Biden’s Agenda for US Military in 2023 Transforms Armed Forces to Unprecedented Degree, Analysts Say

F-35 fighter jets are seen in a file photo. Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images

News Analysis

The Biden administration’s efforts to revise and extend radical policies that affect the culture of the U.S. military and the status of certain service members may make 2023 one of the most transformative years in the history of this nation’s armed services, changing the military beyond recognition, policy analysts and commentators tell The Epoch Times.

President Joe Biden tends to rely on executive orders and revisions of past instructions to force far-reaching changes and remake the military, especially with regard to official policy on transgender service members. These orders and their consequences aren’t always widely reported, hence the changes might elude extensive public scrutiny or debate, according to the experts.

The changes affect everything from the ease with which a male service member may choose to identify as female—and thereby gain access to women’s facilities and sports teams—to the etiquette that commanders must use when referring to transgender people or issues.

“The public pays little attention to the internal activities in federal agencies, even the Defense Department. When these stories pop up, they are quickly overwhelmed by bigger events,” Keith Naughton, principal of Silent Majority Strategies, a Germantown, Maryland-based think tank, told The Epoch Times.

“It is a stark reminder of the power of the president and the executive branch, the relatively low power of the courts, and the importance of winning elections.”

Susan Katz Keating, publisher of Soldier of Fortune magazine and a commentator on military policy, agrees.

“A lot of this goes under the radar because the public doesn’t really watch for it,“ Keating told The Epoch Times. ”So many changes are ‘stealth directives’ that don’t get noticed while the public pays attention to other issues.”

Furtive Actions

The administration hasn’t waited for public attention to catch up with its plans to remake the military according to a highly specific set of criteria, according to the experts. While changes have been underway for years in policies that concern race and gender diversity and have gained momentum under Biden, the administration’s resolve to refashion the military into what it considers a more inclusive and representative institution is especially evident in the area of transgender policy.

Recent revisions to Department of Defense (DOD) rules originally issued during President Barack Obama’s administration are indicative of the aggressive stance of the current administration, according to a new policy analysis prepared by the Center for Military Readiness (CMR), a Livonia, Michigan-based nonprofit. The analysis is titled “Biden Pentagon Quietly Expands Woke Transgender Policies in the Military.”

The CMR’s analysis compares the Obama-era directive, DOD Instruction 1300.28—In-Service Transition for Transgender Service Members, with the new version that incorporates alterations made at Biden’s behest on Dec. 20, 2022.

The analysis cites significant differences, which include changes to approved DOD vocabulary to foster a supposedly more inclusive environment for transgender people; extending official transgender policies to apply to Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) programs and military service academies; holding commanders personally liable for any “biases against transgender individuals”; permitting cross-dressing and other activities that fall under the rubric of “transitioning,” not only off-base but even on military installations; approving “detransitioning” procedures in certain circumstances; and imposing restrictions on the gathering and disclosure of data concerning “incidents of harmful behavior” that involve transgender personnel and/or sexual orientation.

None of those changes serve the purpose of military readiness, combat effectiveness, the minimization of U.S. casualties, or any of the other criteria that have guided military policy in the past, the analysis states. Rather, they serve a highly specific political and social agenda that’s more in line with the ideological bent of people outside the armed forces.

“These mandates are prime examples of woke-ism in the military, defined as policies that impose progressive ideology and take them to extremes with enforced compliance, even if it hurts the institution,” the CMR states in its analysis.

‘Woke’ Newspeak

The analysis details a number of examples of a new jargon regarding transgender people and their status that DOD Instruction 1300.28, incorporating Biden’s changes, now makes part of official military lingo. For instance, the term “self-identified gender” has replaced the phrase “preferred gender,” a change that the CMR takes to indicate a new way of looking at the question of gender identity.

“The nuance suggests that if a person ‘self-identifies’ as a person of the opposite sex, they must be treated as such, even though changes in appearance cannot change biological sex,” the CMR analysis reads.

“The DoD Instruction rests on the false premise that a different ‘gender role,’ if recognized by a bureaucratic change in a person’s ‘gender marker,’ is the same as or equivalent to a change in biological sex. Therefore, a man claiming to be a woman must be treated as a woman and vice versa.”

The CMR views one potential consequence of extending Obama-era and current transgender policies to the civilian ROTC and service academies as the very real possibility that male cadets or midshipmen may join women’s athletic teams or even end up with assignments to live in female quarters. The analysis notes that male athletes who chose to “self-identify” as women have won scholarships and prevailed in championships in which the contestants, in theory, were all women. It argues that enrollment in service academies may continue to decline as a consequence of such abuses.

The problems and controversies are likely to continue to escalate given the ease with which male cadets can obtain official classification as women without having undergone sex-change surgery, the analysis states. A male cadet can get approval from a doctor to change his gender classification within the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS) and thereby become eligible to use female restrooms, locker rooms, and living quarters.

“For facilities subject to regulation by the military, service members will use those berthing, bathroom, or shower facilities associated with their gender marker in DEERS” is a phrase cited in the CMR analysis that recurs in the DOD Instruction.

In such a scenario, the possibilities for widespread violations of privacy and sexual misconduct are obvious, the CMR policy analysis suggests.

The net effect of the Biden administration’s active remaking of the military in accordance with progressive principles is a rapid decline in respect for and trust in the institution among those who made the commitment to serve. The CMR’s policy analysis cites a Heritage Foundation study that found that 68 percent of active-duty personnel have concerns about the increasing politicization of the military; the same percentage said these concerns would lead them to have doubts about encouraging their children or relatives to pursue a military career.

Defense Department officials didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.