But let’s be honest here… the last guy’s numbers were nothing to write home about either. The current air of distrust in and even threats of violence against the judiciary – particularly the Supreme Court – is beyond disturbing. Thus far they still seem to be doing their jobs, however, at least for now.

Things may be even worse for us when it comes to law enforcement. Liberals have been openly attacking the civilian police regularly, particularly since the “summer of love.” But now distrust in federal law enforcement agencies, the FBI perhaps more than any, has been springing up in conservative circles. All of this is bad news and speaks to a need for serious reforms to restore trust that all citizens will be treated equally under the law, no matter their political affiliations or other demographic criteria. That trust has eroded badly.

But what of America’s military? Surely that is the one cornerstone we can all rely upon, yes? You can protest the decisions of the Commander-in-Chief who sends them into battle or pulls them out recklessly all you like. But the actual members of the military follow their orders and stand by to protect us all when worse comes to worst. Can we all agree on that?

Apparently not. We have now seen former Secretaries of Defense as well as retired Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs issuing a warning, saying that relations between American civilians and the military are at a new low point. Recent events calling the military into question have “shaken the foundations” of the American military. And that impacts our ability to meet our required force levels and get the job done. (Fox News)

Eight former United States Secretaries of Defense and five former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are warning that civilian-military relations are at a low, pointing to recent events at home and abroad that have shaken the military’s foundations.

“We are in an exceptionally challenging civil-military environment,” the former officials said in an open letter published by the War on the Rocks blog. “Many of the factors that shape civil-military relations have undergone extreme strain in recent years.”

For starters, they pointed to the “winding down” of American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, noting that the military has to “come to terms with” war efforts that were not entirely successful “while preparing for more daunting competition with near-peer rivals.” Domestically, they claimed that military officials “confront an extremely adverse environment” marked by political polarization “that culminated in the first election in over a century when the peaceful transfer of political power was disrupted and in doubt.”

I sincerely hope that the signatories to that letter are wrong, though it seems unlikely. If they are concerned, we should be concerned. And the President and Congress should be concerned. This is not to say that the American military is filled 100% with flawless people who do no wrong. Some bad apples always slip through and they produce terrible headlines when they go off the rails. But for the vast majority, our men and women in uniform are there because they heard the call and they volunteered to go. And they do so under frequently terrible conditions and for not very much money.

What we can disagree with and vocally raise the alarm about is how our military is deployed. They have been sent into reckless, seemingly endless wars that failed to produce much after all was said and done. They were pulled out of Afghanistan in a way that brought shame to our entire nation. Many of them – particularly the women – have been subjected to abusive behavior while serving with the perpetrators receiving insufficient scrutiny or consequences. Questions of deployment should be focused on the executive branch, while internal disciplinary problems should cause trouble to flow uphill through the ranks of leadership, not downhill to those lacking control or authority.

The civilian leadership of our military is also responsible. The recent trends toward wokeness infecting our ranks have led too many of those serving in uniform to ask what happened to the greatest military in the world that they signed up to serve. Confusing orders and critical commentary from the civilian media likely cause some of these men and women in uniform to ask how they suddenly became “the bad guy.” (Or the “bad gal.”) Military life is not the same as the life experienced by civilians. It’s not designed to be. And trying to make it so in the service of some social or political agenda is poisoning the pool.

The boundaries here should be far simpler to define than some analysts make them out to be, though the realities will be painful for some to consider. If the performance of Congress or the President is unsatisfactory and leads to unrest and destress, the fault lies with us, the voters. Elect better people and you will achieve better results. If you are angry over the performance of the police or the FBI, the fault lies with their superiors. Law enforcement must be free from partisan rancor or the holding of grudges to suit a political agenda. That is clearly not the case in too many instances these days, but it is the responsibility of local, state, and federal officials to root out such things and set the ship back up for stable sailing.

But please consider that, at the end of the day, when everything else goes wrong and our nation’s adversaries sense weakness in the United States and seek to take advantage of that, the military is the last line of defense. When that falls, everything taking refuge back home far from those battle lines goes with it.