries, relatives said.
By Isabel van Brugen On 12/5/23 at 12:07 PM EST
The name Khokhlov can be viewed as deriving from the word "Khokhol", which is a derogatory Russian term for Ukrainians.
By Isabel van Brugen On 12/5/23 at 6:44 AM EST
Major General Vladimir Zavadsky died "at a combat post in the [war in Ukraine]," a Russian governor confirmed.
By Isabel van Brugen On 12/4/23 at 6:35 AM EST
Pundit Stanislav Krapivnik suggested that the Baltics would be next in Russia's quest to restore its empire.
By Thomas Kika On 12/3/23 at 1:45 PM EST
Russian President Vladimir Putin "believes that he can outlast the Ukrainians," U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Saturday.
By Ellie Cook On 12/3/23 at 12:04 PM EST
Russian forces likely struck a decoy version of the aircraft, some war observers have assessed.
By Isabel van Brugen On 12/1/23 at 8:00 AM EST
British defense officials said Moscow's heavy losses have largely been caused by Russia's offensive against Avdiivka.
By Isabel van Brugen On 12/1/23 at 5:24 AM EST
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Sun, 31 Dec 2023 08:18:00 -0600entext/htmlhttps://www.newsweek.com/topic/russian-militaryA Military Loyal to Trump
If Donald Trump wins the next election, he will attempt to turn the men and women of the United States armed forces into praetorians loyal not to the Constitution, but only to him. This project will likely be among his administration’s highest priorities. It will not be easy: The overwhelming majority of America’s service people are professionals and patriots. I know this from teaching senior officers for 25 years at the Naval War College. As president, Trump came to understand it too, when he found that “his generals” were not, in fact, mere employees of a Trump property.
Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.
But the former president and the people around him have learned from that experience. The last time around, Trump’s efforts to pack the Defense Department with cranks and flunkies came too late to bring the military under his full political control. The president and his advisers were slow-footed and disorganized, and lacked familiarity with Washington politics. They were hindered as well by the courage and professionalism of the military officers and civilian appointees who, side by side, serve in the Defense Department.
In a second term, Trump would combine his instincts for revenge and self-protection. He would seek not only to get even with an officer corps that he thinks betrayed him, but also to break the military as one of the few institutions able to constrain his attempts to act against the Constitution and the rule of law.
Publicly, Trump presents himself as an unflinching advocate for the military, but this is a charade. He has no respect for military people or their devotion to duty. He loves the pomp and the parades and the salutes and the continual use of “sir,” but as retired Marine General John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, said in 2023, Trump “couldn’t fathom people who served their nation honorably” when he was in office. Privately, as Goldberg has reported, Trump has called American war dead “losers” and “suckers,” and has said that wounded warriors are disgusting and should be kept out of sight.
Trump instead prizes military people who serve his ego and support his antidemocratic instincts. He thinks highly of Flynn, for example, who had to resign after 22 days as national security adviser and is now the marquee attraction at various gatherings of Christian nationalists and conspiracy theorists around the country. In late 2020, angered by his election loss and what he saw as the disloyalty within the national-security community, Trump fired or forced out top Defense Department leaders and tried to replace them with people more like Flynn. The brazen actions that the 45th president took in his final, desperate weeks in office—however haphazard—illustrate the magnitude of the threat he may pose to the military if he is reelected.
On November 9, 2020, Trump dumped Esper and named Christopher Miller, a retired colonel and Pentagon bureaucrat, as acting secretary of defense. Miller took along Kash Patel, a Trump sycophant, as his chief of staff. Trump sent Douglas Macgregor, another retired colonel and a pro-Russia Fox News regular, to Miller as a senior adviser. (Earlier, Trump had attempted and failed to make Macgregor the ambassador to Germany.) Trump installed Anthony Tata—a retired one-star Army general who has claimed that Barack Obama is a Muslim and that a former CIA director was trying to have Trump assassinated—in the third-most-senior job at the Pentagon. A few months earlier, the Senate had wisely declined to confirm Tata’s appointment to that position, but in November, Trump gave him the job in an acting capacity anyway.
These moves, among others, led all 10 living former secretaries of defense to issue a startling and unprecedented joint statement. On January 3, 2021, they directly enjoined Miller and his subordinates to uphold their constitutional duty and “refrain from any political actions that undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team.” The letter pointedly reminded Miller and his team that they were “bound by oath, law and precedent,” and called upon them, “in the strongest terms,” to honor “the history of democratic transition in our great country.”
Listen to Tom Nichols discuss this article with Hanna Rosin on Radio Atlantic:
If reelected, Trump would attempt to gain authoritarian control of the Defense Department’s uppermost levels from the very beginning. There are more Anthony Tatas and Douglas Macgregors out there, and Trump’s allies are likely already seeking to identify them. If the Senate refused to confirm Trump’s appointees, it wouldn’t matter much: Trump has learned that he can keep rotating people through acting positions, daring the Senate to stop him.
The career civil servants underneath these appointees—who work on everything from recruiting to nuclear planning—would disobey Trump if he attacked the constitutional order. These civilians, by law, cannot be fired at will, a problem Trump tried to remedy in the last months of his administration by proposing a new category of government appointments (Schedule F) that would have converted some of the most important civil-service positions into political appointments directly controlled by the White House. President Joe Biden immediately repealed this move after taking office, but Trump has vowed to reinstate it.
In his two-pronged offensive to capture the military establishment while eviscerating the civil service, Trump would likely rely on former officers such as Miller and fringe-dwelling civilians such as Patel, but he would also almost certainly find at least a few serving senior officers—he would not need many—who would accept his offer to abandon their oath. Together, they would make a run at changing the nature of the armed forces.
This is not abstract theorizing. The Heritage Foundation recently released “Project 2025,” a right-wing blueprint for the next Republican president’s administration. The Defense Department chapter was written by none other than former Acting Secretary Christopher Miller. It is mostly a rationalization for more spending, but it includes a clear call for a purge of the military’s senior ranks to clean out “Marxist indoctrination”—an accusation he does not define—along with demands for expelling trans service members and reinstating those service members who were dismissed for refusing COVID vaccinations.
The problems of ideological polarization and extremism in the armed forces are not as extensive as some critics of the military imagine, but they are more worrisome than the military leadership would like to admit. Military officers tend to be more conservative than the public, and as far back as the Clinton and Obama administrations, I occasionally heard senior officers speak of these liberal presidents in deeply contemptuous terms (potentially a crime under military regulations). Today, military bases are subjected to a constant barrage of Fox News in almost every area with a television, and toward the end of my teaching career (I retired in 2022), I often heard senior officers repeating almost verbatim some of the most overheated and paranoid talking points about politics and national affairs from the network’s prime-time hosts. Some of these officers would be tempted to answer Trump’s call.
The rest of the members of the professional military, despite their concerns, would likely follow their instincts and default to the orders of their chain of command. The American political system was never intended to cope with someone like Trump; the military is trained and organized to obey, not resist, the orders of the civilian commander in chief.
Trump’s plans would likely use this obedience to the chain of command to exploit an unfortunate vulnerability in the modern American armed forces: The military, in my experience, has a political-literacy problem. Too many people in uniform no longer have a basic grounding in the constitutional foundation of American government and the civil-military relationship. (Some of my colleagues who teach in senior-military educational institutions share this concern, and over the years, some of us have tried, often in vain, to push more study of the Constitution into the curricula.) These men and women are neither unintelligent nor disloyal. Rather, like many Americans, they are no longer taught basic civics, and they may struggle with the line between executing the orders of the president as the commander in chief and obeying the Constitution.
Trump’s appointees also would be able to influence the future of the armed forces through assignments and promotions (and non-promotions) within each branch—and through their behavior as examples to the rest of the military. With top cover from the White House, Trump’s functionaries in the Pentagon, working with his supporters in the ranks, could poison the military for years to come by ignoring laws, regulations, and traditions as they see fit. (Recall, for example, that Trump is an admirer of the disgraced Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, and intervened to make sure Gallagher kept his SEAL Trident after he was charged with war crimes and found guilty of posing for photos with a captive’s dead body.) America’s military is built on virtues such as honor and duty, but abusing and discarding the norms that support those virtues would change the military’s culture—and faster than we may realize.
Even if only some of the actions I’ve described here succeed, any number of disasters might follow. Trump could jeopardize national security by surrounding himself with military and defense officials who would help him dissolve our alliances (especially NATO), weaken our military readiness, undermine our intelligence services, and abandon our friends around the world, all while he seeks closer relations with authoritarian regimes—especially Vladimir Putin’s Russia. He could issue illegal orders to engage in torture or to commit other war crimes overseas. And he could bring the entire planet to disaster should senior military leaders obey his unhinged orders to kill foreign leaders, start a war, or even use nuclear weapons.
At home, Trump could order unconstitutional shows of military support for his administration to intimidate his opponents. He could order American soldiers into the streets against protesters. (Trump’s allies are reportedly drawing up plans to invoke the Insurrection Act on Inauguration Day to quell any demonstrations against his return to office.) Officers refusing such orders could be dismissed or reassigned, which in turn could provoke a political confrontation between the Trump loyalists in the high command and the rest of the armed forces, itself a frightening and previously unthinkable prospect.
Some Americans fear that the United States is already in a struggle with fascism. The firm constitutional loyalty of the armed forces during Trump’s presidency was a reminder that such fears are overblown, at least for the moment. But Trump and his allies understand that by leaving the military outside their political control the last time around, they also left intact a crucial bulwark against their plans. They will not make the same mistake twice.
This article appears in theJanuary/February 2024print edition with the headline “A Military Loyal to Trump.”
Thu, 07 Dec 2023 10:00:00 -0600entext/htmlhttps://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/01/trump-defense-department-military-loyalty/676140/Early Bird Brief
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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 00:37:00 -0500entext/htmlhttps://www.militarytimes.com/ebb/Where Was the Israeli Military?
The Israeli government had determined that the loosely organized civilian guard, known as Kitat Konnenut, would serve as the first line of defense in the towns and villages near the border. But the guardsmen had different standards of training depending on who was in charge. For years, they warned that some of their units were poorly trained and underequipped, according to two Israeli military officials with direct knowledge of the volunteer teams.
Additionally, the Israeli military reservists were not prepared to quickly mobilize and deploy. Some described heading south on their own initiative.
Davidi Ben Zion, 38, a major in the reserves, said reservists never trained to respond at a moment’s notice to an invasion. The training assumed that Israeli intelligence would learn of a looming invasion in advance, giving reservists time to prepare to deploy.
“The procedure states that we have the battalion ready for combat in 24 hours,” he said. “There’s a checklist to authorize the distribution of everything. We practiced this for many years.”
Hamas capitalized on these errors in ways that further delayed the Israeli response. Terrorists blocked key highway intersections, leaving soldiers bogged down in firefights as they tried to enter besieged towns. And the Hamas siege on the military base in southern Israel crippled the regional command post, paralyzing the military response.
Much remains unknown about that day, including what orders were given inside Israel’s senior military leadership in Tel Aviv, and when. The Times investigation builds on and adds new details to aggressive coverage in the Israeli media of the military response.
Officers and reservists who headed south that morning, whether under orders or on their own, soon learned of the chaos that they were entering.
Gen. Barak Hiram, who was scheduled to soon take over command of a division along the Gaza border, drove south to see firsthand how the soldiers there responded to what seemed like a routine Hamas attack.
In an interview, he recalled the text messages he received from soldiers he knew in the region.
“Come save us.”
“Send the army, quickly, they are killing us.”
“Sorry we’re turning to you, we’re already out of weapons.”
Commando units were among the first to mobilize that morning. Some said they rushed into the fight after receiving messages pleading for help or learning about the infiltrations from social media.
Other units were on standby and received formal activation orders.
The small size of the teams suggested that commanders fundamentally misunderstood the threat. Troops rolled out with pistols and assault rifles, enough to face a band of hostage-taking terrorists, but not to go into full-scale battle.
Previously undisclosed documents reviewed by The Times show just how drastically the military misread the situation. Records from early in the day show that, even during the attack, the military still assessed that Hamas, at best, would be able to breach Israel’s border fence in just a few places. A separate intelligence document, prepared weeks later, shows that Hamas teams actually breached the fence in more than 30 locations and quickly moved deep into southern Israel.
Hamas fighters poured into Israel with heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, land mines and more. They were prepared to fight for days. Israeli commandos apparently believed they would be fighting for just hours; one said he set out that morning without his night-vision goggles.
“The terrorists had a distinct tactical advantage in firepower,” said Yair Ansbacher, 40, a reservist in a counterterrorism unit who fought on Oct. 7. He and his colleagues mainly used pistols, assault rifles and sometimes sniper rifles, he said.
The situation was so dire that at 9 a.m., the head of Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security agency, issued a rare order. He told all combat-trained, weapons-carrying employees to go south. Shin Bet does not normally activate with the military. Ten Shin Bet operatives were killed that day.
Making matters worse, the military has acknowledged that it moved two commando companies — more than 100 soldiers — to the West Bank just two days before the attack, a reflection of Israel’s mistaken belief that a Hamas attack was not an imminent threat.
That left three infantry battalions and one tank battalion along Gaza’s border. But Oct. 7 was the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, and the Sabbath. One senior military officer estimated that about half the 1,500 soldiers in the area were away. He said that another infantry battalion had been reassigned years earlier after Israel finished building a security wall around Gaza.
Whether Hamas knew that the military was understaffed is unclear, but it had fatal consequences. When the attacks began, many soldiers were fighting for their lives instead of protecting residents nearby. Hamas stormed one base, Nahal Oz, forcing soldiers to abandon it and leave behind dead friends.
And just as the civilian volunteers had warned, the first line of defense inside Israel was quickly overwhelmed. Some units barely had enough weapons for an hourslong battle, officials said.
Hamas also worked strategically to weaken Israel’s advantage in firepower. Terrorists targeted Israeli tanks, hitting several of them, said Brig. Gen. Hisham Ibrahim, the commander of the armored corps. Tanks ran out of ammunition, leaving crews to fight with ground soldiers.
In another instance widely covered in the Israeli media, Hamas fired on an Israeli helicopter, forcing it down near Gaza. The paratroopers escaped injury before the helicopter burst into flames.
All of this should have been a clear sign that Israel was under broad attack, facing a dire situation.
But Hamas made another strategic strike that morning that all but blinded Israel’s military at a critical moment.
Fri, 29 Dec 2023 17:43:00 -0600entext/htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/30/world/middleeast/israeli-military-hamas-failures.htmlCriticize This African Country’s Army and You Might Be Drafted
One Friday earlier this month, just as Dr. Daouda Diallo stepped out of the passport office in the capital of the West African nation of Burkina Faso, four men grabbed him off the street, pushed him into a vehicle and drove off.
But four days later, a picture of Dr. Diallo, 41, wearing a helmet and holding a Kalashnikov rifle, posted on social media, seemingly confirming the fears of his family and colleagues that he had been forcefully conscripted into the army. Dr. Diallo and a dozen other people active in public life had been notified by security forces in November that they would soon be drafted to assist the government in securing the country, according to international and local rights groups.
Burkina Faso, a previously stable, landlocked nation of 20 million, has been torn apart in the past eight years by violence from extremist groups loosely affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.
In the ensuing chaos, the country went through two coups in just 10 months, the second last year by a military junta vowing to contain militant groups by any means.
Dr. Diallo and Mr. Ouedraogo have been among at least 15 people who have recently either disappeared or been forcibly conscripted, according to human rights groups and lawyers. The list includes journalists, civil society activists, an anesthesiologist and an imam, all of whom had criticized the junta for its failure to defeat the insurgents, and for abuses against the populations it is meant to protect.
About half of the country’s territory is now outside of government control. Almost five million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations and aid agencies, and more than two million more have lost their homes and belongings. Local and international aid groups have accused both the extremists and the government-affiliated forces of massacring civilians.
“Burkina Faso is the epicenter of security challenges in West Africa,” Emanuela Del Re, the special representative of the European Union to the Sahel, said in an interview. “The situation is desperate, and the population is paying the price.”
Confronted with a lack of resources, the military-led government issued a broad appeal for civilians to join volunteer defense forces, promising them a stipend and two weeks of military training. It also announced an emergency “general mobilization” law, which gave the president sweeping powers, including conscripting people, requisitioning goods and restraining civil liberties.
“Burkina Faso’s military junta is using its emergency law, which gives them the possibility to conscript and reposition people and goods, to silence and even punish its critics,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This practice violates fundamental human rights.”
The military government of Burkina Faso did not respond to interview requests, and declined to comment on the practice of forced conscription.
The U.S. State Department said in a statement on Dec. 12 that it was concerned about recent actions by Burkina Faso’s military government, “such as the growing use of targeted forced conscriptions, shrinking civic space, and restrictions on political parties.”
It added: “These actions have the cumulative effect of silencing individuals who are working on behalf of their country to promote democratic governance.”
While the emergency decree enables the government to conscript civilians over the age of 18, rights groups said that targeted application of the law breaches fundamental human rights.
“We saw it coming for Daouda,” said Binta Sidibe-Gascon, the president of Observatoire Kisal, a rights group, who comes from Burkina Faso but now lives in Paris, referring to Dr. Diallo, the pharmacist. “We told him: it is not safe for you to stay in the country. But he said that the people needed him there.”
“It is not only illegal, but it is also cruel,” said Ms. Allegrozzi, of Human Rights Watch. “It’s like: You’ve criticized the army. Now you’ll see for yourself what it looks like, and what it feels like to be a soldier.”
Several residents of Burkina Faso, including activists, journalists and analysts, declined to be interviewed, citing fear for their lives. “Whoever speaks out against the junta, disappears,” said one of them.
Those who disappeared had mostly been making criticisms confirmed by data on how the government’s reliance on an exclusively military strategy to defeat insurgents has backfired, analysts and aid workers said.
“Violence in Burkina Faso has reached an all-time high,” said Heni Nsaibia, a senior analyst with Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, which tracks data on conflict in Africa. “The number of fatalities from the conflict has skyrocketed.”
In places like the town of Djibo in the north, which has swelled from 60,000 to 300,000 people and has been under an ongoing blockade for the past two years, residents have been relying solely on supplies brought in by U.N.-operated humanitarian flights.
Many people, exhausted with the never-ending cycle of violence, have welcomed Mr. Traore’s security pledge. The streets of Ouagadougou have been decorated with Russian flags. Banners display pictures of soldiers and patriotic messages. Roundabouts are being surveilled by unofficial militia, dubbed “Irissi, irissi,” or Russian in Moore, the local language of the main ethnic group, following rumors that they are being paid by Russia.
Fifty-thousand people heeded the government’s call to volunteer for the military, which pays a monthly stipend of about $107, which is above the minimum wage and highly desirable in a country where regular income is rare. Some said they were also eager to contribute to the war effort.
Ouattara Fadouba, a musician, said he signed up with the voluntary forces earlier this year, but has not been sent to the front yet. Instead, he is recording songs praising the government.
“The country has been attacked by terrorists, and I put myself at the disposition of the nation,” he said in a phone interview from Ouagadougou. “If I am called to the frontline, I will go.”