On the USS Abraham Lincoln, there are two things to fear - the lunch and the mission, in that order

On the USS Abraham Lincoln, one of the most powerful aircraft carriers in the world, people are eating. That is the good news. The bad news is everything else. A country that pours 850 billion dollars a year into its military - more than the next ten countries combined, more than entire continents produce - cannot manage to put a meal on the table for its soldiers in the middle of the Persian Gulf without them reaching in shock for a complaint form. The portions are large, they say. As large as the hope you bring with you before the first bite, and gone just as quickly.

Imagine what is possible on this ship. Nuclear powered. Equipped with fighter jets that launch in seconds and reach targets hundreds of miles away within minutes. A floating city of steel that can redraw entire coastlines if someone decides that makes sense. And then comes lunch. A child who grew up in a German school cafeteria and already learned there what real culinary humiliation looks like would push the tray back on the Abraham Lincoln, look at the person on duty, and say, I think there is a misunderstanding here. The most powerful navy in the world, equipped with the technology to guide missiles from orbit, has not yet solved the food problem. That is not an accusation. It is an observation about priorities.

Pete Hegseth says the military deserves the Nobel Peace Prize every year. What he does not say is that the men and women who would theoretically accept that prize might trade it for a hot meal that deserves the name. 850 billion dollars. Aircraft carriers as large as small cities. Missiles that hit bridges thousands of miles away. And somewhere deep inside this ship, someone stands in a galley, ladles something into a bowl that is too small and calls it a portion. The soldiers are strong, they say. They have to be strong. Not because of what is on the tray, but in spite of it. And that, it must be said, may be the most impressive achievement of the American armed forces - that they function despite the kitchen looking the way it does.