Don't Repeal "Don't Ask/Don't Tell"

Stuart Koehl at The Weekly Standard on why allowing openly gay soldiers in combat will hurt effectiveness.

On May 27, 2010, the House of Representatives voted to repeal the so-called "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" (DADT) law of 1993 that, while leaving intact the military's ban on homosexuals serving in uniform, prohibits the military from inquiring into the sexual preferences of military personnel or requiring them to answer questions about it. The Senate is expected to follow suit in coming weeks, though the public dissent by the chiefs of the individual Armed Services in opposition to Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, shows how contentious the issue remains. Just a month earlier, the Navy announced that it would allow women to serve on submarines, further eroding the military's traditional prohibition on women to fill combat roles. 

Both issues—women in combat and gays in the military—are different manifestations of a single problem: the failure of America's political leadership to understand the factors that motivate men to fight in battle and to continue fighting under the most horrific conditions—what professionals call "combat effectiveness" and "unit cohesion" respectively. In all the discussions of the issue, these terms seldom come up; when they do, it is only to be dismissed out of hand by those who wish to see all military positions opened to both women and homosexuals.

Those who have never served in combat have no idea what it is like. The most graphic books and movies do not even scratch the surface.  Take the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan, amplified by an order of magnitude, plus the smell of blood, vomit, excrement, explosives and burning vehicles would still not be sufficient. After more than thirty years investigating the experience of men in battle, I don't even pretend to understand it as well as a soldier who has been through just one firefight.  This is why combat veterans are so reluctant to speak of their wartime deeds—civilians, and even rear-echelon military types, lack the frame of reference that would make understanding possible. 

....

Historically, most armies have seen homosexual behavior as undermining military discipline.  Even the Spartans didn't tolerate it in the field, while the Romans considered it a capital offense.  There is just one noteworthy example of open homosexuality in military service—the Theban Sacred Band, 150 pairs of homosexual lovers who swore an oath to stand by each other to death (and who were wiped out by Alexander the Great at Cheironeia). So even fairly tolerant societies found homosexuality unacceptable in the army, for the same reason that women were unacceptable:  they introduced sexual tension into small group dynamics, undermining unit cohesion. 

That tension has several causes. First, heterosexual men in the unit may not like becoming potential objects of sexual attraction to their fellow soldiers (the same thing also applies to women in mixed units), especially given the close quarters and lack of privacy that is part of field service. Second, there may be the suspicion that one or more soldiers may actually have entered into a sexual relationship, with the disruptive effect that can have on both discipline and performance (i.e., favoritism—will this guy risk his life to save me, or will he look out for his "special friend" first). If the homosexual involved is an officer, it creates all sorts of opportunities for abuse, which we have already seen in sexually mixed units. Given the kind of minefield that civilian workplaces have become due to sexual harassment laws, one wonders about the wisdom of tossing metaphorical mines in among the real ones with which our troops have to contend. 

There's a lot more.  RTWT.