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.
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