The National Guard Forgets Itself

time to check yourself before you break yourself

A few data points I would like you to consider:

• Fentanyl

When the history of the fentanyl crisis is written, 2023 may be remembered as the year Americans woke up to an unprecedented threat scourging communities - and a deepening cultural divide over what to do about it.

For the first time in U.S. history, fatal overdoses peaked above 112,000 deaths, with young people and people of color among the hardest hit.

Drug policy experts, and people living with addiction, say the magnitude of this calamity now eclipses every previous drug epidemic, from crack cocaine in the 1980s to the prescription opioid crisis of the 2000s.

…

Public health experts say fentanyl, a synthetic opioid far more powerful than heroin, is responsible for the majority of drug deaths. But the supply of illegal drugs is increasingly complex and perilous.

• Crime

By the end of 2023, according to CBP, 15,267 noncitizens were convicted criminals prior to being arrested by Border Patrol. That is the floor, as we don’t know how many multiples of this were never apprehended. Of these:

• 29 had killed someone

• 286 had sexually assaulted someone

• 307 had weapons offenses

• 2,055 were involved with narcotics trafficking

For most of this century, if you were in uniform, you were either directly or indirectly involved in helping ensure border integrity of Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Bosnia…and the list goes on. If you’re like me, you might have even been directly involved in a few of them. That doesn’t even start with the efforts we have made to help our NATO friends on their borders, etc.

So, with that set, let’s see what the person in charge of the National Guard Bureau, General Daniel Hokanson, USA, via Stars & Stripes has to say about his job;

About 2,500 members of the National Guard are assisting U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in monitoring border crossings. Gen. Daniel Hokanson, the chief of the force, said their time and effort would be better spent elsewhere.

Hmmm, I’m not sure what is more of a fundamental mission of anyone in uniform than, if called, to defend the integrity of their nation’s borders. Everything else is a lesser included mission.

OK, but let’s do some math here.

• National Guard Strength (FY22): 434,689

• National Guard forces mobilized (FEB24): 45,000 (10.4%)

• National Guard forces deployed overseas (FEB24): 27,000 (6.2%)

• National Guard forces supporting CBP (JUN24): 2,500 (0.6%)

Sorry General, your math does not back up your position. Any more thoughts on the topic?

“There is no military training value for what we do,” he told the Senate Appropriations Committee during a hearing on the National Guard’s budget. “That time, I think, would be better utilized building readiness to deter our adversaries.”

What adversary do we have right now that is directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of American citizens?

What adversary is allowing murderers, rapists, and gun runners prey on American citizens?

A 2021 Department of Justice report revealed that 64% of federal arrests in 2018 involved noncitizens, despite them comprising only 7% of the population at that time. While the Biden administration fails to provide continuous updates on illegal alien crime data, Texas’ Department of Public Safety maintains a running database of such incidents. Other states should follow suit.

The above is just Texas over the last 13 years. That looks like an adversary to me.

Where are most of these threats coming in to our nation?

The border.

This whole embarrassing exercise of - again - a senior uniformed person being put out there to make policy statements that is supposed to be made by civilian political appointees.

Like many things in our ossified military complex, after the warping of GWOT, our National Guard needs a hard reset.

I’ve never been a fan of deploying the National Guard overseas absent a general mobilization for a major war, but The Pentagon has gotten in a bad habit the last quarter century that has morphed the National Guard into a too easily accessed reserve for regular, daily use. We have an Army Reserve for a reason. As a nation, we’ve become quite numb to it - and it appears even the leaders of National Guard forces seems to have lost the bubble as well on where our nation needs them. Some functions like an Army Reserve? Yes, but at the end of the day these are the States’ forces and as such, have other missions that the regular and reserve Army should not be focused on.

It is long past time to do a baseline reset of what we want a National Guard for, and what its mission is and should be.

Our nation has millions of foreign nationals inside our nations borders illegally. Tens to hundreds of thousands are citizens of nations that are openly hostile to our own. Law enforcement and DHS cannot handle this influx. Call it the illegal immigration Cloward–Piven strategy if one must. If the National Guard is not at all interested in that mission - who is supposed to do this - not in 5 years - but now?

All that being said, even within present doctrine, support for border security is well withing the National Guard remit.

I cannot even count the months of my career I spent in the Caribbean chasing drug runners and people smugglers … a USCG job, because the USCG needed the help…and that was the active duty USN doing that, not National Guard.

Let’s look at the National Guard’s own guidance. Emphasis is mine, but germane;

Domestic Operations

The NG supports integrated deterrence through deterrence by resilience— activities that enable the NG and our communities to withstand, fight through, and recover quickly from disruption. Deterrence by resilience includes supporting state, local, and tribal authorities with mitigating vulnerabilities in cyber networks; maintaining NG Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Response Enterprise Forces to meet future threats; protecting critical infrastructure; and modernizing the mobilization enterprise and NG physical infrastructure to withstand man-made and natural disasters.

These actions not only enhance our ability to remain responsive to our communities, but also enhance overall deterrence by reducing our competitors’ perception of the benefits of aggression.

NB: that whole document is a dog’s breakfast of buzzwords and unclear writing. What an embarrassment.

Yes, a reset is desperately needed.

For you history buffs, you’ll like this.

How far we have gone from the start of our National Guard … the direct line today from what was originally just the individual States’ militia.

From the War of 1812 … a little bit of that institutional heritage that the good General seems to have forgotten;

The first was at Queenston Heights, just across the river from Lewiston, New York. At first the battle went well, until British and Indian reinforcements arrived to tip the scales. American reinforcements were available across the river, but the New York militia refused to cross into Canada on the grounds that they had enlisted to defend New York state, not to invade another country.

I learned that during a battlefield tour - you know, when Salamander forced the entire family to do staff rides - in Canada with a friend of mine from the RCAF and his family.

He thought it was funny the expression on my face when - in hindsight it was funny - I stated something to the effect, “I never knew about this battle … “ - so now you too can learn about the American defeat at the Battle of Queenston Heights. Funny how we forget our defeats.

Anyway, States refusing to use their National Guard to do federal bidding still continues to this day - so at least that tradition remains, for now.

Perhaps having the National Guard having a 4-star seat at the JCS table was a mistake.