Dakota Beacon

Military wokeness as an ideological movement starts at the top, the White House and the Department of Defense (DoD), before being imposed on the troops. It fills a vacuum in young people who were never taught sound American history. Liberal leftists and progressives see wokeness as a good thing. It enhances a person’s "wakefulness" to so-called “social injustice” allegedly widespread in the US. Under the pretext of wokeness they proceed to tear down longstanding institutions woven into the US social fabric and intend to replace these elements with an artificial social and political concoction.

Schools and universities teach it. State and Federal governments preach it. Corporations speak it. Wokeness in the military arose in recent years and flows from civilian masters. Military leaders have little choice but to receive their orders, salute, and say “Yes sir”.

            Examples abound. Here are a few of many.

            -- Department of Defense opened all combat positions to women.

            -- Obama and Biden opened the military to transgenders.

            -- Biden permitted HIV infected individuals to serve in combat zones.

            -- Fitness standards are reduced to accommodate a gender-neutral force.

            -- Navy produced a training video instructing sailors in the proper use of inclusive language.

            -- DoD requires indoctrination on America’s flawed systemic racism and white privilege.

            -- Chief of Naval Operations added Ibram X. Kendi’s book “How to Be Antiracist” to the Navy’s recommended reading list.

            -- West Point teaches critical race theory.

Teaching victimhood using race, class, and gender as vehicles become a focus of wokeness in correcting alleged social injustice. Biden signed an executive order in 2021 requiring all organizations in the federal government to create Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) offices and to create the bureaucracy to monitor progress. He said the goal was to “advance equity for all.” That is wokespeak for achieving desired outcomes through discriminatory policies.

But wokeness also conflates the military mission with environmental ideology. Biden signed an executive order imposing a massive regimen of environmental requirements for the Department of Defense. They include transitioning to all electric non-tactical vehicles by 2035, carbon-free electricity for military installations by that same year, and net zero emissions from those installations by 2050. Thus, the Pentagon will commit over $3 billion of its thin military budget to the climate change initiatives in 2023 alone.

Harm of wokeness is upon us. Of particular note, woke ideology relentlessly undermines military readiness in many ways but especially in unit cohesiveness. Unit cohesion is critically important – possibly the most important element in combat effectiveness. Unit cohesion has been described as the bonding together of members of a unit in such a way as to sustain their will to fight and commitment to each other, their unit, and the mission. The Army’s mission is to engage with and destroy the enemy. Colloquially put, the Army’s mission is to kill people and break things.

In warfare, small unit cohesion becomes the factor that determines why soldiers continue to expose themselves to danger and hardship. Confusion and misery generated in combat diminishes the effectiveness of forcible control from above. Once the shooting starts, it is very difficult to control soldiers in combat. A soldier’s view of battle is what he sees six inches in front of his face lying on his belly. The best way to control individuals and units in this situation is through internalized values and standing operating rules coupled with the unit mission.

Military policies today are not conducive to unit cohesiveness. They typically reinforce the culture from which soldiers are drawn, in our case a society which fuels narcissistic, independent, self-absorbed woke individuals. Today’s woke policies do less to expunge these styles. Woke policies tend to accommodate individuals at the expense of unit cohesiveness.

Time and money pour into woke programs. Billions are spent on Pentagon climate change programs along with pushing DEI agendas and hiring DEI enforcers. Time spent indoctrinating service members in critical race theory and lecturing about imaginary extremism in the ranks detract from military readiness. Common sense suggests that the consequences for military readiness are dramatic. Frivolously spending billions on woke programs while the Chinese outpace the US on weapons, computing, and other military technologies are blatantly stupid.

Trust and support of the military by the American people must not be taken lightly. If Americans perceive the military is exploited for political purposes or used for experiments in woke social policies, then that support will vanish with grim costs. Even now, wokeness acts as a disincentive for many young Americans to enlist. All branches of the military currently face extreme difficulty recruiting quality personnel for critical positions in an all-volunteer environment. Any wonder that potential recruits, many from rural or poor areas of the country, don’t want to spend their time being lectured about white privilege? Imposing a racist agenda on a predominantly white population will only result in “white flight” from the military.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).