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Hard disagree. Obama or GWB or Clinton could have all gotten honest capability assessments from the military/intelligence community. So could Trump, if he wanted. I am not a fan of the CIA, but I do not think they would push a president they dislike into a bad war just to harm him domestically. I also do not think their median employee is a pink-haired lesbian with a gender studies degree.
While Obama and GWB have fired some high-ranking generals, under Trump 10% of the top brass was fired or sidelined. I surmise this is not conductive to an atmosphere of honest feedback. "Mr Hegseth, I think engaging Iran on this scale will not result in regime change, but drag the US into a long-winding and unpopular war" is unlikely to be received very well -- probably he would tell you to get your testosterone levels checked because you are lacking the Spartan warrior spirit or something.
Trump got the presidency twice because he is good at influencing public perception -- who cares if his claims are bullshit as long as the people believe them. Unfortunately for the US, neither the economy nor the military run entirely on vibes.
The system which really failed is not the US intelligence apparatus, but the electorate which decided to elect an egomaniac who believes he is better at everything than the long-serving domain experts.
This is where I think you are wrong. I don't think capability assessments are the issue here, its all about willpower assessments, which long time employees and generals appear to be the worst at.
There is no way to think there exists some "deep state" (for lack of a better word) general or civilian in the DOD circles would have told Trump that if Iran pirated French vessels in response to airstrikes the French would do nothing. Who would have been that guy? Such a person with such a low opinion of the French would have been driven out by the establishment years ago. They'd never make general while openly stating that NATO is a bunch of wimps who would rather just mail Iran nukes then lift a finger to stop them obtaining nukes.
I agree this feedback would be risky under trump and hegseth, but I just disagree that it is relevant. The Iran war is a military success despite having no real end date. In fact, if the question is the lack of end date, it is the lifelong employees that will be advocating against the best ways to bring about an end date, such as destroying power plants, Kharg Island, "bridge day" as it was once floated as an idea, etc.
And on the other side, its not like there was a lack of people telling Trump not to do the war, almost all reporting indicates that Vance was opposed to the war on the grounds it would be unpopular.
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I was a little unclear there, I was sort of gesturing more at what you were saying about 'neither the economy nor the military run entirely on vibes.' Obviously it didn't come out that way.
I agree that there's a problem in that US decision-making circles include a bunch of flatterers, lightweights and foreign agents who can crowd out the sober analysts.
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They already lied to Trump during his first term to keep doing shit they wanted to do in the Islamic world (Syria and Afghanistan). I sincerely believe the Afghanistan pullout was deliberately sabotaged to punish Biden for taking away their medal farm.
And the fundamental question that the Hegseth shakeups are attempting to address is "Are these generals good at war, or are they good at slide decks that brownnose the right people and don't rock the boat"? The core criticism is that for the last 20 years, the top levels of the military have, in fact, been running on vibes. Directly disagreeing with your boss is, in fact, high-T behavior.
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Those “long-serving domain experts” got us Afghanistan and Iraq. Your premise that Trump firing generals is bad for war fighting falls apart when they are generals like Milley.
Clinton oversaw the blowback to the Tailhook Scandal which ultimately purged the military command structure far more severely than anything Trump has done so far.
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