Earlier today in Belgium before the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced that the United States would stand with Ukraine “through all seasons”, months and years. There are so many things wrong with what Austin said. My major problem with this retired General is that if he had any respect for himself or the troops he served with he would have thrown his resignation on the desk 15 months ago before the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Now, he is just compounding his failures and exposing his incompetence.

Lloyd Austin retired from the Army in 2016 as a four-star General. In order to serve the Biden Misadministration as SecDef, Austin had to receive a Congressional waiver. The rules say you must be retired for seven years in order to serve in an Administration. One hundred years wouldn’t have helped Austin. He went from the Army to corporate boards. Per Open Secrets:

After the election of former President Donald Trump in 2016, Austin left the public sector and assumed positions on the corporate boards of steel manufacturing giant Nucor Corporation, Tenet Healthcare and United Technologies, which merged with defense contractor Raytheon Company in 2020. The merged corporation, Raytheon Technologies, is among the top five top lobbying spenders in the defense sector and spent almost $11 million on lobbying in 2020. Austin earned seven figures from the defense companies. Austin stepped down from all three board positions following his nomination in 2020. Prior to joining the Biden administration, Austin worked alongside fellow cabinet member Antony Blinken at Pine Island Capital Partners, a private equity firm investing in defense companies that touted its access to Washington.

Now,we are engaged in a proxy war with Russia through her invasion of Ukraine. We are eight months and $17 billion into this war. Austin warned the Ukraine Defense Contact Group that we are in it for the long haul. However long that may be.

Here is a portion of the Secretary’s opening remarks:

If you would rather read the statement the full remarks are here, but the portion from the video is below:

And we are increasingly posturing ourselves to support Ukraine’s defense needs for the challenging months and years ahead.

I’m proud that, with President Biden’s leadership, U.S. security assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s all-out invasion on February 24 now totals some $16.8 billion.

And I’m deeply grateful to our valued allies and partners, who continue to come forward with important assistance packages of their own. Our coordinated team approach is helping to strengthen Ukraine’s brave defenders for the long haul.

And that means a flow of urgent capabilities to Ukraine now. It means intensifying training efforts to help Ukraine’s defenders make the best of their new capabilities. And it means pushing our industrial bases to innovate as we provide Ukraine with the tools that it needs for the hard road ahead.

Last month, we talked about bringing our national armaments directors together. And I’m pleased to say that their first meeting was a success—and an important step toward tackling the industrial-base challenges that we face.

So I look forward to continuing our work on our long-term investments—with an eye toward improving production, interoperability, and sustainment capacity.

“…months and years”? August of 2021 we had our disastrous retreat from Afghanistan. No new need for armaments. In January, 2022, Biden gave Russia the permission for a minor incursion into Ukraine. Now, SecDef Austin is preparing the world for “months and years”, or “seasons”.

Plus, better defense systems:

To better defend against Russia's invasion, Ukraine most needs "long-range fires, air defense systems, and artillery," U.S. defense chief Lloyd Austin said Wednesday after a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels. pic.twitter.com/VTv0dj9Wyy

— Defense One (@DefenseOne) October 12, 2022

Why does this make me thing of Eisenhower’s Farewell Speech about the Military Industrial Complex that I studied in school:

Our arms must be might, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. . . . American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. . . . This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. . . .Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. . . . In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is head of the Military-Industrial Complex. Someone has to stop this permanent war footing we are set to be on.

Featured Image: Department of Defense/flickr.com/cropped/Creative Commons