There’s only one thing that we can take away from General Mark Milley’s response when a former Green Beret, Representative Michael Waltz, called him out over the use of Critical Race Theory to “train” military personnel: He’s in the wrong job.

If Milley really wants to deal with race relations, he needs to put in his retirement papers and either join a nonprofit or run for office. But as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he has one job: Address the threats posed by China and Russia and their collusion against the United States, the genocidal Iranian regime, and the other conflicts in the Middle East while also handling potential threats in Latin America and Africa.

While General Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and Commander-in-Chief Joe Biden are busy fighting the phantom menace of “white supremacy” in the ranks, China has been engaging in a military buildup.

Milley himself testified that China wants the capability to take Taiwan by 2027. According to the Congressional Research Service, China has 350 battle force ships. The United States Navy, with responsibility for two oceans and global commitments, has 293, per that same report. The fact is, we have seen a three-decade-long pattern of foolish cutbacks and high operational tempos combined with errors of omission.

George W. Bush rightly focused on the danger of jihadist terror but failed to build the forces up to a level that could also keep Russia and China from thinking they could pull off aggression. Barack Obama dismantled what Bush had put together to protect us from jihadist terror, hobbled our troops, and his ill-advised pullout from Iraq created the space for ISIS to metastasize. Donald Trump rightly worked to enable America to minimize involvement in the Middle East by building up allies, but he was distracted by fighting bureaucrats who undermined his policies.

We’ve discussed this concerning situation multiple times, and it won’t get better under the Biden regime. We warned that Biden’s track record showed he was incapable of uniting the country in the best of circumstances, much less when many suspected foul play. And he certainly isn’t interested in putting America first in terms of military readiness.

Many grassroots Patriots will rightly question whether they want their sons and daughters serving in a military whose top brass can’t seem to advocate for sufficient numbers of ships, planes, tanks, missiles, and other implements of war to ensure our troops don’t have to make the ultimate sacrifice. Milley’s trip down the rabbit hole of CRT could well get troops killed in a war with China or Russia.

Whoever does eventually replace Milley will need to partially follow the advice of author J.D. Vance: Stop reading about “white rage” and “not losing wars,” and instead work to get Congress and the Pentagon behind the type of massive military buildup needed to stay out in front of China and Russia and get our troops out from behind a deadly geopolitical 8-ball.