We’ve looked at the dysfunction spreading through every government service as the combination of Civil Service and union protection with affirmative action hiring has lowered standards and reduced accountability, shielding the incompetent and criminal while negating the efforts of conscientious employees. Anyone who has spent time in the armed forces will happily tell stories of dysfunction and poor management, boondoggles and bureaucracy. Yet somehow the military branches of the US manage to stay on top of the world in effectiveness and innovation. Why?

One reason is funding. The US funds its defense forces better than most competitor nations, with all other developed countries spending far less as a share of GDP. Europeans and the Japanese spend far less because historically the US took responsibility for their defense during the Cold War and has continued to shield them at great expense. But that has meant the US maintenance of a global competence and a scale of infrastructure unmatched by rivals. Despite the many boondoggles in design and procurement of advanced weapons (e.g., the F-35, which we’ll look at later), Congress continues to fund new development.

Another reason for the continuing dominance of the US is the Guardian Syndrome esprit de corps, still effective despite the gradual imposition of civilian-style personnel policies. Soldiers still feel free to gripe and complain when they see incompetence, and incompetence is still more likely to lead to career-ending discipline than it might be in other government services — no “soldier’s union” will go to bat for the AWOL loser-du-jour. Servicemen and women would be offended by the idea that they should join a union and strike for easier working conditions and higher pay; honorable soldiers are disgusted by the idea of disobeying orders and manning picket lines to prevent other defenders of the country from doing their jobs. Being an accepted part of the corps and maintaining high standards for entry is a key part of a good soldier’s self-image, and will not be traded for a mess of pottage.

While the US military suffers from the problems of HR bureaucracies, it is protected to some extent by its traditions and values. And most competitor’s armed forces are much worse off, with the most threatening hosted by authoritarian civilian societies that fail to generate and reward innovation. The technological dominance of the US generates most of the world’s new technologies, and multiple academic and industrial labs research blue-sky ideas that eventually make their way into defense industries. The highest levels of the officer corps are still thoughtful, educated, and willing to go to bat for process innovations that anticipate future war-fighting needs.

Or at least they were. A series of wars fought by increasingly political rules of engagement, and the relentless pressure to make the armed forces over to reflect Progressive values of equality over performance, have been eating away at that traditional esprit de corps. The increasingly professional, disciplined military services have tamed the race and class barriers while the surrounding civil society has grown less disciplined and more self-indulgent. As Thomas E. Ricks wrote in his story “The Widening Gap Between Military and Society” in the July, 1997 Atlantic:

After following a platoon of Marine recruits through eleven weeks of boot-camp training on Parris Island in the spring of 1995, I was stunned to see, when they went home for postgraduation leave, how alienated they felt from their old lives. At various times each of these new Marines seemed to experience a moment of private loathing for public America. They were repulsed by the physical unfitness of civilians, by the uncouth behavior they witnessed, and by what they saw as pervasive selfishness and consumerism. Many found themselves avoiding old friends, and some experienced difficulty even in communicating with their families.

One typical member of Platoon 3086, Craig Hoover, reported that the Amtrak ride home to Kensington, Maryland, was “horrible.” The train was “filled with smoke,” he said. “People were drinking and their kids were running around aimlessly. You felt like smacking around some people.” (An article I published in The Wall Street Journal in July, 1995, mentioned many of the recruits quoted here.) Hoover also found the train ride a sad contrast to the relative racial harmony of Parris Island. “It felt kind of segregated by race and class—a poor white car, a poor black car, a middle-class white car, a middle-class black car.” Even McDonald’s—which had become a fantasy-like symbol to the recruits as they ate military rations, particularly during a week of training in the woods — proved to be a letdown. “You look around and notice that a lot of the civilians are overweight, and a little sloppy,” Hoover said….

Yet the member of Platoon 3086 perhaps most at odds with his former environment was Daniel Keane, whose background was probably the most privileged. The son of a Merrill Lynch & Co. executive, Keane seemed almost in pain when I interviewed him in the living room of his parents’ house, in Summit, New Jersey. When he first got home from Parris Island, he said about being with his family, “I didn’t know how to act. They said, ‘What do you want to do?’ I’d say, ‘I don’t know.’ I didn’t know how to carry on a conversation.”

He found his old peer group even more difficult. “All my friends are home from college now, drinking, acting stupid and loud,” the eighteen-year-old Marine said. He was particularly disappointed when two old friends refused to postpone smoking marijuana for a few minutes, until he was away from them. “They were getting ready to smoke their weed. I said, ‘Could you just hang on for a minute? Can’t you wait till you get to the party instead of smoking in the car?’ They said, ‘Then we’d have to give it out.'” So, he recalled, they lit up in front of their Marine friend. “I was pretty disappointed in them doing that. It made me want to be at SOI [the Marines’ School of Infantry].”

Like many other members of 3086, Keane felt as if he had joined a cult or religion. “People don’t understand,” he told me, “and I’m not going to waste my breath trying to explain when the only thing that really impresses them is how much beer you can chug down in thirty seconds.”[1]

Ricks is aiming to raise alarm about the alienation of the military subculture from the rest of society, mostly to suggest a whiff of fascism in the increasingly right-wing (in his view) tendencies of military personnel. But his spin on the story suggests the disdain of Progressive coastal elites and bien-pensant scribblers like him for any ideal of military standards and performance, or a tight-knit group that might value competence over equal outcomes. In the real world, armed forces that do not strive to be the best will lose, and losing means an end to the freedoms of the society they protect, and the loss of the protected environment that allowed the bien-pensants to develop their sense of entitlement to look down on others not so enlightened. Ricks continues:

American political and economic elites generally don’t understand the military. A comment published this spring in the Utne Reader—the Reader’s Digest of the New Age crowd—captured the disdain for today’s military. In an editorial introduction to an article the magazine stated that in light of the Tailhook and Aberdeen scandals, “it’s hard to imagine why any woman—or any man with a conscience—would want to join the military.”

Nor is such understanding deemed important, even in making national-security policy. Consider, for example, the conspicuous lack in the [Clinton] White House of staff members with military experience — in an Administration that has proved to be militarily activist. Even after bungling an inherited mission in Somalia and then using U.S. forces to feed Rwandan refugees, invade Haiti, and enforce a peace agreement in Bosnia, the Clinton Administration did not see fit to follow Pentagon suggestions that it appoint someone with a military background to a senior post on the National Security Council.

The disdain of Democratic administrations, especially, for military values has generated equal contempt from members of the Armed Forces who now see themselves as protecting a society that no longer values or understands them. While paying lip service to veterans and soldiers, politicians have started to treat them like another group of victims, extending welfare and condescension while staffing the VA with patronage hacks and incompetents.

This rising mutual contempt between the military and the coastal bien-pensants reflects the larger schism between the Red Tribe and Blue Tribe described in Scott Alexander’s famous essay. The Red Tribe (less urban, less coastal, more blue-collar and working-class, more Republican, more conservative) have more Jacksonian values and are closely associated with support for the military, while the Blue Tribe (urban, coastal, white-collar, wealthy, literate, and more Democratic) are contemptuous of military men and military values, with their aging leaders more likely to have been antiwar activists in the Vietnam era (e.g., Secretary of State John Kerry.)

There is a pattern of excellent officers being targeted for political reasons and retiring early, leaving a top brass of more politically-compliant and tactful survivors. Combined with resignations over illicit affairs and sexual harassment allegations, much of the thoughtful top talent of the armed forces has been lost.

One recent example of this is the highly public reprimand and planned retirement of Rear Admiral Brian Losey,[2] Commander of Naval Special Warfare forces — SEALs and the like. Adm. Losey had five personnel complaints against him, which were investigated by the Navy’s Inspector General (in itself career-damaging) and was ruled to have retaliated against subordinates who reported possible travel expense irregularities. Congressmen held up other appointments to block his promotion, and got their way when Navy Secretary Ray Mabus held the promotion for review (meaning it was denied.)[3] Adm. Losey correctly viewed this as a rebuke and plans to retire.

Adm. William McRaven (planner of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden) bravely wrote in defense of his colleague in the Tampa Tribune of April 24, 2016, a piece good enough to quote at length:

When I was a young boy my father, a veteran of World War II and Korea, schooled me on the downfall of Gen. Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur, he explained, had overstepped his authority and shown blatant disrespect for the civilian leadership of the country. President Harry Truman relieved him of his command, and MacArthur retired soon thereafter.

Civilian rule of the military was one of the most fundamental principles of the armed forces. To believe differently was dangerous, my father told me. Dad strongly supported Truman’s action, and he made me understand the value of the civil-military relationship — a lesson I never forgot.

But over the past decade I have seen a disturbing trend in how politicians abuse and denigrate military leadership, particularly the officer corps, to advance their political agendas. Although this is certainly not a new phenomenon, it seems to be growing in intensity. My concern is that if this trend of disrespect to the military continues it will undermine the strength of the officer corps to the point where good men and women will forgo service — or worse the ones serving will be reluctant to make hard decision for fear their actions, however justified, will be used against them in the political arena.

Take the recent case of Rear Adm. Brian Losey.

Adm. Losey is the commander of all Naval Special Warfare forces — the SEALs and Special Boat sailors. I have known Losey for more than 30 years. He is without a doubt one of the finest officers with whom I have ever served. Over the past 15 years no officer I know in the SEAL Teams has given more to this country than Brian. None. As a young officer he was constantly deployed away from his family. After 9/11, he was sent to Afghanistan in the early days to help fight the Taliban. From there, Losey participated in the final march to Baghdad and then stayed in country as a SEAL Task Unit Commander. Afterward he served as the deputy and then the commanding officer of SEAL Team Six during more tough fighting in Afghanistan.

Later he was posted to the White House in the Office of Combating Terrorism. He made rear admiral in 2009 while at the White House. He was subsequently sent back overseas to Djibouti, Africa, to do a 15-month month isolated tour as the commander of all U.S. forces in the Horn of Africa. As a result of that successful tour, he was given command of Special Operations Command, Africa (SOCAFRICA).

SOCAFRICA was a relatively new command, which had been established to address the growing threat in North Africa. Located in the beautiful Swabian city of Stuttgart, Germany, it was initially staffed with military and civilian personnel from another nearby special operations unit. Although most of the men and women were incredibly capable, hard-working staffers, there was a small core who had been living in Europe for years enjoying the comfortable lifestyle in Stuttgart.

Upon Losey’s arrival in Germany, the situation in North Africa changed dramatically, and the fledgling SOCAFRICA had to quickly get on wartime footing. Brian Losey did just that.

Losey is a no-nonsense officer who knows what it takes to get results. Combat is hard. Lives are at stake. Being genteel and considerate of everyone’s feelings are not the qualities that will engender success. But although Losey can be a tough taskmaster, he is a “by-the-book” officer. Unfortunately for Losey, along the way to strengthening the command there were those who fought the change and through a series of whistleblower complaints sought to seek his removal.

At the time, I was the commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa. I worked with Gen. Carter Ham, who commanded U.S. Africa Command and had operational control of Adm. Losey, to investigate the complaints.

The investigation we initiated determined that Losey’s leadership style, while brusque and demanding, did not warrant his removal. The Navy subsequently recommended Losey for two stars, and he was confirmed by the Senate in December 2011.

Although the Navy inspector general absolved Losey of any wrongdoing, his promotion was put on hold pending DOD inspector general resolution of the complaints. Nevertheless, the secretary of the Navy agreed to reassign Adm. Losey to the premier job in Naval Special Warfare — command of all the SEALs.

During the past three years as commander of Naval Special Warfare Command (WARCOM), his staff has consistently ranked WARCOM to be one of the best places to work in the Navy. He has passed all Navy IG inspections with flying colors, and the retention statics for his young officers and enlisted is exceptional.

However, in the course of those three years, the whistleblowers from Stuttgart continued to pursue Losey’s removal and resignation, routinely submitting new complaints to prolong the process and hold up his promotion.

A series of DOD inspector general investigations were reviewed by the Navy leadership and, once again, Adm. Losey was found not to have violated any law, rule or policy. In fact, it was clear to the Navy that the personnel action taken by Losey against the complainants was not reprisal. He was recommended again for promotion to two stars.

Despite the Navy’s multiple endorsements, certain members of Congress chose to use Losey’s case to pursue their own political agenda. They held hostage other Navy nominations until Losey’s promotion recommendation was rescinded. The ransom for their congressional support was Brian Losey’s career and, more importantly, his stellar reputation.

They portrayed Losey’s actions as a case of the big guy seeking retribution on the little guy-whistleblower. In fact, it was a case of a few guys fighting to maintain their comfortable life at a time when others were at war and needed their support.

However, in today’s environment, when a leader challenges a whistleblower, there is an automatic indictment of the leader’s character. Questioning the whistleblower makes you guilty until proven innocent. And it is clear in this case that certain members of Congress didn’t care about Losey’s innocence. Nor did they seem to care that he has sacrificed more for this country than most members on Capitol Hill — or that the emotional strain of this investigation was devastating to his family. It is clear that all these lawmakers cared about was political leverage.

The case of Brian Losey is a miscarriage of justice. But the greater concern for America is the continued attack on leadership in the military.

During my past several years in uniform, I watched in disbelief how lawmakers treated the chairman, the service chiefs, the combatant commanders and other senior officers during Congressional testimony. These officers were men of incredible integrity, and yet some lawmakers showed no respect for their decades of service. I saw the DOD Inspector General’s Office frequently act as judge and jury, apparently accountable to no one, dismissing the recommendations of the services and ruining officer’s careers. I watched time and again how political correctness and pressure from Capitol Hill undermined command authority and good order and discipline.

Although we in the military understand the absolute necessity to serve and respect our civilian leaders — and every good leader understands and appreciates the value of anonymous complaints to ferret out bad leadership — we also need civilians to understand that a strong military, particularly an all-volunteer one, needs the support of our civilian leaders, not the constant refrain of disrespect that seems so common in today’s political narrative.

Last month, after the decision to rescind Rear Adm. Brian Losey’s promotion recommendation became public, Losey addressed his junior officers. Instead of being angry and bitter over the outcome, Losey had nothing but praise for the Navy and the nation for which he has served so long. He encouraged the young officers not to get discouraged about the ruling against him, but to recognize that this is the greatest military in the world and we are fortunate to be part of it.

I would echo Losey’s sentiments. But to keep this the greatest military in the world, to preserve the strong civilian-military relations we have so long enjoyed, we must recognize that respect works both ways. Every time an individual lawmaker’s political agenda undermines the integrity of the men and women in the military, we weaken the fabric of the uniform.

In light of the challenging times in which we find ourselves, politically and strategically, we cannot afford to have a military that loses respect for its civilian leaders. My father was right. The strength of America always rests with our nation’s civilians. God forbid we should ever see it differently.

Those “certain members of Congress” were Senators John McCain (R) and Jack Reed (D), along with Ron Wyden (D) who held another appointment up to pressure the Navy Secretary. Adm. McRaven’s open letter doesn’t detail the case against Losey, but the pettiness of the complaints is made clear elsewhere:

The incident that led to the whistleblowing and the denial of the promotion began in July 2011 at the Norfolk Navy base travel office, Grassley said. “There was a minor dispute over who should pay for his daughter’s airline ticket to Germany. As a Coast Guard Academy cadet, she was not entitled to travel as a dependent at taxpayers’ expense,” he said.

“Although Adm. Losey, his wife, and staff allegedly ‘pestered’ the travel office to pay for the ticket, Adm. Losey eventually purchased it with his own money. Nonetheless, the incident triggered a Hotline complaint on July 13, 2011. Adm. Losey was informed of the complaint two months later. It was all downhill from there,” Grassley said.

“After learning of the anonymous Hotline tip, Adm. Losey was reportedly ‘livid.’ He saw it as an act of disloyalty and ‘a conspiracy to undermine his command.’ He reportedly developed a list of suspects and began a punitive hunt for moles,” the senator said.

“In his drive to root out the moles, he created a ‘toxic’ environment in his command. His seemingly reckless behavior and blatant disregard for the law and well-being of his subordinates led to his downfall,” Grassley said.

Losey also has his defenders in Congress. In a statement, Rep. Duncan Hunter, a California Republican and member of the House Armed Services Committee, said, “I think Losey is a stand-up guy, who was raked over the coals.

“We are intimately aware of whistleblowers in the military — in this case, it went too far in the other direction,” Hunter said. “I think Chuck Grassley was wrong about Losey and the fact that some disgruntled contractors can derail the career of such a strategic thinker and great tactician is wrong.”[4]

More clues to the political infighting which led to this embarrassing debacle come from a San Diego Union-Tribune story:

Meanwhile, a top defense official suggested that the Senate’s ire was aimed more at the Navy secretary. Mabus, as the longest-serving top Navy civilian leader since World War I, is unpopular in certain corners for actions ranging from advocating combat gender integration to supporting openly gay service members to making controversial decisions about ship programs….

There’s a well-known rift between Mabus and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a leading voice in Congress on defense issues and a frequent critic of Navy policies. McCain co-wrote a letter to Navy brass in January urging them to not promote Losey.

Some former SEAL officers who know Losey said his biggest management failure was that he let his temper run wild as he attained top leadership positions. Others point out that the SEAL culture is rough-and-tumble by tradition and by nature, reflecting an environment where people are assigned to do lethal work.

But despite his prestigious wartime record, Losey is being forced into a rare, inglorious exit for a high-ranking SEAL. He is the first Naval Special Warfare commander since at least 9/11 to not achieve a second star, according to people in the elite community.[5]

So Losey had a temper and treated some workers roughly, and his behavior was improper. Not many of the illustrious generals in American history books would pass this civilian-HR-style sensitivity screening, and it’s interesting that, for example, Hillary Clinton has never been held to such a high standard in her dealings with government employees. Rough men are being replaced by smooth political operators, and when the crunch comes, how will they do?

To score political points with their base, Democratic administrations have pressured the armed forces to reduce physical standards for women seeking combat roles. Women in the armed forces were not looking for special favors or hand-holding, but that’s what has happened as civilian politicians pressure top brass to give in on standards to achieve the headlines they want to see. To mollify critics, studies have been done to assess whether (at least some) women can meet standards required for ground combat roles — but when the studies are completed, the results are questioned if they don’t justify the political goal of opening all combat roles to women:

House lawmakers have requested a briefing by the Marine Corps on its recent study showing that female Marines were less capable than their male counterparts, as the Pentagon is preparing to open all combat jobs to women.

“We’re going to be looking into it in the Armed Services Committee,” said Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), a retired Air Force colonel and the first female to fly in combat.

“We will be gathering folks together who have been part of that study and having a briefing on it soon,” Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee, said Thursday.

The military services have until the end of September to submit any requests to Defense Secretary Ash Carter to keep a combat job closed to women, along with data supporting their requests.

A summary of a Marine Corps study, released last week, said females in an experimental mixed-gender unit were slower, shot less accurately and were injured more frequently than the males in the unit.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who is also the service secretary for the Marine Corps, has blasted the study as biased. Participants of the study, including female Marines, fired back at the secretary, telling the Washington Post the secretary threw them “under the bus.”

McSally said lawmakers have not seen the full study, which has not been released yet, but that she has similar concerns to Mabus.

“I echo some concerns by the secretary of the Navy related to, ‘Do we take a bunch of combat trained men and a bunch of non-combat trained support women and put them together, and just wonder how they’re going to do?’ ” said McSally.

“You can study anything and get the results you might be looking for, or have some flawed assumptions in how you’re setting it up. And so we want to make sure we understand where the study was and what the results are from it, and then what to conclude from it,” she said.

McSally and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), an Army National Guard captain, on Thursday introduced a resolution congratulating the first two female graduates of the Army’s Ranger School.

The resolution is supported by all female members of the House Armed Services Committee, and a companion resolution has been introduced in the Senate by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and supported by every female senator.

While there’s still a minority who want to keep women out of combat roles completely, most resistance to the idea is against politicians who want to mandate inclusion of women who are clearly less capable even after extensive training. Ground combat is likely to be a shrinking role for human troops in the future, but is still seen as a qualifier for other roles, and females being completely blocked from combat is indeed unfair — but in the real world, the number of women who can qualify to join the top few percent of men in specialized units is very small. This is a fact of nature, body design, and hormonal makeup. Women should have their chance to be evaluated for combat roles, but the standards should not be lowered just to allow more women to serve, if that compromises fighting capability. And women are already doing a great job in many noncombat roles.

Some officers are going public to fight this pressure. From a NY Post editorial:

Gen. John Kelly, USMC, is retiring after more than four decades as an active-duty Marine. His “greatest fear,” he says, is that the vast “equal opportunity” pressure for women in combat roles will lead the Pentagon to water down standards.

Kelly is finishing up as head of US Southern Command after an exemplary career that included three tours in Iraq. He’s also the highest-ranking US officer to have lost a child in the nation’s post-9/11 wars: His son, 1st Lt. Robert Kelly, USMC, was killed in action in Afghanistan in 2010.

Why is he worried?

Well, Defense Secretary Ash Carter last month announced that women will soon be eligible for all combat positions. (They had been blocked from about 10 percent of those posts.)

Yes, Carter also warned that equal opportunity wouldn’t bring “equal participation by men and women in all specialties.”

The reasons are obvious: On average, the two sexes simply have different physical virtues. Men will dominate when it comes to upper-body strength, which is generally vital in combat roles. And Carter has vowed not to alter the high standards for those roles.

But Kelly doubts that will last: “Whether it’s 12 months from now, four years from now … the question will be asked whether we’ve [truly] let women into these other roles.” Ideologues who don’t see the results they want will ask, “Why aren’t [women] staying in those roles? Why aren’t they advancing as infantry people?”

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has already offered a taste of what’s ahead. He’s denied the Marine Corps’ request to continue sex-segregated boot camp and Officer Training School. Indeed, on ­Jan. 1, he gave the Corps just two weeks to come up with an integration plan.

On top of that, he’s ordered the Marines to adopt politically correct titles by changing every “man” label. That implies the Marines are about to lose every “rifleman” — when every Marine is a rifleman.

It’s impossible to think of a worse insult — or a greater sign that the ideologues will win in the not-so-distant future.

The Fire Department of New York has bitter experience with the same drill. The Post runs regular exposés of the efforts to bend (already lowered) FDNY standards with an eye to a “better” gender balance.

Look, we admire the heck out of a woman who keeps trying even after she’s failed a key FDNY physical test six times. But it’s shocking to see her become a firefighter without ever passing.[6]

Unfortunately, the Administration views all labor issues everywhere — private businesses, government, and military — as targets for its Progressive social engineering. Those who are closest to the management of teams are ignored while directives from Washington come down to sweep away evolved systems that worked. The goal is the remaking of the US into a socially just paradise, and military employment is to be exactly like any other employment, down to sexual harassment training and punishment for politically-incorrect thoughts.

The mutual incomprehension of military and civilian cultures grows more dangerous as politicians use their power to satisfy interest groups while undermining military effectiveness. The military has never questioned civilian control, and the occasional exceptions (like General McArthur) were shown the door without gaining much support. But the strains are growing. In an incendiary editorial, Ray Starmann, ex-Army Intelligence, writes:

The brass is more worried about their retirement checks than an institution that has been around since the Massachusetts boys went live in 1775. The current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, sits calmly on the bridge of the U.S. Army Titanic, sipping Pentagon coffee as the Army collides head on with an iceberg.

Under Dempsey, whom Senator John McCain called “An echo chamber of the Obama Administration,” the Army has become a repository for every crackpot feminist fantasy conceived in a Berkeley coffeehouse.

Two weeks ago, male Army ROTC cadets were ordered to parade around several college campuses in red high heels, in order to show their concern for sexual abuse. Current Army training involves classes that portray the Bible, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as sexist documents…

Logic means nothing to the Obama administration. President Obama doesn’t understand that the Army exists to defend the nation. It’s not Valerie Jarrett’s pet social engineering project. As reports filter in that women are 0-26 at Marine Infantry Officers’ School, Dempsey has already stated that the standards need to be “reviewed.” In Pentagon double-speak, this means that the standards will be dropped…

Currently, there are a handful of women attending the hardest training the U.S. Army has to offer, Ranger School. This grueling 62 day course destroys men with the speed of a hotel power flush. Men who survive endless days of almost no sleep, limited food, parachute jumps with 100 pound packs and patrols through swamps, crawl out of Ranger School with 1,000 yard Guadalcanal stares. Have no doubt, there will be a female graduate of Ranger School this summer if she has to be carried around Fort Benning like a camouflage-clad character in “Weekend at Bernie’s.”

The warrior culture is slowly being strangled to death by political correctness. A few real leaders still survive, but they’re relics of a bygone era, who will be swept aside like chimney soot in the vast cultural revolution that has engulfed the Army. Anyone suspected of not complying with sexism training or whispering comments that are thought to be politically incorrect is purged with the speed and finality of a Soviet commissar’s rubber stamp. Under the Obama administration hundreds of high-ranking officers from every service have retired or have been forced to retire because they didn’t fit in with the current climate.

What kind of a military does political correctness produce? Look no farther than our half-hearted air campaign against ISIS and its kind and gentle spokesman, Rear Admiral Kirby. According to Kirby, the 25 daily sorties we’re flying against ISIS is really giving them hell. Shock and awe has metastasized into slap, scream and run.[7]

It’s certainly important that racism and misogyny are kept out of the armed forces, and that civilian and military cultures have appropriate respect for each other. But the current micromanagement from Washington is damaging military readiness and morale. It’s a good thing the US has a cushion of military dominance which makes others think twice about attacking us — or do we?

Washington (CNN 4-17-2016) A U.S. Air Force reconnaissance plane was barrel-rolled by a Russian jet over the Baltic Sea during a routine flight in international airspace, U.S. European Command said Saturday, but Russia disputed that account.

The incident Thursday occurred when a Russian jet “performed erratic and aggressive maneuvers” as it flew within 50 feet of the U.S. aircraft’s wing tip, Danny Hernandez, a spokesman for U.S. European Command, said in a response to a question from CNN… The RC-135 aircraft was “intercepted by a Russian SU-27 in an unsafe and unprofessional manner,” Hernandez said, adding that the U.S. plane never entered Russian territory…

The encounter comes just days after the U.S. Embassy in Moscow issued formal concerns with the Russian government over an incident last week in which Russian fighter jets flew close to the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic. One of the Russian jets flew within 30 feet of the Cook’s ship superstructure, according to a U.S. official.

Close encounters between Russian military aircraft and U.S. warships have become increasing common in recent months. In October, U.S. Navy jets intercepted two Russian Tu-142 aircraft that were flying near the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan in the Pacific Ocean.

In June, a Russian Su-24 jet flew within 500 meters (1,640 feet) of a U.S. guided-missile destroyer that was sailing in the Black Sea near Crimea.[8]

—

[PS: The Daily Beast has since done a much more detailed story (“Inside the Takedown of the Top Navy SEAL”, 05.12.16) on the Losey affair, which tends to confirm what I concluded: that Losey was a good officer hounded out by bureaucrats and politicians. Holding officers to civilian HR standards is damaging esprit de corps and readiness. Will it take a real attack on the mainland US to return the focus to military effectiveness?]

—

[1] “The Widening Gap Between Military and Society” – Thomas E. Ricks, The Atlantic, July, 1997
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/07/the-widening-gap-between-military-and-society/306158/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_L._Losey
[3] “Navy SEAL admiral’s promotion denied after review” – Meghann Myers, Navy Times, March 21, 2016
http://www.navytimes.com/story/military/2016/03/21/navy-seal-admirals-promotion-denied-after-review/82070288/
[4] “Despite McRaven Op-Ed, Senators Defend Opposing Losey’s Promotion” – by Richard Sisk at Military.com, April 28, 2016
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/04/28/despite-mcraven-op-ed-senators-defend-opposing-loseys-promotion.html
[5] “Navy SEAL admiral’s rare, public punishment:
Withdrawal of SEAL leader’s promotion is unusual step after prestigious career” – by Jeanette Steele, San Diego Union-Tribune, March 25, 2016
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/mar/25/seal-admiral-losey-retirement/
[6] “The rape of the US Marine Corps: a lunatic drive for ‘fairness’” – NY Post Editorial Board January 16, 2016
http://nypost.com/2016/01/16/the-rape-of-the-us-marine-corps-a-lunatic-drive-for-fairness/
[7] “Political Correctness Has Destroyed The Army’s Readiness And Morale” – by Ray Starmann, Daily Caller, 05/11/2015 http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/11/political-correctness-has-destroyed-the-armys-readiness-and-morale/
[8] “Russia denies wrongdoing after jet barrel-rolls over U.S. aircraft” – By Sophie Tatum and Barbara Starr, CNN, April 17, 2016
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/16/politics/russian-jet-barrel-rolled-us-aircraft/

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Death by HR: How Affirmative Action Cripples Organizations

[From Death by HR: How Affirmative Action Cripples Organizations,  available now in Kindle and trade paperback.]

The first review is in: by Elmer T. Jones, author of The Employment Game. Here’s the condensed version; view the entire review here.

Corporate HR Scrambles to Halt Publication of “Death by HR”

Nobody gets a job through HR. The purpose of HR is to protect their parent organization against lawsuits for running afoul of the government’s diversity extortion bureaus. HR kills companies by blanketing industry with onerous gender and race labor compliance rules and forcing companies to hire useless HR staff to process the associated paperwork… a tour de force… carefully explains to CEOs how HR poisons their companies and what steps they may take to marginalize this threat… It is time to turn the tide against this madness, and Death by HR is an important research tool… All CEOs should read this book. If you are a mere worker drone but care about your company, you should forward an anonymous copy to him.

 

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More Reading on the Military:

US Military: From No Standing Armies to Permanent Global Power
Jane Jacobs’ Monstrous Hybrids: Guardians vs Commerce
US Military: The Desegration Experience

More reading on other topics:

Jane Jacobs’ Monstrous Hybrids: Guardians vs Commerce
The Great Progressive Stagnation vs. Dynamism
Death by HR: How Affirmative Action is Crippling America
Death by HR: The End of Merit in Civil Service
Corrupt Feedback Loops: Public Employee Unions
Death by HR: History and Practice of Affirmative Action and the EEOC
Civil Service: Woodrow Wilson’s Progressive Dream
Bootleggers and Baptists
Corrupt Feedback Loops: Justice Dept. Extortion
Corrupt Feedback Loops, Goldman Sachs: More Justice Dept. Extortion
Death by HR: The Birth and Evolution of the HR Department
Death by HR: The Simple Model of Project Labor
Levellers and Redistributionists: The Feudal Underpinnings of Socialism
Sons of Liberty vs. National Front
Trump World: Looking Backward
Minimum Wage: The Parable of the Ladder
Selective Outrage
Culture Wars: Co-Existence Through Limited Government
Social Justice Warriors, Jihadists, and Neo-Nazis: Constructed Identities
Tuitions Inflated, Product Degraded, Student Debts Unsustainable
The Morality of Glamour

On Affirmative Action and Social Policy:

Affirmative Action: Chinese, Indian-Origin Citizens in Malaysia Oppressed
Affirmative Action: Caste Reservation in India
Diversity Hires: Pressure on High Tech<a
Title IX Totalitarianism is Gender-Neutral
Public Schools in Poor Districts: For Control Not Education
Real-Life “Hunger Games”: Soft Oppression Destroys the Poor
The Social Decay of Black Neighborhoods (And Yours!)
Child Welfare Ideas: Every Child Gets a Government Guardian!
“Income Inequality” Propaganda is Just Disguised Materialism

The greatest hits from SubstrateWars.com (Science Fiction topics):

Fear is the Mindkiller
Mirror Neurons and Irene Gallo
YA Dystopias vs Heinlein et al: Social Justice Warriors Strike Again
Selective Outrage
Sons of Liberty vs. National Front
“Tomorrowland”: Tragic Misfire
The Death of “Wired”: Hugo Awards Edition
Hugos, Sad Puppies 3, and Direct Knowledge
Selective Outrage and Angry Tribes
Men of Honor vs Victim Culture
SFF, Hugos, Curating the Best
“Why Aren’t There More Women Futurists?”
Science Fiction Fandom and SJW warfare