What do you believe is the biggest internal problem facing the current military?

The single biggest problem... The pay gap amongst their civilian counterparts and B.S. pay raises while Congress sits fat, dumb and happy on their yearly increases! Military Doctors (not sure of Lawyers), get pro pay to remain in... What about those Enlisted that are good with Computers, Intelligence, Med Tech’s, etc., that are all making 3-5x in the outside world... Sorry, but those little “We are keeping up with the civilian workforce data sheets” are crapola when it comes to certain fields...
When you put your life on the line, you should be paid a heck of a lot more money than you fine folks are getting with those continued depleted benefits while serving and then on into retirement - rant over...

Governmental bureaucrats using the military as a social science experiment.

While it may not be the biggest problem, but is something I think contributes to everything SPC Cody Voye mentioned, one of the things we face is the lack of teaching history in such a way that the younger generations feel a "kinship" with where we have been, where we are, and the direction we many times seem to be headed. For those of us born from the '20s into the late '80s/early '90s we had the spectrum of WW I, the "war to end all wars"; WW II and its truly world wide ramifications; from the late '40s through the early '90s (and maybe still somewhat today) the threat of the "red menace" of Communism and Mother Russia. The Vietnamese conflict has been so buried that unless you served there or during that time you have no real relationship with what went on, both at the front and at home. The dangers left over from Desert Storm, the '93 attack on the WTC, the much more successful attack of 9/11 aren't seemingly used as rallying points to bring us together, but as points of separation to bring us to a point of appeasement toward those who caused the problem. I guess what this boils down to is a personal concept of the relationship of the dangers that face our country every day and how we are motivating our citizenry to be in a state of preparedness for what may come. The days of hiding under your desk at school because of a bomb threat from an outside enemy are still relevant, and I'm not talking about the random shooter who causes damage, but the larger enemy who constantly lurks at our borders and beaches.

The single biggest problem facing the military is the post-2000 era expectation of professionalism in the enlisted force. It pours over to the officer force, but in a different way. Personnel are expected to be professional but not treated professionally. It’s a double standard and it doesn’t work; that’s why the military is bleeding talent like a stuck pig. The most talented realize they aren’t being treated with any respect but are expected to treat their leadership and duties with massive amounts of respect. The leadership focus is on meeting goals and deadlines and objective requirements instead of meeting the basic requirement of being generally good leaders; that is to say treating their subordinates with respect.

Zero defects mentality. Too many Commanders and senior NCOs are worried about someone under them screwing up, because they think it will make them look bad as Commanders / Senior NCOs. Gone is the time when the Lieutenant can try a hair-brained scheme because (s)he thinks it just might work. Commanders won't allow it, because they think it WON'T work, and therefore they will look bad for having a screwed up LT. Same for team leaders. We used to be a military that was strong because we allowed our junior leaders to improvise. Now we dictate not only what, but how. This leads to leaders who are not able to react when things go wrong, because they have been taught that things ARE NOT ALLOWED to go wrong. How dare you, LT, have someone external influence the battle?

This is strongly enforced not just in orders / micro-management, but also in punishment. When you hold a leader accountable for EVERYTHING a junior does - even if that thing was not predictable, you FORCE that leader to micromanage, to dictate, and to remove all possible uncertainty from every situation. If PVT Snuffy overslept and didn't make it to PT, that is because PVT Snuffy f%^*ed up. Not because SGT Tacklebox was an inattentive leader. And CERTAINLY not because 1SG Hardhead is failing to enforce standards. Now... if PVT Snuffy misses PT every day in a single week, it is a different story, true.

The self entitlement that so many feel is a big problem. They where told there where special and award for loosing. Oh let not forget that race card that get played so much. It use to be there was not color but green.

Too many trumplodytes that believe they are the smartest people who ever served.

Take the politics out of the military and get back to true leadership without worry of promotion.

managment of the budget