The Pentagon released a strategy calling for the development of a defense-industrial base focusing on diversity.
“Lack of diversity leads to a lack of new ideas and innovation,” the Pentagon states.
“Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is important to ensure that we have an industrial base that reflects the nation itself,” the report says, describing a goal of recruiting individuals from “non-traditional communities.”
According to the Pentagon, investing in “historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Programs (MIs)” is imperative.
“The untapped potential of underrepresented groups can be crucial, especially as the worker shortage increases,” the Pentagon explains.
The Department of Defense’s Education Program for HBCUs and MIs has three goals, including “[increasing] the number of graduates, including underrepresented minorities, in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields important to the defense mission.”
The report also describes the DOD’s desire to “shape legislation.”
In a section titled “Actions to Achieve Resilient Supply Chains,” the DOD writes that it desires to “[s]hape legislation to plan for spare production capacity needed and to provide oversight authority to ensure successful development and sustainment follow-through.”
“Congress can explore allocating additional funding for contracts and other incentives (tax incentives, regulatory relief, long-term contracts) aimed specifically at building and maintaining spare production capacity,” the document explains. “Such funding can be used to modernize and expand facilities and develop flexible production.”
The Pentagon’s push for DEI programs comes as the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Chairman Glenn Grothman (R-WI) opened a hearing on the “Risks of Progressive Ideologies in the U.S. Military.”
“Our military is grappling with the Biden Administration’s social experiments of integrating principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion—or ‘DEI’—into their ranks,” he said. “The Pentagon often fails to recognize the financial burden these priorities place on taxpayers. DEI managers often making over $180,000 per year.”
Prior to the hearing, Grothman said in a statement, “Our military has one primary function: defend Americans and American interests at home and abroad. At least this was the primary function until the Biden Administration force fed progressivism into the branches of the armed services. Due to an avalanche of foreign policy blunders by the Biden Administration, the world is a less safe place.”
“The men and women who bravely serve within the military must stay focused on combat readiness, not left-wing objectives which serve no military purpose. It is imperative to extract this poisonous and unhelpful thinking from our military and return the armed services to their core functions.”
