A focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion has damaged the effectiveness of the U.S. military and hurt recruitment numbers.
Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee grilled President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, on Tuesday. One exchange, in particular, highlighted the wrongheaded thinking that infects some in the current U.S. leadership and how it addresses the military’s challenges.
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the ranking member of the panel, said in hostile questioning of Hegseth that the military is “more diverse than it has ever been” and that it is more lethal.
The military may be more “diverse” than it has ever been. However, it’s also getting smaller and faces severe readiness challenges.
As Vice President-elect JD Vance noted on X during the questioning, the military has suffered through an ongoing recruitment crisis.
The Pentagon, especially under the Biden administration, has made diversity, equity, and inclusion a priority for the military. The justification was that to bring in new people, the military needed to “look like” the country.
Alex Wagner, the Air Force’s assistant secretary for manpower and reserve affairs, explained the administration’s reasoning at a 2023 House Armed Services Committee Hearing.
“Intentional diversity and inclusion efforts allow us to tap into the full talents of the American people and then leverage those talents to defend the nation,” Wagner said.
He said that the focus on DEI was “informed by science and business best practices, congressional mandates, data-focused policy reviews, and assessments.”
The most prominent pro-DEI business study has been debunked, however. But it’s no surprise that the military continued to have abysmal recruitment records throughout President Joe Biden’s tenure despite the claims of DEI proponents.
The diversity efforts seem to have done little to bring in a flood of recruits from previously underrepresented backgrounds. Worse, there has been a collapse of recruitment from demographics that disproportionately served in the past.
According to a report by the Daily Caller News Foundation, there has been a serious decline in white recruits since 2018.
That shouldn’t be a surprise, because as Daily Caller further reported, the Air Force in 2022 made reducing the number of white male officers a priority. Racial quotas not only damage the ability of the military to promote the best and brightest to the highest ranks, but they also demoralize those who either didn’t get a promotion and those who serve under commanders who they may now wonder whether or not they got their positions on their merits.
It’s no wonder retainment is also down in the military.
Most ominously for the U.S. all-volunteer military, the armed forces saw a severe downturn in recruitment from military families, many of whom have expressed extreme disenchantment with military service. Veterans also increasingly tell people not to sign up.
“Pew surveys in 2011 and again in 2019 found approximately 80% of veterans would advise young people to join the military,” the Wall Street Journal reported in October. “We recently commissioned a demographically representative YouGov survey of 2,100 veterans. Our data show the share of veterans recommending military service plunged 20 percentage points in five years, to just 62%.”
According to the Journal’s survey, “only 14% of veterans want the military to pay more attention to DEI.”
How can the United States continue to have the world’s most “lethal” army as its pool of warfighters dries up?
Those who defend DEI practices and insist that the military’s recruiting woes have nothing to do with DEI are in denial. At a time in which the number and scale of foreign conflicts is escalating, it’s alarming that the U.S. military appears increasingly unprepared to meet its challenges.
It shouldn’t be forgotten that even in the age of drones and other kinds of advanced military hardware, the backbone of any military is still a man with a rifle. What’s happened under Biden is that previous recruiting challenges became acute. The administration focused on divisive DEI programs while hiding behind the mantra that for the military, “diversity is our strength.”
We now have a glut of four-star generals, but too few rank-and-file troops, as Hegseth noted at Tuesday’s hearing.
“The military exists to be lethal and to kill our enemies,” former Army Ranger Will Thibeau explained in a recent interview on “The Daily Signal Podcast.”
“It’s a purpose that puts the military at odds with the values of our liberal society. … And what’s happened, certainly in the last decade or so, is that the military has become just another institution that reflects the values of our civil society. Those are values that are incompatible with an organization committed to lethality.”
A change in leadership and direction is desperately needed. Perhaps in a sign of things to come, the Army recently had a massive surge in recruitment that it hasn’t experienced in many years.
That’s curious timing. Hopefully, it’s a sign of things to come under the incoming new executive management.
Jarrett Stepman is a columnist for The Daily Signal.
Reprinted with permission from The Daily Signal – By Jarrett Stepman
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
DEI has ABSOLUTELY no place in the military! I have personally seen unqualified people promoted to a leadership position that they have no idea of what to do, nor how to handle it. Do you want to go to war with that? Get rid of DEI, the military has a very good system to qualify promotions. Bureaucrats need to get out of it.
MCPO USN RET.
If the Supreme Court found Affirmative Action to be illegal, then why is DEI not illegal? Its the same thing.
In war who would you want to lead you in battle? The one who keeps his boots shiny and uniform freshly pressed to encourage the troops OR the one who has “dusty boots”, fought in the trenches, experienced a “REAL” ground battle and knows what it requires to survive in real life threatening skirmishes, as opposed to fictional “war games”?
I would prefer a leader who has come from the ranks and not just a battle scholar. Our WWII Generals were military graduates, but also seasoned battle leaders with dusty boots. Technology may be used in battle, but it will be the physical soldiers that will keep “the forts” secure!
I don’t know why ppl are against drag queens in combat. If my platoon was under attack I’d want a drag queen right out front drawing all the enemy fire!
This failed attempt is creating division. We continue to promote acts of inclusion that never claim to exclude anyone. Most positions require standards to filter out those who are not qualified, trained, or mentally capable. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) cannot be applied universally to all roles. Either a candidate possesses the required skills, or they do not. Once an individual is in the system, they often become just a statistic to meet a quota, making it difficult to remove them if necessary. Performance should be demonstrated through actions, performance metrics, and skills that have been thoroughly assessed.
The Democrats after John Kennedy have never wanted a strong military. In fact, they don’t want a strong U. S. They, along with the RINO’s, have intentionally shifted the U. S. manufacturing base out of the country to make sure that their is no arsenal of democracy in the next major war. They’ve killed at least 66 million American children and imported foreign gangs to replace them.. The military hasn’t defeated anybody significant since 1945. This is no accident. I time the American press started doing their j and keep the public properly informed. I’m really tired of treason going unreported and unpunished.
I heard that as soon as Trump won the election, recruits started showing up again. The wonderful display of personal support from decorated veterans in military service for Hegseth’s hearing was heart-warming. Apparently Army recruiting is already past its first quarter enlistment goal and more are showing up!! USA!!
Pete will make sure the military fulfills its responsibility. The military should break stuff and kill people, Under the democrats and LLoyd Austin they learned which pronouns to use. I am sure our enemies were quaking in their boots.
Everthing the dems do is designed to weaken the country. Literally. They have targetted conservative southerners in order to inhibit them from joining the military. Instead they have created a freak show as they usually do. Only other deviants want to serve with the deviants being recruited. The dems despise hegseth because he will disinfect the whole mess.
I’m convinced Dems are opposed to Hegseth because they fear he won’t let men pretending to be women or women pretending to be men pretend to be soldiers.
Looking at the picture of Alex Wagner one can’t help but evoke images of “a grocery clerk sent to collect on an overdue grocery bill.” I’m guessing that China and Russia aren’t overawed by his bookkeeping demeaner.
D-Divide
E-Exclude
I-Isolate
Pete summed it up best… “Lethality, lethality, lethality” … everything else is just a distraction.