Last month, President Obama told the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights lobbying organization, that he would reverse the policy known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which prohibits homosexuals from serving openly in the military. The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy emerged in 1993 as a compromise between Bill Clinton and the Congress and has been criticized by the right and left since it was signed into law. This is an issue that elicits tremendous emotions on both sides. But from a defense policy standpoint, ”Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” should be examined in the context of military effectiveness–not through the lens of what one deems to be moral or immoral, right or wrong. Military effectiveness is the measure of how well a military organization executes its tasks and achieves its mission. The U.S. military, for example, exhibits a high-degree of military effectiveness in all warfighting domains at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war–from the four-star General down to the Private First Class. Thus the question for policymakers and the military leadership is: how would a reversal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy impact the military effectiveness of the U.S.? Would it enhance or reduce military effectiveness?
The core argument against reversing the policy is that allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military would hinder unit cohesion, which is an important determinant of military effectiveness. If your unit is distracted by personal tensions, your ability, and the unit’s ability, to execute its tasks and achieve its missions will be reduced. This has cascading effects throughout the broader organization.
Even a casual student of history understands that the military is traditionally a conservative institution. Most active duty and retired military personnel tend to support conservative and right-of-center candidates. You don’t have to be a sociologist or anthropoligst to understand that male-female relationships have been the pillars of civilizations for a long, long time. Bans on gay marriage based on popular votes in Arizona, California, and Florida during the 2008 election illustrated that even among the electorate–which on the whole is considerably less conservative than the U.S. military–has serious reservations about this issue. Even President Obama’s position on gay marriage is unclear. He stated in 2008 that marriage is “between a man and a woman” and that he is “not in favor of gay marriage.” Yesterday, voters in Maine rejected a law supporting gay marriage. Liberal activists are growing frustrated with President Obama’s failure to reverse the policy (see this recent post on the Huffington Post, for example).
If even President Obama doesn’t support gay marriage, how can anyone argue that reversing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would not create significant discord within the U.S. military, which is traditionally a very conservative institution? The question is not whether a homosexual man or woman is capable of executing their tasks with the same level of proficiency as their heterosexual counterparts. The question is how would reversing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” impact the larger organization? When you join the military, collectivism supersedes individualism. This helps to build more disciplined, more effective organizations. That is why militaries wear uniforms, have strict grooming standards, and march in unison.
Perhaps the most persuasive argument for reversing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is the human capital argument. Much of Washington’s difficulties in the prosecution of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan can be attributed directly to troop shortages. In an all-volunteer military, why would you want to prevent smart, capable men and women from serving? Stephen Walt makes a similar argument in support of reversing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”: “The point is that in any competitive endeavor, you want to be able to recruit and employ the most talented and highly motivated people you can find, and you don’t want to limit the talent pool from which you can draw unless there is something about them (such as a physical disability) that makes them obviously unfit for military service.” While a valid point, the costs of reversing the policy simply outweigh the likely benefits. Around thirteen thousand military personnel have been discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” since 1993–a significant number but not significant enough to eliminate the military manpower issues facing Washington policymakers. It is unlikely that the numbers of gay men and women who do not join the military due to the existing policy would reduce the manpower problem, either.
Indeed, gay men and women have served honorably in the U.S. military, as Brian Hughes noted in The Wall Street Journal last May. But this is not a question of the capabilities or patriotism of these individuals. It is about the likely impact a major policy shift would have on the military as a whole. Policymakers in Washington and the Pentagon’s military leadership must determine how a policy reversal would impact military effectiveness. Because at the end of the day, that is all that matters–the effectiveness of the U.S. military. If reversing “Don’t Ask , Don’t Tell” would actually enhance the military effectiveness of the U.S. military, then such policies should be enacted. However, the unit cohenion argument is compelling and I remain unconvinced that a major policy shift would make sense at this time. It is hard to understand how a reversal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would not result in increased organizational tensions and a reduction in military effectiveness in the near-term. Right now the U.S. military is fighting two conflicts and there is considerable stress on the force. Introducing a major policy shift at this time would not be wise. The Washington Times recently reported that Marine Commandant General James Conway “has emerged in internal Pentagon deliberations as the most outspoken opponent” of reversing the policy. Opposition from other military leaders is likely to follow. Going forward, the White House will have an extremely difficult time pushing this policy reversal. It seems unlikely that the White House’s efforts in this area will succeed–not simply because this is clearly a low priority for the White House, but because any objective analysis of the problem will likely conclude that the near-term negative impacts on military effectiveness will be unacceptably high on a force that is already stressed.