Dear Reader,
Today I want to talk about the Secretary of Defense.
Now, I know that Trump nominated Hegseth for Secretary of Defense, which I expressed concerns about before.
===
Final Countdown: One Year To…
TOTAL MILITARY COLLAPSE
“If China were to cut us off now, the US military would run out of minerals needed to make most weapons within a year."
- Rep. Senator Tom Cotton
This $5 Stock is Our Best Shot at Defeating China…and it could Soar as High as 8,990% >>>
===
But it seems like his nomination is faltering.
And I count myself as happy that is happening, frankly, cards on the table here.
I’m not saying I don’t enjoy him on Fox; he’s a good commentator and understands some of the issues here.
But, remember what the Pentagon is – the Pentagon is a $1 trillion a year bureaucracy.
And you’ve got to make sure you can move that bureaucracy – “the ship of state.”
There’s one thing I always remember about the JFK assassination…
JFK was assassinated and LBJ was sworn in, remember, in that very famous picture with Jackie standing by his side.
But remember something, LBJ was leader of the House and then majority leader in the Senate.
He understood “the ship of state.”
So when he took over, when he became President, he got into that cockpit and he understood how to fly that plane.
Same with Dick Chaney.
When Dick Chaney was Vice President with George W. Bush, that man knew how to fly the plane. He knew how to make the bureaucracy move.
And in my view, the most important attribute for the Secretary of Defense to have right now is the experience needed to push that bureaucracy to drop its old weapons systems and to adopt new weapons systems for AI and for 21st century warfare.
If you don’t know how to make a bureaucracy move, and move quickly, you will lose the window that we have to dissuade China from invading Taiwan and taking control of all their semiconductor factories.
We can’t let that happen.
So news broke last night (I was up at 1:00 in the morning, don’t ask why – I’m usually asleep at 8:00, 9:00 – I’m that guy) that Trump was considering jettisoning Hegseth, which I think is fine.
Setting aside for now all the sexual assault issues – which is a big deal to me and which at this point is still at the “he-said, she-said” stage – but putting that aside for a moment – I’m most concerned that he has never run a bureaucracy.
Now, I have a company with 20 people who work here.
And I’ll tell you right now, we don’t have a big bureaucracy but these people could slow you down – if you don’t know how to push people and hold them accountable you can get killed by 1,000 cuts.
Even my team, even the bureaucracy at a small company, will slow you down if you don’t have the skills and experience to manage it.
Those of us who run small businesses, you know if you don’t know how to push the right levers at your small business, you’re not going to move at the speed and pacing you need to move.
So Hegseth has been a concerning choice.
So, as I was saying, when I was up at 1:00am I saw that Trump is thinking of nominating Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
I think he would make a fine Secretary of Defense – he’d have experience there.
But Trump also threw out another name Elbridge Colby, which is somebody that I’m very fond of.
You might also have seen him on Fox.
But he has a lot of experience in the Pentagon and he’s written some serious defense papers.
We exchange notes on Twitter from time to time.
The point of the matter is, this pick for Secretary of Defense is so important for many reasons.
Remember, we have a military where most of our resources still go to 20th century armaments – tanks and certain types of missile systems.
We need a more distributed military.
A military that uses “swarm” kind of warfare to fight the next battles.
We want to mimic kind of what the Mongols did on horse relative to fixed position soldiers on the ground.
BUT, we can’t just say, “alright we’re going to stop funding all the tanks and move all the money into these new technologies,” – no, no, no…
Because what if it doesn’t work?
We need a process by which the gap between where we are right now and where we want to be is slowly closed. Marched up over time so the faucet goes from old weapons systems like tanks slowly to drones. Slowly from manned aircraft to automatic and unmanned aircraft.
We need to start this process right away; we are behind the 8-ball on this.
And we need somebody who can make that bureaucracy dance!
Jim Mattis was the kind of guy who could do just that.
By contrast, Biden’s Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, was a creature of the bureaucracy in my view.
He was too focused on DEI and all this other stuff – he didn’t know how to “make the bureaucracy dance.”
If he did, we wouldn’t be behind the 8-ball on this stuff.
We have to move ahead, and we have to move quickly.
We need a Defense Secretary who understands the China issue.
Also, a Secretary of Defense that hearkens back to Theodore Roosevelt – that understands this is a Naval issue.
We need naval and aircraft supremacy because the next war will likely be fought over the Pacific.
So I am happy it looks like the air is being sucked out of Hegseth’s nomination every time he meets another senator…
And that we’re starting to push more towards DeSantis, who I think would be a very competent administrator…
But my personal favorite is Elbridge Colby – that’s who I’m rooting for.
But with either of those guys the American people win.
And as investors in defense companies focused on the new wave of defense, we’re going to win big-time.
We’ve already grabbed 502%, 408%, 133%, 120%, 106% and so many more gains on defense stocks this year alone.
I believe this is only the beginning, as we move forward updating our military.
We’re going to release our top 3 defense stocks “buy alert” tomorrow morning.
The only “catch” is that access to this alert expires in 48 hours… these opportunities move fast.
Please check this out while you still can.
No comments:
Post a Comment