The Modern War Institute at West Point, like the War on the Rocks website, has been institutionally captured by a curious hybrid of left-wing culture warriors and the neoconservative “war on the world” fetishists. I used to have great admiration for a considerable part of the intellectual heavy-lifting performed by magazines like the Army War College quarterly Parameters along with others but over the last decade there has been a shift of using these journals and websites not for critical renditions and examinations but over-priced sewing circles to provide public relations cover for whatever fashionable social science experiment they’re embarking on that day.
Much like the Zampolit political commissars in the armies of the USSR, this is no different. The apolitical nature of the western officer corps has been a positive attribute and this current alphabet people political jeremiad will destroy that barrier.
None of this ends well.
Keep in mind, all of this performative political theater is being done at the same time the various elements of the US armed forces are materially and intellectually stunted and atrophying. In this essay, we have fashionable intellectual gyrations to rationalize why affirmation and approval of people’s sexual peccadilloes and mental illness can never by confronted or condemned but only celebrated to avoid looking like a neanderthal. Yet another form of institutional rake-stomping to add to the quiver of a Sovietized acquisition system, a dysfunctional manufacturing base and a training regimen that prioritizes fanciful imperial conditioning of the mind over actual war-fighting skill-sets.
Increasing queer visibility in such a manner would be beneficial to public perception of the military and LGBTQ+ service members alike. It would demonstrate that although LGBTQ+ individuals share different interests and experiences, they are just as committed to the Army’s mission and contribute just as much as their straight colleagues to the organization’s success. To some, these changes may seem inconsequential, but they reflect a monumental shift in both awareness of and appreciation for the service of LGBTQ+ soldiers.
You will note this isn’t about acceptance but affirmation and approval. None of this has a single thing to do with making military formations win conflicts.
You can look through the mountains of officially produced military scholarship and journalism in the 21st century and you won’t find a single probe of the possible downsides of expanding the portfolio of combat to extra-masculine entities like women and alphabet people. I am receptive to any reader who can correct this and provide me with an officially sanctioned media item that assesses the issue with intellectual honesty from the last quarter century.
Here’s a lovely gem of gaslighting from 2020 in military journalism (no comments permitted of course).
Those barking seals you see clapping in the picture below are part of the political indoctrination and behavior you must demonstrate to have a professional career in today’s US military which must take a knee to whatever government supremacist totems and accredited victim groups are erected at the moment.
Commenter John Smith observes:
“[C]ommanders’ consistent public affirmation of LGBTQ+ support and repudiation of the “hetero-masculine” military culture…”
Everything from courage, bravery, sacrifice are often indistinguishable with masculinity and have been since time immemorial not just in the western world but across the planet that goes down the drain with this particular course of action.
Even by historic standards the inclusiveness of fighting forces only stretched far enough to include homosexual/bisexual men who regardless of their sexual proclivities embodied the values expected of a war fighter.
Also implicitly alleging the “heteromasculinity” of active duty service members as problematic and something to be eradicated to fit the preferences of a negligible minority at the expense of a serving majority reeks of the kind of partisan behavior that can upset the cohesiveness of a unit.
Commenter Patrick Smith summed it up nicely:
I actually thought this was a parody of what a woken institution attempting to meet recruiting goals might attempt or the author’s attempt to be academically accepted into current mainstream academic circles. That this is presented as a serious work of scholarly research is such a derogatory statement about the profession of arms, institutional management, and cultural descent of the national environment is unfortunately illustrative of where we are at as a nation.
Smith? Hmm, anonymity may be necessary.
The American imperial experiment is coming undone in myriad ways and this particular political seppuku is a wonder to behold.
Email me at cgpodcast@pm.me
