All of you should read "A Report on the Fighting Culture of the United States Navy Surface Fleet" from I think last year or the year before which describes how all of these extra HR trainings are the taking the place of actual warfighting training, destroying morale and pride in the service.

One of the most damming quotes is, ““Sometimes I think we care more about whether we have enough diversity officers than if we’ll survive a fight with the Chinese navy,” lamented one lieutenant currently on active duty. “It’s criminal. They think my only value is as a black woman. But you cut our ship open with a missile and we’ll all bleed the same color.””

And when you're done with that, go read "Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession" from the Army War College about how a culture of yes men and ass-kissing is reducing readiness.

Just to give the other view, here are two things to consider:

1. On the topic of the wargame, that actual result had little to do with Chinese Air or Naval power itself. It was land-based missiles that can easily be avoided, but in the wargame, the Navy was operating under the idea that for some reason they would be allowed to go tootling around wherever the hell they wanted, and the smoothbrain in charge got within missile range of the Chinese coast. IRL, they would NEVER be allowed to do that, because they would likely be forced to stay back.

Because remember: You cant justify your budget going up if you win your wargame, because if you can win with your current navy, why not more.

Moreover, those wargames have been rather useless in figuring out how a war would actually go down. A pre-Gulf War wargame against Iraq backed up Saddams claim that the US would face heavy losses and be stuck in the war for years. In reality, the war lasted a few days and we suffered more losses from friendly fire than enemy fire. Everything I have ever seen is that, much like the soviets before them, the Chinese are a paper dragon, especially when you count our regional allies (Japan, Taiwan, India) into the mix.

2. The US military has a long history of being lead by incompetent buffoons who are there because they were given effectively political positions. In exchange, the US military has, and continues to, give a rather unusual amount of free will to its enlisted men (any random private who can get a radio and read grid coordinates can call in artillery, air strikes, or reinforcements. Few other militaries do that. ESPECIALLY ones as top-down as the Chinese), as well as their lower level officers (Captain/Colonel, and lower) having a ton of control over the tactical level operations while strategic operations are more or less "You are here, your target is there. How you get from here to there is up to you."

And this has meant that the military can generally survive incompetent commanders, and becomes downright apocalyptic when it has a general/admiral who knows what they are doing.

My brother got out of the Army only a few months ago, and when I talked with him about this sort of stuff, he said he thought it was a lot of freaking out over nothing. He laughed at the idea that China was a threat from the stuff he had seen, he and most of his men scoffed at the woke stuff, and I would not be surprised if, much like the woke lectures, there will be commanders falsifying vaccine records.