Conservatives have singled out left-wing military policies that they say have taken hold under President Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Now, handed more leverage in defense spending negotiations on Capitol Hill, Republicans must decide which policies to fight and which to grit their teeth and accept.
House Republicans’ wish list of liberal social policies to eliminate or scale back includes taxpayer-funded travel for abortions, critical race theory at military academies and the promotion of electric-powered vehicles. Many of the so-called woke policies would seemingly be red lines for Democrats, who control the Senate and White House and theoretically could block any of the Republicans’ demands.
Recent history suggests that Republicans can get at least some of their demands for the military. Last year, President Biden and his Democratic allies in Congress acquiesced to one of Republicans’ highest-profile priorities: eliminating the military’s mandate responsible for discharging more than 8,000 troops who refused to take the COVID-19 vaccine.
Most Democrats initially stood firmly behind the policy, but enough eventually signed on to the massive National Defense Authorization Act that scrapped the mandate. Public opinion seemed to turn against the policy as more and more service members were booted from the ranks while the Pentagon was battling its worst recruiting crisis in 50 years.
The NDAA, considered one of the few annual must-pass measures in Congress, has become a policy battlefield. Measures with little chance of passing partisan muster on their own are folded into a giant spending and policy package that even presidents are reluctant to veto.
Democrats used a policy rider in the fiscal year 2021 NDAA to strip the names of Confederate generals from military installations. Congress passed the package over President Trump’s veto.
Analysts say Republicans won’t get all their demands in spending documents produced by the House Appropriations and Armed Services committees but this is likely their best opportunity for at least another year.
“They know they’re not going to get their entire bingo card and they’re going to have to probably compromise on some things. But they’re going to get something, and something is better than nothing,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Spoehr, director of the Center for National Defense at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Gen. Spoehr said it would be a mistake for Republicans to abandon their fight against woke military policies this year and wait to recapture the Senate and White House in the 2024 elections.
“If you wait until 2025, you’ve just lost two years of people being upset in the military. You could have made some progress,” he said.
Mr. Austin and the Pentagon’s top commanders reject the idea that liberal policies weaken the armed forces. Behind the scenes, some defense officials say conservative Republicans are simply trying to score political points by rallying behind criticism of a “woke” military that doesn’t exist.
Conservatives point to data that seems to back up their argument.
A December survey by the Ronald Reagan Institute found that 50% of Americans cite “woke practices” as a key reason for their decreased confidence in the military. Critics also cite anecdotal reports that such policies hurt military recruiting.
Window of opportunity
This year’s budget process appears to be the most promising vehicle for Republicans to force changes to Pentagon policies across the board.
The House Appropriations Committee’s proposed $826 billion defense budget bill would prohibit the use of taxpayer funds for gender transition surgery, promoting critical race theory and events “that bring discredit on the military.” Examples include hiring drag queens as military recruiters and using the Pentagon’s deputy inspector general to push diversity, inclusion and leftist extremism.
Republicans have cast the bill as an effort to redirect the Defense Department back toward its underlying goals, such as preparing for a potential clash with communist China.
House Appropriations defense subcommittee Chairman Rep. Ken Calvert, California Republican, said the bill directs the military to focus “on its mission — not culture wars.”
“This bill rejects many of the Biden administration’s misguided funding proposals, such as climate change initiatives, far-left social policies, and shrinking the Navy,” Mr. Calvert said last month after the bill cleared the full Appropriations Committee.
The bill’s most ambitious goal is to reverse a Pentagon policy providing paid time off and travel reimbursement for female troops traveling out of state for abortions. Mr. Austin imposed that policy last year immediately after the Supreme Court reversed its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, which established a national right to abortion.
Democrats would seem willing to fight tooth and nail to maintain the abortion policy, given its deep importance to the party’s base. Their early stance is that the Republican-proposed bills are unacceptable.
“This bill contains the most extreme social policy riders I have ever seen in a defense appropriations bill. These riders make it almost impossible to gain bipartisan support,” said Rep. Betty McCollum of Minnesota, the ranking Democrat on Mr. Calvert’s subcommittee.
“Our service members make immense sacrifices, along with their families, on behalf of our nation, and they deserve better from Congress,” she said.
Analysts say it’s unclear how hard Democrats are willing to fight specific policies.
“It’s hard to imagine this new, generated so-called entitlement is something they’d go to the mat for. But maybe it’s taken on its own kind of standing” in Democratic Party politics, Gen. Spoehr said.
Even if Democrats take hard-line positions against Republican demands, Gen. Spoehr said, the rapid death of the military’s COVID-19 vaccine policy shows that Republicans may have more room for negotiations than anticipated.
“I was one of those guys that said the COVID vaccine mandate is never going to go away. And then it went away,” he said.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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