Op-Ed

When promotions hinge on politics instead of performance, we risk eroding the trust, readiness, and integrity that our force depends on to win and to lead.

Strategy beats force, trust beats fear, and when we apply Sun Tzu’s wisdom to modern policing with discipline and respect, we protect our communities by outthinking conflict before it ever turns into a fight.

Washington’s political trench warfare over immigration funding has triggered a DHS shutdown that puts TSA, FEMA, the Secret Service, and the Coast Guard in a bind, exposing a failure of leadership on both sides and leaving national security hanging in the balance while Americans pay the price.

Public trust survives only when the law is enforced with discipline and restraint, because without professional standards and civic responsibility on both sides of the badge, accountability collapses into noise and the next failure becomes inevitable.

Washington is hemorrhaging power across the military, diplomatic, economic, informational, and reputational fronts, and from Beijing and Moscow the spectacle looks less like strategic competition than an opportunity handed to them by a White House they can exploit without firing a shot.

The presidency is not a monument to personal ambition but a solemn trust to serve the Constitution and the American people with integrity, humility, and an unwavering commitment to the nation above self.

Twelve minutes of watching before judging used to be the bare minimum, now it feels like a radical act of curiosity in a country that keeps reaching for the remote before the first chorus even hits.

These aren’t bumper-sticker slogans to shout across a divide, they are hard-earned principles forged in war and service, and if we forget the discipline, responsibility, and restraint behind them, we risk turning freedom into noise and strength into bluster.

When the man in the Oval Office trades steadiness for spectacle and unity for grievance, the damage doesn’t stay in Washington, it ripples outward, eroding trust in American leadership at home and abroad.

Washington should keep talking to Iran, but only if the talks stay locked on nukes, missiles, and terror proxies, backed by real sanctions, competent negotiators, allied unity, and zero daylight on Israel’s security.

We must distinguish between the moral instinct to care about oppression and the strategic decision to use military force, because starting wars requires clear answers about how they end—not just why they begin.

By prioritizing an idealistic trilateral pursuit over the established security of existing bilateral frameworks, the administration has recklessly dismantled decades of nuclear diplomacy, leaving the world to navigate a perilous and unmonitored arms race.