1. It is false to believe that military power is less important than it used to be before the fall of the Soviet Union. The best military still wins.
2. Military Policy influences army, navy, and air force, as well as international trade and foreign aid.
TWO VIEWS!
3. The military exists to defend the country or to help other nations defend themselves. When troops are used, almost all Americans benefit and almost all pay the bill. The president is boss (commander and chief), and Congress hangs out in the background (plays a large supportive role). Majoritarian View.
OR!
4. Military is a large and powerful client! The real beneficiaries of military spending are the general and admirals, as well as the big corporations and members of Congress whose districts get fat defense contracts. Everyone pays, but these clients get most of the benefits.(Client view)
5. The military-industrial complex is an alleged alliance among key military, governmental, and corporate decision-makers involved in weapons procurement and military support systems.
What we get with our cash-$
6. Personnel - these are the guys that keep our military force alive. There is no longer a draft, and allowing women and homosexuals into the military forces is a recent addition.
7. Big Ticket Items - such as submarines, missiles, and airplanes cost congress a lot of $. Cost overruns, or actual costs that are much greater than the estimated costs, happen because nobody can accurately predict how much something is going to cost if it has never been created before, or because those proposing the new big ticket item have incentive to underestimate the cost, or because or gold plating - the tendency to ask for everything at once (such as special features or new technology) - by the officials who decide what they want.
8. Big Ticket Items - hammers, coffee makers, and other things that are both necessary and that piss tax payers off. In other words, normally things like hammers and coffee makers are cheap enough just like a standard jet engine or a basic piece of equipment, but when the military wants to specialize their equipment (for example, inventing a coffee pot that can go upside down in a fighter jet) it becomes very expensive.
9, Readiness and Bases - being able to respond to danger or war quickly and efficiently, and the places to make that happen. Unfortunately, not that much is spent on military readiness like extra training. When congress needs to cut the military budget it would much rather cut extra training than close a base that might be in their district because it loses jobs and money for their constituency. Because no one would vote to close military bases, the government had to create an unbiased civilian commission to decide which bases should be closed.
10. How it happens! - The National Security Act of 1947 created the Department of Defense which is headed by the secretary of defense, who is served by secretaries of the army, the navy, and the air force and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The president is the commander and chief, and the chain of command runs from him to the secretary of defense. Together, this group makes all the decisions regarding our countries' military. Both the presidency and secretary of state are civilian positions to discourage the military from gaining too much political power.
Current Issue in Military Policy: Don't Ask Don't Tell Policy
Pro: The Don't Ask Don't Tell policy allows gays into the military without compromising the stucture and discipline necessary for the military to function appropriately.
- Policy does not prohibit gays, only says they cannot engage in homosexual acts, follows normal standards of military conduct, does not single them out.
Con: The Don't Ask Don't Tell policy is discrimination and restricts the freedom of expression of Homosexuals.
- $20 million has been spent "researching" the sexual orientation of army members; could be better spent
- Don't Ask Don't Tell validates the homophobia of many soldiers, promoting an inefficient and awkward work environment.
- 21% of soldiers discharged under Don't Ask Don't Tell were women, yet only 13% of soldiers are women; used as a sexist tool to harass women
- A new Bill would allow gays to openly serve in the U.S. military
- During run for presidency, Barack Obama said he would repeal "don't ask-don't tell"
- New policy could pass in first year of Obama administration
Obama Opposes Gay Military Ban, but Repealing It Could Take a Year or Two.(Barack Obama).Amanda Ruggeri. U.S. News & World Report (Dec 2, 2008): pNA. When it comes to President-elect Barack Obama (http://www.usnews.com/Topics/tag/People/O/barack_obama/index.html) making good on his campaign promise to repeal "don'task, don't tell," gays and lesbians--70 percent (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26843704/) of whom voted for him--may have to be patient. Advocates of the repeal are warning that any action might take a year or more. Given the host of issues on Obama's plate, they say that some delay is understandable. But it may not simply be a fiscal crisis and two wars that could put off reversing the military policy, which mandates discharge of gays or lesbians if they speak about their sexual orientation or engage in homosexual conduct. Instead, the delay could be a result of the repeal strategy that many advocates are encouraging Obama to pursue--one that would focus on consensus building and securing the military's support. "At the end of the day, it's not about getting it done in the first 180 days. It's not about the calendar. It's about getting the right results," says Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a nonprofit dedicated to overturning the ban. The president-elect stated his opposition to "don'task, don't tell" during the long campaign, and he included its repeal on the transition website's agenda (http://change.gov/agenda/civil_rights_agenda/) of issues. The fastest way to make good on his promise would be tacking a signing order onto a military appropriations bill, which President Bush has done in the past. But Obama isn't planning on taking that route. "I want to make sure that when we revert 'don'task, don't tell,' it has gone through a process and we've built a consensus or at least a clarity of that, of what my expectations are, so that it works," he said (http://www.metroweekly.com/gauge/?ak=3771) in a September interview. Such a process, he said, would include "getting the Joint Chiefs of Staff clear in terms of what our priorities are going to be." A spokesperson for Obama's transition team, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said only that decisions would not be made until the national security team is in place. A slow approach to change, however, worries Aaron Belkin, a leading expert on the issue of gays in the military, who says it likely will prolong the process without ensuring success. In the 24 foreign countries that overturned similar bans, he says, not once was the process initiated by the military. An early Obama supporter, Gen. Merrill McPeak, has even cautioned against repeal (http://www.usnews.com/blogs/washington-whispers/2008/10/31/barack-obamas-military-adviser-says-to-stick-with-gay-ban.html) in remarks that Obama declined to repudiate publicly. "Even the most hardcore opponents in the military understand that repeal is inevitable," Belkin says. "But if you give them the option to weigh in, they will kick and scream for 50 years. Unless they are told what to do, the change will not happen." In fact, he warns, giving the opposition time to mobilize could hurt the repeal's chances. That's what happened when President Clinton (http://www.usnews.com/Topics/tag/People/c/bill_clinton/index.html) attempted to make good on his campaign promise to allow gays into the military, sparking the fight that led to the passage of "don'task, don't tell" as a compromise bill. Most advocates of repeal, however, downplay the probability of a strong opposition. They point out that an ABC poll this summer found 78 percent (http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Politics/story?id=5387980&page=1) of Americans in favor of gays serving openly in the military. More than 100 retired admirals and generals (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5igtJIqM3RT55BSIEgUfabiUuO6CgD94GUR000) signed a letter as of last week calling for repeal, while a bill seeking to overturn the ban (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-1246) in Congress has accumulated 149 cosponsors. Plus, say experts, the negative effects of "don'task, don't tell" are well understood by military authorities. Since 1994, the policy has forced the discharge of nearly 12,500 servicemembers, including, since 2003, at least 59 Arabic speakers. A Government Accountability Office report (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05299.pdf) estimated that it cost $180 million to recruit and train replacements for those discharged through 2003 alone. Even so, establishing consensus will take time, and repeal supporters say that overturning the ban might not happen until the end of 2009 or 2010. --Read more news about gay rights (http://www.usnews.com/Topics/tag/Subject/g/gay_rights/index.html). --Read more by Amanda Ruggeri (http://www.usnews.com/Topics/tag/Author/r/ruggeri_amanda/index.html). Source Citation: Ruggeri, Amanda. "Obama Opposes Gay Military Ban, but Repealing It Could Take a Year or Two.(Barack Obama)." U.S. News & World Report. (Dec 2, 2008): NA. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. CONESTOGA HIGH SCHOOL. 11 Dec. 2008 <http://find.galegroup.com/ovrc/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=OVRC&docId=A190015340&source=gale&srcprod=OVRC&userGroupName=berw2747&version=1.0>. Ask, tell, whatever? Gays-in-the-military comes up again.MacKubin Thomas Owens. National Review 59.6 (April 16, 2007): p26. COPYRIGHT 2007 National Review, Inc. FOR the first time since the 2000 presidential campaign, the issue of homosexuals' serving openly in the military has moved to center stage. Encouraged by polls purporting to show that pubic opinion, both civilian and military, is now more receptive to the idea, Rep. Martin Meehan (D., Mass.), chairman of the relevant subcommittee, has revived his 2005 bill that would repeal the Clinton-era policy of "don't ask, don't tell" (DADT). DADT prohibits military commanders from asking about a person's sexual orientation and allows homosexuals to serve if they keep their sexual orientation private and don't engage in homosexual acts. Meehan's bill would replace DADT with "a policy prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation." The timing of this debate is unfortunate. As David S. C. Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, wrote in a recent letter to Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), "The Global War on Terrorism is far-reaching and unrelenting." A national debate on gays in the military threatens to cause "divisiveness and turbulence across our country, [compounding] the burden of the war." The most interesting aspect of the current debate is the change in tactics on the part of advocates of open homosexual service. In the past, they argued that this was merely the latest episode in a struggle for equal civil rights--often invoking President Truman's postwar executive order that racially integrated the U.S. military. Boston Globe columnist James Carroll wrote in 2000 that "today's soldiers and sailors reluctant to serve shoulder to shoulder with homosexuals are the progeny of racist and sexist soldiers and sailors who were told to get over it or get out." But now they argue that the exclusion of homosexuals undermines military effectiveness and is at odds with public opinion. This claim is made by both liberals and conservatives. For instance, in a letter to defense secretary Robert Gates asking him to "revisit" DADT, Senator Wyden wrote that the policy "makes absolutely no sense and undermines the fight against terrorism." Wyden's office has contended that dozens of homosexual service members with critically needed skills like proficiency in Arabic have been discharged, and that enforcing the policy costs hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. Wyden has always opposed the exclusion of open homosexuals, but even some who once favored the exclusion are making the same argument. In January, retired Army general John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Clinton, wrote in the New York Times that he had reconsidered his position and concluded that the current policy should be reversed. He based his change of heart on his belief that the U.S. military has been "stretched thin," and that public sentiment has shifted in recent years. Former Republican senator Alan Simpson has made essentially the same arguments in a Washington Post op-ed. There are several problems with these arguments. First, the numbers used by opponents of DADT to support their position are questionable. For example, the main evidence for the contention that there is greater public acceptance of open homosexual service, both within and outside of the military, is a Zogby International poll published in December 2006. But as Elaine Donnelly's Center for Military Readiness has pointed out, Zogby chose to highlight the response to an irrelevant question: "Are you comfortable interacting with gay people?" Seventy-three percent of respondents replied that they were. But in response to the central question ("Do you agree or disagree with allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military?"), only 26 percent agreed, while 37 percent disagreed and 32 percent were neutral. That is hardly indicative of overwhelming public support for open homosexual service. The numbers purporting to show that military members favor open homosexual service are fishy as well. The Zogby news release stated that the poll was designed in conjunction with the Michael D. Palm Center (formerly the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military), an advocacy group that has long pushed for open homosexual service. This fact may or not have an impact on the credibility of the poll. But the polling sample does: It claims to be based on a sample of 545 people "who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan (or in combat support roles directly supporting those operations), from a purchased list of U.S. military personnel." But, as Donnelly observes, the U.S. military does not sell or provide access to personnel lists. The Zogby figures are further called into question by a January 2007 Military Times survey of active-duty subscribers, which found that while 30 percent thought that open homosexuals ought to be permitted to serve, 59 percent did not, and 10 percent had no opinion. The 59 percent opposed to open homosexual service was identical to that revealed by a January 2006 survey conducted by the same paper. Then there is the question of the effect of DADT on the retention of crucial personnel, such as Arabic linguists. Advocates of open homosexual service have made a big deal of this, claiming, for instance, that 54 Arab linguists have been separated from the military because they were homosexual. But the Pentagon has argued that most of those who are counted among the 54 had not achieved linguistic proficiency, and that over a decade only nine qualified Arabic specialists have been separated because of the law. But let's address the broadest question: Why prohibit open homosexual service at all? Congress provided the answer in 1993, when it passed the current law: "Homosexuality is incompatible with military service and presents a risk to the morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that underpin military effectiveness." An important element of war is "friction," which Clausewitz described as "the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper." Clausewitz's friction describes the cumulative effect of the small, often unnoticeable events that are amplified in war, producing unanticipated macro-effects. Military effectiveness aims at reducing the impact of friction and other obstacles to success on the battlefield. Most research has shown unit cohesion is critical to military effectiveness and battlefield success. The key to cohesion is what the Greeks called philia--friendship, comradeship, or brotherly love. Philia is the bond among disparate individuals who have nothing in common but facing death and misery together. Its importance has been described by J. Glenn Gray in The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle: Numberless soldiers have died, more or less willingly, not for country or honor or religious faith or for any other abstract good, but because they realized that by fleeing their posts and rescuing themselves, they would expose their companions to greater danger. Such loyalty to the group is the essence of fighting morale. The commander who can preserve and strengthen it knows that all other physical and psychological factors are little in comparison. The feeling of loyalty, it is clear, is the result, not the cause, of comradeship. Comrades are loyal to each other spontaneously and without any need for reasons. The presence of open homosexuals (and women) in the close confines of ships or military units opens the possibility that eros will be unleashed into an environment based on philia, creating friction and corroding the very source of military excellence itself. It does so by undermining the non-sexual bonding essential to unit cohesion as described by Gray. Unlike philia, eros is sexual, and therefore individual and exclusive. Eros manifests itself as sexual competition, protectiveness, and favoritism, all of which undermine order, discipline, and morale. These are issues of life and death, and help to explain why open homosexuality and homosexual behavior traditionally have been considered incompatible with military service. But can't these problems be solved by enforcing regulations against fraternization and sexual relations among service members? There are indeed such regulations on the books, but they cannot always be enforced. And when they are not, the consequences extend far beyond the individuals involved. Over the past two decades I have seen the poisonous effects that personal relationships gone wrong can have in an academic setting. But no one died. In combat, the consequences could well be lethal. Finally, some advocates of open homosexual service--e.g., Senator Simpson--observe that it has not had an adverse effect on other militaries in the world. But where it matters most--in combat units--these other militaries follow pretty much the same policy as the United States. In the end, it is up to Congress to decide whether to change the law. As Prof. Charles Moskos of Northwestern University, dean of American military sociologists and the primary architect of the DADT policy, pointed out several years ago in the Wall Street Journal, there are foolish reasons for excluding homosexuals from the armed forces, but that does not mean we should ignore the good ones. Chief among the good reasons remains military effectiveness. Mr. Owens is an associate dean of academics and a professor of national-security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. He is writing a history of U.S. civil-military relations. Source Citation: Owens, MacKubin Thomas. "Ask, tell, whatever? Gays-in-the-military comes up again." National Review.59. 6 (April 16, 2007): 26. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. CONESTOGA HIGH SCHOOL. 11 Dec. 2008 http://find.galegroup.com/ovrc/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=OVRC&docId=A161503439&source=gale&srcprod=OVRC &userGroupName=berw2747&version=1.0.
Debate Questions:
Is secrecy a good policy for military servicemen?
Does the policy lose the military the talent of good soldiers?
Is it economically costly?
Is it time to/ plausible to change the current policy?
What are benefits of the policy?
Is the policy’s status as a law rather than just the choice of the commander in chief beneficial or a liability?
Military Policy
Top 10 Things to know about Military Policy
1. It is false to believe that military power is less important than it used to be before the fall of the Soviet Union. The best military still wins.
2. Military Policy influences army, navy, and air force, as well as international trade and foreign aid.
TWO VIEWS!
3. The military exists to defend the country or to help other nations defend themselves. When troops are used, almost all Americans benefit and almost all pay the bill. The president is boss (commander and chief), and Congress hangs out in the background (plays a large supportive role). Majoritarian View.
OR!
4. Military is a large and powerful client! The real beneficiaries of military spending are the general and admirals, as well as the big corporations and members of Congress whose districts get fat defense contracts. Everyone pays, but these clients get most of the benefits.(Client view)
5. The military-industrial complex is an alleged alliance among key military, governmental, and corporate decision-makers involved in weapons procurement and military support systems.
What we get with our cash-$
6. Personnel - these are the guys that keep our military force alive. There is no longer a draft, and allowing women and homosexuals into the military forces is a recent addition.
7. Big Ticket Items - such as submarines, missiles, and airplanes cost congress a lot of $. Cost overruns, or actual costs that are much greater than the estimated costs, happen because nobody can accurately predict how much something is going to cost if it has never been created before, or because those proposing the new big ticket item have incentive to underestimate the cost, or because or gold plating - the tendency to ask for everything at once (such as special features or new technology) - by the officials who decide what they want.
8. Big Ticket Items - hammers, coffee makers, and other things that are both necessary and that piss tax payers off. In other words, normally things like hammers and coffee makers are cheap enough just like a standard jet engine or a basic piece of equipment, but when the military wants to specialize their equipment (for example, inventing a coffee pot that can go upside down in a fighter jet) it becomes very expensive.
9, Readiness and Bases - being able to respond to danger or war quickly and efficiently, and the places to make that happen. Unfortunately, not that much is spent on military readiness like extra training. When congress needs to cut the military budget it would much rather cut extra training than close a base that might be in their district because it loses jobs and money for their constituency. Because no one would vote to close military bases, the government had to create an unbiased civilian commission to decide which bases should be closed.
10. How it happens! - The National Security Act of 1947 created the Department of Defense which is headed by the secretary of defense, who is served by secretaries of the army, the navy, and the air force and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The president is the commander and chief, and the chain of command runs from him to the secretary of defense. Together, this group makes all the decisions regarding our countries' military. Both the presidency and secretary of state are civilian positions to discourage the military from gaining too much political power.
Current Issue in Military Policy: Don't Ask Don't Tell Policy
Pro: The Don't Ask Don't Tell policy allows gays into the military without compromising the stucture and discipline necessary for the military to function appropriately.
- Policy does not prohibit gays, only says they cannot engage in homosexual acts, follows normal standards of military conduct, does not single them out.Con: The Don't Ask Don't Tell policy is discrimination and restricts the freedom of expression of Homosexuals.
- $20 million has been spent "researching" the sexual orientation of army members; could be better spent- Don't Ask Don't Tell validates the homophobia of many soldiers, promoting an inefficient and awkward work environment.
- 21% of soldiers discharged under Don't Ask Don't Tell were women, yet only 13% of soldiers are women; used as a sexist tool to harass women
- A new Bill would allow gays to openly serve in the U.S. military
- During run for presidency, Barack Obama said he would repeal "don't ask-don't tell"
- New policy could pass in first year of Obama administration
Obama Opposes Gay Military Ban, but Repealing It Could Take a Year or Two.(Barack Obama).Amanda Ruggeri.
U.S. News & World Report (Dec 2, 2008): pNA.
When it comes to President-elect Barack Obama (http://www.usnews.com/Topics/tag/People/O/barack_obama/index.html) making good on his campaign promise to repeal "don't ask, don't tell," gays and lesbians--70 percent (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26843704/) of whom voted for him--may have to be patient. Advocates of the repeal are warning that any action might take a year or more.
Given the host of issues on Obama's plate, they say that some delay is understandable. But it may not simply be a fiscal crisis and two wars that could put off reversing the military policy, which mandates discharge of gays or lesbians if they speak about their sexual orientation or engage in homosexual conduct.
Instead, the delay could be a result of the repeal strategy that many advocates are encouraging Obama to pursue--one that would focus on consensus building and securing the military's support.
"At the end of the day, it's not about getting it done in the first 180 days. It's not about the calendar. It's about getting the right results," says Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a nonprofit dedicated to overturning the ban.
The president-elect stated his opposition to "don't ask, don't tell" during the long campaign, and he included its repeal on the transition website's agenda (http://change.gov/agenda/civil_rights_agenda/) of issues. The fastest way to make good on his promise would be tacking a signing order onto a military appropriations bill, which President Bush has done in the past.
But Obama isn't planning on taking that route. "I want to make sure that when we revert 'don't ask, don't tell,' it has gone through a process and we've built a consensus or at least a clarity of that, of what my expectations are, so that it works," he said (http://www.metroweekly.com/gauge/?ak=3771) in a September interview. Such a process, he said, would include "getting the Joint Chiefs of Staff clear in terms of what our priorities are going to be."
A spokesperson for Obama's transition team, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said only that decisions would not be made until the national security team is in place.
A slow approach to change, however, worries Aaron Belkin, a leading expert on the issue of gays in the military, who says it likely will prolong the process without ensuring success. In the 24 foreign countries that overturned similar bans, he says, not once was the process initiated by the military. An early Obama supporter, Gen. Merrill McPeak, has even cautioned against repeal (http://www.usnews.com/blogs/washington-whispers/2008/10/31/barack-obamas-military-adviser-says-to-stick-with-gay-ban.html) in remarks that Obama declined to repudiate publicly.
"Even the most hardcore opponents in the military understand that repeal is inevitable," Belkin says. "But if you give them the option to weigh in, they will kick and scream for 50 years. Unless they are told what to do, the change will not happen."
In fact, he warns, giving the opposition time to mobilize could hurt the repeal's chances. That's what happened when President Clinton (http://www.usnews.com/Topics/tag/People/c/bill_clinton/index.html) attempted to make good on his campaign promise to allow gays into the military, sparking the fight that led to the passage of "don't ask, don't tell" as a compromise bill.
Most advocates of repeal, however, downplay the probability of a strong opposition. They point out that an ABC poll this summer found 78 percent (http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Politics/story?id=5387980&page=1) of Americans in favor of gays serving openly in the military. More than 100 retired admirals and generals (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5igtJIqM3RT55BSIEgUfabiUuO6CgD94GUR000) signed a letter as of last week calling for repeal, while a bill seeking to overturn the ban (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-1246) in Congress has accumulated 149 cosponsors.
Plus, say experts, the negative effects of "don't ask, don't tell" are well understood by military authorities. Since 1994, the policy has forced the discharge of nearly 12,500 servicemembers, including, since 2003, at least 59 Arabic speakers. A Government Accountability Office report (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05299.pdf) estimated that it cost $180 million to recruit and train replacements for those discharged through 2003 alone.
Even so, establishing consensus will take time, and repeal supporters say that overturning the ban might not happen until the end of 2009 or 2010.
--Read more news about gay rights (http://www.usnews.com/Topics/tag/Subject/g/gay_rights/index.html).
--Read more by Amanda Ruggeri (http://www.usnews.com/Topics/tag/Author/r/ruggeri_amanda/index.html).
Source Citation:
Ruggeri, Amanda. "Obama Opposes Gay Military Ban, but Repealing It Could Take a Year or
Two.(Barack Obama)." U.S. News & World Report. (Dec 2, 2008): NA. Opposing
Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. CONESTOGA HIGH SCHOOL. 11 Dec. 2008 <http://find.galegroup.com/ovrc/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=OVRC&docId=A190015340&source=gale&srcprod=OVRC&userGroupName=berw2747&version=1.0>.
Ask, tell, whatever? Gays-in-the-military comes up again.MacKubin Thomas Owens.
National Review 59.6 (April 16, 2007): p26.
COPYRIGHT 2007 National Review, Inc.
FOR the first time since the 2000 presidential campaign, the issue of homosexuals' serving openly in the military has moved to center stage. Encouraged by polls purporting to show that pubic opinion, both civilian and military, is now more receptive to the idea, Rep. Martin Meehan (D., Mass.), chairman of the relevant subcommittee, has revived his 2005 bill that would repeal the Clinton-era policy of "don't ask, don't tell" (DADT). DADT prohibits military commanders from asking about a person's sexual orientation and allows homosexuals to serve if they keep their sexual orientation private and don't engage in homosexual acts. Meehan's bill would replace DADT with "a policy prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation."
The timing of this debate is unfortunate. As David S. C. Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, wrote in a recent letter to Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), "The Global War on Terrorism is far-reaching and unrelenting." A national debate on gays in the military threatens to cause "divisiveness and turbulence across our country, [compounding] the burden of the war."
The most interesting aspect of the current debate is the change in tactics on the part of advocates of open homosexual service. In the past, they argued that this was merely the latest episode in a struggle for equal civil rights--often invoking President Truman's postwar executive order that racially integrated the U.S. military. Boston Globe columnist James Carroll wrote in 2000 that "today's soldiers and sailors reluctant to serve shoulder to shoulder with homosexuals are the progeny of racist and sexist soldiers and sailors who were told to get over it or get out."
But now they argue that the exclusion of homosexuals undermines military effectiveness and is at odds with public opinion. This claim is made by both liberals and conservatives. For instance, in a letter to defense secretary Robert Gates asking him to "revisit" DADT, Senator Wyden wrote that the policy "makes absolutely no sense and undermines the fight against terrorism." Wyden's office has contended that dozens of homosexual service members with critically needed skills like proficiency in Arabic have been discharged, and that enforcing the policy costs hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
Wyden has always opposed the exclusion of open homosexuals, but even some who once favored the exclusion are making the same argument. In January, retired Army general John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Clinton, wrote in the New York Times that he had reconsidered his position and concluded that the current policy should be reversed. He based his change of heart on his belief that the U.S. military has been "stretched thin," and that public sentiment has shifted in recent years. Former Republican senator Alan Simpson has made essentially the same arguments in a Washington Post op-ed.
There are several problems with these arguments. First, the numbers used by opponents of DADT to support their position are questionable. For example, the main evidence for the contention that there is greater public acceptance of open homosexual service, both within and outside of the military, is a Zogby International poll published in December 2006. But as Elaine Donnelly's Center for Military Readiness has pointed out, Zogby chose to highlight the response to an irrelevant question: "Are you comfortable interacting with gay people?" Seventy-three percent of respondents replied that they were. But in response to the central question ("Do you agree or disagree with allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military?"), only 26 percent agreed, while 37 percent disagreed and 32 percent were neutral. That is hardly indicative of overwhelming public support for open homosexual service.
The numbers purporting to show that military members favor open homosexual service are fishy as well. The Zogby news release stated that the poll was designed in conjunction with the Michael D. Palm Center (formerly the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military), an advocacy group that has long pushed for open homosexual service. This fact may or not have an impact on the credibility of the poll. But the polling sample does: It claims to be based on a sample of 545 people "who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan (or in combat support roles directly supporting those operations), from a purchased list of U.S. military personnel." But, as Donnelly observes, the U.S. military does not sell or provide access to personnel lists.
The Zogby figures are further called into question by a January 2007 Military Times survey of active-duty subscribers, which found that while 30 percent thought that open homosexuals ought to be permitted to serve, 59 percent did not, and 10 percent had no opinion. The 59 percent opposed to open homosexual service was identical to that revealed by a January 2006 survey conducted by the same paper.
Then there is the question of the effect of DADT on the retention of crucial personnel, such as Arabic linguists. Advocates of open homosexual service have made a big deal of this, claiming, for instance, that 54 Arab linguists have been separated from the military because they were homosexual. But the Pentagon has argued that most of those who are counted among the 54 had not achieved linguistic proficiency, and that over a decade only nine qualified Arabic specialists have been separated because of the law.
But let's address the broadest question: Why prohibit open homosexual service at all? Congress provided the answer in 1993, when it passed the current law: "Homosexuality is incompatible with military service and presents a risk to the morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that underpin military effectiveness."
An important element of war is "friction," which Clausewitz described as "the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper." Clausewitz's friction describes the cumulative effect of the small, often unnoticeable events that are amplified in war, producing unanticipated macro-effects. Military effectiveness aims at reducing the impact of friction and other obstacles to success on the battlefield.
Most research has shown unit cohesion is critical to military effectiveness and battlefield success. The key to cohesion is what the Greeks called philia--friendship, comradeship, or brotherly love. Philia is the bond among disparate individuals who have nothing in common but facing death and misery together. Its importance has been described by J. Glenn Gray in The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle:
Numberless soldiers have died, more or
less willingly, not for country or honor or
religious faith or for any other abstract
good, but because they realized that by
fleeing their posts and rescuing themselves,
they would expose their companions
to greater danger. Such loyalty to the
group is the essence of fighting morale.
The commander who can preserve and
strengthen it knows that all other physical
and psychological factors are little in comparison.
The feeling of loyalty, it is clear, is
the result, not the cause, of comradeship.
Comrades are loyal to each other spontaneously
and without any need for reasons.
The presence of open homosexuals (and women) in the close confines of ships or military units opens the possibility that eros will be unleashed into an environment based on philia, creating friction and corroding the very source of military excellence itself. It does so by undermining the non-sexual bonding essential to unit cohesion as described by Gray. Unlike philia, eros is sexual, and therefore individual and exclusive. Eros manifests itself as sexual competition, protectiveness, and favoritism, all of which undermine order, discipline, and morale. These are issues of life and death, and help to explain why open homosexuality and homosexual behavior traditionally have been considered incompatible with military service.
But can't these problems be solved by enforcing regulations against fraternization and sexual relations among service members? There are indeed such regulations on the books, but they cannot always be enforced. And when they are not, the consequences extend far beyond the individuals involved. Over the past two decades I have seen the poisonous effects that personal relationships gone wrong can have in an academic setting. But no one died. In combat, the consequences could well be lethal.
Finally, some advocates of open homosexual service--e.g., Senator Simpson--observe that it has not had an adverse effect on other militaries in the world. But where it matters most--in combat units--these other militaries follow pretty much the same policy as the United States.
In the end, it is up to Congress to decide whether to change the law. As Prof. Charles Moskos of Northwestern University, dean of American military sociologists and the primary architect of the DADT policy, pointed out several years ago in the Wall Street Journal, there are foolish reasons for excluding homosexuals from the armed forces, but that does not mean we should ignore the good ones. Chief among the good reasons remains military effectiveness.
Mr. Owens is an associate dean of academics and a professor of national-security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. He is writing a history of U.S. civil-military relations.
Source Citation:
Owens, MacKubin Thomas. "Ask, tell, whatever? Gays-in-the-military comes up again." National Review. 59. 6 (April
16, 2007): 26. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. CONESTOGA HIGH SCHOOL. 11 Dec. 2008
http://find.galegroup.com/ovrc/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=OVRC&docId=A161503439&source=gale&srcprod=OVRC
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