Whitson: Embracing the Left’s Military Agenda Encourages Aggression

OPINION

The Mideast is on fire.

After the ghastly and despicable Hamas terrorist attack that ravaged Israel, commencing on Oct. 7, brutalizing women and children and inflicting indescribable, gut-wrenching horror— we now know that more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians including at least 30 Americans, have been murdered.

Meanwhile, at least 10 Americans are currently held hostage by those who carried out the attack, along with hundreds of others.

Sadly, the number of dead will only rise.

With our military now on full alert in the Mideast, a war raging in Ukraine, and China poised and emboldened to make an aggressive move in the Pacific, U.S. military readiness is as important as ever — not only to fight a war (should the Biden administration sleepwalk us into one) but also to deter war in the first place.

Peace through strength.

For several years now, military leaders have been distracted by a radical political agenda, jeopardizing our readiness in favor of appeasing the left.

One of the biggest problems is mandatory equity training and other leftist indoctrination programs.

These programs are increasingly being forced upon our military, hijacking precious training hours, and gradually destroying unit cohesion from within.

Time that should be spent improving combat effectiveness and maintaining a military edge over our enemies is being replaced with time spent forcing the ideology of the radical left onto our servicemembers.

The result is record low enlistments, record low confidence in our military, and a general degradation of our war-fighting capabilities.

Weakness invites aggression.

These concerns regarding America’s military readiness also extend to our service academies, which are facing high-profile court action over their discriminatory admissions process.

Getting admitted to West Point, the Army’s service academy, is very difficult, as it should be. Every year, the academy accepts only around 1,250 cadets, less than 10 percent of those who apply.

It’s equally difficult to get into the other military academies.

With this level of selectivity, Americans should be confident that only the best and brightest future military leaders are admitted — and not applicants selected for any reason other than pure merit.

Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), the same group that recently took on Harvard and the University of North Carolina’s unconstitutional race-based admissions policies at the Supreme Court, and won, has now launched two separate lawsuits: one targeting West Point and the other targeting the U.S. Naval Academy.

These lawsuits come in response to an exception the Supreme Court made for military academies in its recent opinion, noting that the lower courts never had the opportunity to address the “potentially distinct interests”of the academies.

These two new cases will give courts the opportunity to do just that.

The admissions process at West Point as well as the Naval Academy are strikingly similar to those struck down by the Supreme Court. West Point goes as far as to set specific racial benchmarks for each incoming class and establishes goals for the number of students admitted based on race.

The Naval Academy appears not to go as far as West Point when it comes to setting quotas, but it does openly admit that race is a factor in its admissions decisions.

But this problem, when considering America’s military, extends far beyond basic fairness or constitutionality.

It’s a problem of grave practical concern because lives and limbs are on the line.

Any training or admissions criteria the military or the academies consider other than absolute, unmatched excellence risks the readiness, capability, and well-being of American servicemen and women — not to mention innocent lives — globally.

With wars raging across the globe, it’s clear America’s enemies are becoming emboldened, and a strong, capable military is desperately needed to promote peace through strength.

That starts with ensuring our military refocuses its training back to what really matters while ensuring our nation’s military academies select future officers based solely on their qualifications.

For the latter, the Supreme Court will need to get involved, just as it barred discriminatory admissions processes at all public and private universities across the nation.

It is time for mission readiness, not political ideology, to guide our military and service academies once more.

Stewart Whitson is a former U.S. Army Combat Veteran and is the Legal Director at the Foundation for Government Accountability.