Introduction
       As the Pentagon debates[1][2][3] within (civilian managers versus military chiefs) whether or not to go to war against Iraq and the public debates[4][5][6] among pundits and in the press, we have forgotten the most important element of our national security structure--the readiness of our armed forces. The paramount question is, 'Could we carry out another 'Desert Storm' against Iraq and field the forces necessary to face the possible consequences of an expanded war in the Middle East?' The 'thousand pound gorilla' in the back room of this debate is the condition or readiness of our nation's military - in terms of equipment, training and 'fighting spirit.'

       The truth is that our nation's military is not prepared to answer this question in the affirmative. The debate among the public contestants is carried out in a 'virtual reality' mind-set that completely forgets the devastation visited on our military during the 1990s. While the U.S.[7] "...usually has a dangerously skeletal military prior to a war, beefs up for the actual conflict, then demobilizes so rapidly that it almost immediately creates another crisis in military readiness," this crisis finds us particularly weak. We recall that "...within five years of slicing through Europe in World War II, the U.S. could barely field an army in the early stages of the Korean War." In the 1990s, we have not only carried out the same 'downsizing' of our military, we have weakened it beyond measure by 'social engineering' its internal structure.

       During the 1990s, the Clinton administration over-committed and seriously under-funded the military. Utilizing our armed forces as a world-wide police force in geographical locations that have absolutely no importance to our strategic national interest, the 'human rights' policy makers essentially stripped the military of its 'war-fighting' role and morphed it into a super 'jobs corps.' The politically inspired emasculation of our once-proud military fighting machine was carried out at all levels--officer and enlisted--and in all aspects of the military machine--recruitment, training, promotion, and doctrine.

       As far as military personnel and equipment goes, consider these facts[8]. "The U.S. is becoming a super-geek, with fantastic brains in the form of all that high-tech gadgetry on display in Afghanistan, but not enough sheer muscle, in the form of personnel and equipment...More than half of the Army's Black Hawk helicopters are down for transmission repairs; C-17 cargo planes are so overworked that the Pentagon has discussed perhaps having to seize the planes from commercial airlines on emergency basis; 1 in 5 EA-6B Prowlers, aircraft equipped with crucial electronic-jamming equipment, have been grounded [for the last six months]. The world's lone superpower operates on such a close margin simply because it won't devote enough resources to its defense."

       "During the Clinton administration, procurement accounts were raided to throw money into holding together the old equipment, which got steadily older and even more expensive to maintain. Defense experts call this the 'death spiral.'" But that isn't the worst of it.

       The military has been 'social engineered' by a politically motivated effort to create an armed force that 'looks like America.' That is, it has been treated as a reservoir for vast social change that promotes 'equal opportunity' and 'affirmative action' above readiness. The nation's military has been 'feminized,' 'minority-ized,' and 'sexualized,' beyond belief. It has been rendered (in its vast tail) vulnerable to deployment abroad in hostile environments where the enemy is particularly adept at attacking the force's 'tail,' its deployed support troops. In any 'invasion' force, such a support 'tail' accounts for about 90 percent of the deployed troops. The military knows very well that deployment of such a 'fighting' force in the geographical locations of the Middle East region would end up using the fighting 'head' to protect the support 'tail,' leaving nothing for pursuit of and killing the enemy.

       Women have been placed in 'combat roles' in our armed forces where there is expected to be little likelihood of actual danger from contact with the enemy.  In the Air Force and Navy 'jobs' where females now fly combat aircraft, these women drop precision guided weapons over Afghanistan, a land that has absolutely no anti-air weaponry of note, and from altitudes that render the mission more like a 'practice bombing range' environment than a real-life 'combat' one. [See the essay 'War as Entertainment for a description of such an environment.

       In fact, the Bush administration (while not particularly interested in challenging the radical feminists head-on and reversing the Clinton 'feminization' trend) has found that some particularly dangerous (real-life combat) 'jobs' in the military have been assigned to women. And they have acted forthwith to remove women from such jobs. For example, the Army is removing female[9] soldiers from ground reconnaissance units that are part of the service's future fast-deploying combat brigades. "Reversing a Clinton administration policy, the Pentagon no longer will let women be assigned to Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition (RSTA) squadrons. These unique units, the first of which will become operational next year, are trained to perform some of the ground sweeps now being conducted in the mountains of Afghanistan, as well as other missions. Eight female solders who have been in training in the first RSTA unit are being reassigned...Clinton administration political appointees did not view the newly created squadrons as direct combat units when the brigades were created in 1999 and developed in 2000. But President Bush's appointees at the Pentagon take a different view because the squadrons are likely to conduct intensive ground searches with armor and infantry troops." These missions are much as the special forces troops conducted in Afghanistan and which have taken casualties in their skirmishes with the al Qaeda and Taliban guerillas.

       What is really going on here? Forget the politically motivated wordsmithing and definition of 'direct combat units' by the radical feminists who have been at work emasculating our armed forces. The real worry here is that females will be placed in combat positions where they may be expected to incur substantial casualties. The politicians know that the American public is not prepared for such an eventuality and will not tolerate it. So the politicians remove females from the 'occasion of harm' when they must--and they do it quietly so as not to incite the wrath of the radical feminists who are attempting to 'feminize' our combat arms irregardless of the affect on military readiness.

       This situation raises a serious question. If and when we run up against an enemy which has a credible air force and/or a serious and dangerous anti-air capability from the ground, will our leaders immediately remove females from the 'combat roles' in which they were placed by the Clinton radicals? Will the Navy remove all female F/A-18 pilots, all female F-14 Tomcat fighter crew members, and others on aircraft and combat ships which may be expected to experience heavy casualties in a 'real' war-fighting environment? Will the Air Force remove all females from similar aircraft as well as the females serving as navigators on the AC-130 ground support aircraft? As crew members on early warning and tanker aircraft? As crew members on heavy bombers? When the rubber meets the road, that is, when the U.S. meets a 'real' adversary, will the politicians and other civilians in the military establishment come to realize that the experiment with 'women-in-combat' has been a fantasy, a mirage, and a vulnerability that must be corrected? The war in Afghanistan on the ground has given us a 'reality check' on the aspirations of some for a 'socialized' military.

The Debate on the Military/Civilian Culture Gap
       The vulnerability of our weakened armed forces could have been foretold had one paid attention to the debate during the mid-to-late 1990s  on the military/civilian culture gap. While most of the 'debate' in the popular press centered on the difference in the attitudes of civilians and military people (who are subjected to the Uniform Code of Military Justice) towards adultery--President Clinton's sexual escapades and those of LT Kelly Flinn and others in the U.S. military--it had a different center among civilian and military professionals who are published in prominent academic, military, and policy journals.

       Two military professionals, both now retired, described the framework around which the debate was conducted. Army Lt.Col. Robert Maginnis, speaking before an audience at the Army War College in Carlisle, PA, said[10], "The future will not be particularly friendly to the military. You face a culture that espouses values radically different from those that must be embraced in order to maintain the military not only as a fighting force, but also as a social institution. Society is sending [to the military those] who more closely resemble 'Beavis and Butthead' than George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower. And you must work in a media-saturated world where your decisions could be exposed in public opinion and in the courts."

       Observe that Maginnis' view of the military's future is heavily couched in a description of the 'generation' which will be counted on to fight and die in a near-future war, the 13ers (popularly known as Gen-X). This is only one part of the picture. The other generations involved, the Silent, the Boomer, and the Millennials will have a role as well. It is this aspect of the problem that this essay will introduce into the debate.

       The other aspect of the military/civilian culture gap is more directly related to how America has changed in its attitude toward the conduct of war. Philip Gold, a former Marine, describes the 'new' American Way of War[11]. The pattern of the 'old' American Way of War was established around 1864, climaxed in Vietnam...and found its climacteric in Desert Storm. "Under Bill Clinton, a New American Way of War has evolved. General Ulysses S. Grant established the Old Way in the fnal campaigns of the Civil War. The North  was the resource-superior power. It would use its bulk to batter the Confederacy into submission, en passant teaching the South a lesson it would never forget. This don't-out-think-'em-overwhelm-'em style was intended to minimize Union casualties...in the long run. The body count grew horrendous, but Grant (despite his personal anguish) never wavered in his belief that, ultimately, his strategy would save lives."

       "And thus the approach: Use things, machines, projectiles, technologies instead of flesh. Create a battlefield ecology of attrition and annihilation. Above all, keep casualties down. The 20^th century added another element. let your allies do most of the dying for you. It's too often forgotten how much dying our allies in two world wars actually did, and how we tailored our strategies to minimize our own."

       "And then there was the atomic bomb, that ultimate casualty-avoidance device. Still, Americans accepted casualties. They did so for two reasons: consensus on the ultimate objective, victory, and belief that every effort was being made to minimize casualties. Consensus vanished in Vietnam. Minimization of casualties tried to replace it, in every way from a magnificent MedEvac and treatment system to the unimaginably lavish use of firepower."

       "By [the time of] Desert Storm, consensus had become to be based upon minimization of casualties. The American people (if you believe the surveys, the pundits, and the pols) demanded that strategy and weaponry reduce casualties to a hitherto inconceivable minimum. Then came Bill Clinton."

       "The New American Way of War takes these trends to hypertrophic extremes. Now any casualties at all are deemed unacceptable. High-tech/stand-off/precision-only, please. Worse, this total, and totally unrealistic, intolerance is coupled with an utter inability to establish and pursue clear, militarily attainable objectives or, more aptly, with a bizarre spinning mush of objectives...this is postmodern politics at war--a miasma of words and acts in which nothing really seems to connect to anything else."

       In the context of the debate in 1999 whether or not to send ground troops into the Kosovo conflict, Gold made the following observation. "But this is not the totality of the New American Way of War...If [ground] troops were to be committed to the conflict, it might result in our first postmodern ground war. If so, that decidedly non-postmodern notion, reality, may intervene. The reality of body bags. The conventional wisdom says Americans will not tolerate casualties, that we would be outa there in no time."

       "But what if we were to send in troops and we did accept casualties? Not out of consensus or resolve, but out of indifference? Out of an indifference bred of too many years of 'It's the economy, stupid' ... and indifference that neither yellow ribbons nor CNN can shake? In America today, emotion passes for morality. What if we just didn't feel the  pain? What if we do, but decide to 'just move on,' beginning our self-obsessed 'healing process' even as the agonies accrue? What would that tell us about the New American Way of War? And about ourselves?"

       Thus, the debate on the military/civilian culture gap was grounded on a 'generational gap' between the counter-culture revolutionary Boomers (who come to power in the 1990s) and the three other living adult generations, the civic G.I. , the adaptive, Silent, and the reactive 13ers. The first two, having aged into Elderhood (and the least affected by the Boomers' counter-culture revolution), might become enraged if the Boomers' use of the military were to result in large-scale casualties for vague foreign policy aims. The 13ers, of course, would be expected to be doing the dying if there were to be casualties.

       The debate has been carried out within and between each of these generational cohorts in America. It has been carried out within the military by those most directly affected by its outcome--the troops--and among professionals and defense intellectuals who concern themselves with such matters. This essay summarizes the debate on each of these levels.

The Debate on the Participant Level -- The Troops Speak
       On one level, the debate festered among active-duty military personnel. A reserve Marine Corps officer, Maj. Daniel J. Rabil called for President Clinton's removal from office by impeachment, labeling him a 'lying draft dodger.' "For a while, it was almost possible to laugh off Mr. Clinton's hedonistic, 'college protester' values. But now that we have clear evidence that he perjured himself and corrupted others to cover up his lies, Bill Clinton is no longer funny. He is dangerous...perhaps the most selfish man ever to disgrace our presidency, will not resign. I therefore risk my commission, as our generals will not, to urge this of Congress: Remove this stain from our White House. Banish him from further office. For God's sake, do your duty[12]." Maj. Rabil's commanding general authorized a preliminary inquiry into whether or not he should be court-martialed for publicly disparaging the commander-in-chief[13].

       The Washington Times reported[14] overwhelming support for Maj. Rabil. Another active duty Army officer, Lt. Col. Paul Perrone, voiced strong support for Maj. Rabil[15]. "I stood in awe of [Maj. Rabil's] moral courage--we see very little of that today...Let me be blunt--the vast majority of today's U.S. military looks upon President Clinton with disgust. I will not repeat the facts that he has already admitted. We are bound by our Constitutional oath to obey his lawful orders, but as Marine Maj. Rabil asked: are we bound if the Commander-in-Chief is found to be a criminal? No amount of increase in pay or retirement benefits can win the loyalty of those who swore to defend the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic. And those who will be bought off by these modern thirty pieces of silver [pay equity with civilians, restoration of the retirement system, and a reduced pace of deployments], the nation can only wonder where their true loyalty lies."

       Perrone continues, "I visited my congressman, a Florida Democrat...and member of the House Judiciary Committee and a staunch defender of the President. I explained to him that most members of the military believed they are morally superior to their civilian masters and that this growing split between the civil and military cultures bodes ill for the Republic's future. I believe we have three choices: allow the split to grow, raise civilian standards by impeaching the President or lower the military's standards which would risk destroying that institution. My congressman looked me in the eye and said, 'Quite frankly, I thing the military's standards are too high.'"

       "So there you have it. Our [military's] standards are too high and we must now lower them to meet those of the President and his defenders. There is nothing etched in stone which says this nation must survive. It will only do so if those charged with the responsibility will carry out their Constitutional duties. Congress has one last chance to do its duty. Some lawmakers must find their courage. Others must find their moral standards. If they ignore their duty, as we in the military cannot, then we may be witnessing the beginning of the end."

       Perhaps, unexpectedly, the debate over the Clinton impeachment precipitated a culture gap within the military. A naval officer, who was on active duty at the Pentagon, wrote to the Washington Times in an attempt to counter Lt.Col. Perrone's view (and possibly to curry favor with his like-minded military superiors)[16]. "When men and women in uniform publicly air their political viewpoints, it is more than just a violation of service regulations; it is a threat to the very fabric of this covenant. Without the trust of the American people, the military will lose its way and may ultimately become a threat to the way of life that it is designed to protect...The last 50 years notwithstanding, the American Republic has demonstrated an historic discomfort with large standing armies."

       Lt.Col. Perrone rebutted[17] Lt. Cdr. McGrath's criticism by pointing out that "...the U.S. military is already politicized...less than one-third of military officers identified themselves as Republicans in 1976 with a solid majority identified as nonpartisan or independent. As of 1996, two-thirds called themselves Republicans and only one quarter remained as nonpartisans or independents...Enter Bill Clinton in 1992 -- who, under very questionable circumstances, had not fought in Vietnam and whose very first act as commander-in-chief was to attempt to introduce open homosexuality in the ranks. Since that auspicious beginning, the military has seen budgets go down, missions of dubious nature go up, and a dramatic increase in misguided, social experimentation. (Just as an aside, one should remember that during this same period one member of the Joint Chiefs resigned and another committed suicide.)"

       Perrone continues, "...to ask for impeachment of the president in accordance with the Constitution is not political; it is a cry for justice. With the dwindling numbers of congressional members and those within the administration who have served (none of our civilian chain of command [under Clinton] and only about 35 percent of Congress has worn the uniform), there appears to be lacking any understanding of those who do serve. Today, our law-makers are mostly lawyers and businessmen and women who have little to no concept of what makes up and maintains a fighting force in a Republic...Many of those who remain [in the military] see themselves simply as mercenaries. Others continue to try to hold together a growing, morally hollow force...Nations end because criminals are allowed to govern while, to paraphrase Edmund burke, 'Good men do nothing.'"

       Perrone's observation about the lack of military service by our civilian leaders is paramount in the culture gap debate. For example, only a third of the 535 members of congress in 1999 have prior military service. The Clinton administration had only two members of its national security team who had any military service at all[19]. "For a generation [the Boomers] accustomed to peace and 25 years of a volunteer military, a stint in the armed forces is increasingly rare on VIP resumes. Vice President Al Gore, who went to Vietnam [for only five months as an enlisted Army correspondent], and national security adviser Sandy Berger, a former Army reservist, are exceptions on a team otherwise bereft of military service." Even the civilians in high positions in the Defense and State Departments lack military service[20]. "None of the executive branch's prime decision-makers on military policy have spent a day in uniform. Neither Clinton, Defense Secretary William Cohen, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright nor Deputy Defense Secretary John J. Hamre ever served in the military...Like Clinton, Cohen also avoided the Vietnam War through student deferments. Hamre's a smart guy and he knows Congress, but he's no David Packard...The trouble with Hamre is that he doesn't understand why you need more than trigger pullers to go to war,' lamented one general. William J. Lynn III, the front runner to succeed Hamre as Pentagon comptroller has a similar background. He got to know Capitol Hill firsthand by serving as an arms control and defense specialist on the staff of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass."

       Another Marine Corps officer, Maj. Shane Sellers, publicly criticized President Clinton during his impeachment proceedings. Sellers labeled the president an "adulterous liar' in the NAVY TIMES, an independent weekly newspaper[21]. A flood of support for Maj. Sellers' position was published in the Mail Call section of the NAVY TIMES[22][23]. The Marine Corps meted out mild punishment--a nonpunitive letter of caution--under the UCMJ for Sellers' act[24]. A letter of caution is one of the military's mildest forms of discipline. The letter does not become a part of Maj. Sellers' personnel file and should not influence a promotion board."

       These military participants in the public debate over the impeachment of President Clinton (he was impeached in December 1998 after a nearly year-long investigation and hearing in the House of Representatives and tried by the Senate during the early months of 1999), were conditioned by an article in the NAVY TIMES which addressed the question of whether or not President Clinton should be court-martialed for his adulterous affair with Monica Lewinski[25]. This touched off a spirited debate[26][27][28][29][30][31] in the NAVY TIMES on the subject of adultery--in the civilian and military worlds. Even the 'old timers' of the VFW chimed into the debate[32]. "Unlike the civilian population, the majority of the post's (Post 1503 in Dale City, VA) 1,370 members want the Senate to convict Clinton and remove him from office."

       The debate on the military/civilian culture gap with regard to adultery quickly spread to other aspects of the gap. For example, Rowan Scarborough of The Washington Times pointed out that[33] "When Army Lt. Col. Paul Perrone met with his congressman to discuss what the officer sees as 'a growing split between the civil and military culture,' he got a simple solution. 'Quite frankly, I think the military's standards are too high,' he quotes his congressman, Rep. Robert Wexler, Florida Democrat, as saying...In recent months, more officers have risked breaking the law by openly criticizing their command in chief for his sexual misconduct. In turn, some public figures are suggesting the military's moralistic line on sex should give way to civilian decorum."

       "The [latter] movement has some momentum in liberal circles. Last year, Rep. Barney Frank, a homosexual, proposed legislation that would decriminalize consensual sex in the military, including adultery, and repeal the ban on sodomy." Observe that Barney Frank is the congressman whose 'live-in' homosexual partner was running a male prostitution ring from Rep. Frank's living quarters--an act that resulted in Rep. Frank being publicly reprimanded by the House of Representatives[34][35].^, Rep. Nita M. Lowey, New York Democrat, added, 'They [bans on adultery and sodomy] certainly don't conform to what most of us see in the norms of life and that's why we need an entire review [of the military code of justice]. It just doesn't make any sense.'"

       "But adopting the popular culture for 1.4 million active-duty personnel would be a fatal mistake, current and former officers say. 'If it does, we're not going to end up with a military. It will fall apart in the long run,' Col. Perrone said in an interview...'We can't be a civilian society. It doesn't work that way . I don't think most congressmen understand that because most of them haven't served. If you've got soldiers in the field that are sleeping together, whether they are male or female, it just tears down morale and ruins cohesion. It just creates tension and hurts discipline."

       Scarborough continues, "Daniel Heimback, a former Navy lieutenant who teaches ethics at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina, says he has witnessed 'an increasing divide between military values and the culture. The problem is with the civilian culture, not with the military. The military culture is absolute keystone cold right and the civilian culture is wrong,' he said."

       "The armed forces impose strict rules for personal conduct. Adultery and open homosexuality are outlawed. Socializing in the ranks is tightly regulated. Drug users get the boot. But the civilian world has less stringent attitudes toward marriage cheats, homosexual sex and 'recreational' drug use. For example, a Gallup poll showed 53 percent of Americans opposed the Air force decision to court-martial pilot Kelly Flinn...on charges of adultery, lying and disobeying a direct order. Even a top conservative, Senate Majority leader Trent Lott, criticized the Air Force with his curt warning: 'Get real.'"

       Scarborough found a 'generational' divide in the debate. "...the Internet has given young officers more opportunity to speak out...The conditions that exist in the country, whether you have Rush Limbaugh or Bill Clinton or George Bush as president, you're finding more and more openness and candor are readily available from young officers." Note that he is talking about the 13er generation (Gen-X in popular culture parlance).

       Another perceptive member of the 'unofficial' debate on the military/civilian culture gap, reacted to an Army officer at the Pentagon who was quoted as saying, ' There is something going on out there in the force we can't put our finger on.' He observes[36] "I have a fairly good idea about what this could be. The manly  mystique of the American military has been destroyed. Why would any young man want to join the Army when the American military experience has been reduced to life in a coed college dorm? Not only this, but the military, at least in the eyes of this civilian and former airman, has become a thoroughly Clintonized organization of global policemen. It seems that the patriotic elements of duty, honor and country have been banished and that the American fighting man has been reduced to nothing more than an armed servant of President Clinton's. Apparently, it is too much to ask of our young men to enter into such wretched service, and rightly so."

       Shortly after this observation, we found that the  Army was trying to install video cameras in mixed-sex barracks so that the soldiers and soldierettes could be observed in their sleeping quarters[37]. Sexual misconduct that one might expect from young sexually active high-schoolers was evidently rampant in the barracks.

       It is interesting to note that even at the height of the 'adultery' debate, military members were upset about the other aspects of the civilian culture--as defined by the radical Boomers in the Clinton administration. A Navy commander wrote that it is balderdash to believe that women have fought in our recent armed conflicts[38]. "Buster Pittman makes an absolutely specious argument about women in combat ('Facing the truth about women in combat,' Aug. 31, 1998). He claims that 'given modern technology, the front lines won't be as clear-cut as they were in Normandy."

       The commander disagrees with Pittman. "In fact, the front lines became blurred in the First World War with the advent of the bomber and long-range artillery. Countless millions of women, children and old people died in bombing raids and artillery barrages in this century's armed conflicts. The 13 women killed in the barracks at Dhahran in Operation Desert Storm died under the same circumstances, which was basically a long-range bombing raid, deep behind the front lines, delivered by Scud missiles. The sacrifice of these women (and, lest we forget, their fellow male casualties) was the ultimate one, and should never be understated or under-appreciated."

       "However, being in the wrong place at the wrong time when a bomb hits far behind the front lines says no more about the efficacy of women in front-line combat than it does about the millions of other bombing victims. Capt. Pittman also makes reference to the fuel supply unit that was attacked by the Iraqis in Operation Desert Storm. Given the abysmally poor combat performance of the Iraqis in Desert Storm and the exceedingly few (fortunately) casualties we suffered, I would not want to be the person who tells an Army Ranger that this incident equates to what they went through in  Mogadishu, Somalia, or [a Marine at] Khe Sahn, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Chosin Reservoir, Battle of the Bulge and Verdun. The only way to resolve the women in combat issue is to actually make it happen and then examine the results. Given the highly politicized nature of this issue, an objective analysis may be difficult to come by. Until then, no amount of armchair theorizing, political posturing or misapplied anecdotal evidence will ever solve this controversy."

       On another subject interjected into the military parlance by the Clinton administration, making the military 'mirror' the country, military officers commented in the negative. For example, Cdr. D.F. Marusa USN (Ret.) wrote[39], "If the military mirrors society, we must accept criminals, drug addicts, pedophiles, the physically handicapped and the mentally disturbed in proportions equal to the general population. What about inadequate numbers of red-headed officers, too many sailors from the South or a dis-proportionate number of brown-eyed females in ratings with an odd number of letters? If George C. Wilson [a writer for NAVY TIMES] wants to go by the numbers, we can take it to absurd extremes."

       Marusa continues, "I grew up in an ethnic neighborhood. My parents instilled in me a deep pride as a second-generation American. I grew up proud of my Polish-American heritage, just as African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans are proud of their backgrounds. Yet when I entered the military, I essentially gave up my ethnic background and became Caucasian. As the Navy delebrated Hispanic Heritage Week or Black American Month, I felt slighted. Don't people understand that those recognition efforts create as much animosity as good will?"

       "We need to be Americans. Let those who want to join the military join based on their qualifications and desire, not their background. Let the promotion process be based on merit, not on a quota. I took orders from black petty officers and gave orders to Hispanics without having to think about nationalities. I did it because I was in the military and understood rank and responsibility. I had a skipper who always said the Navy couldn't afford to be a cross-section of our society; we had to be better. I still believe that."

       Another minority member of the Navy agrees[40]. "America's armed forces [used to be] a microcosm of the country as a whole...Civilians are coming to view the military as little more than a self-interested bureaucracy...The Democratic Party's efforts to exclude absentee ballots during the Florida recounts--many, if not most, of which were from servicemen and women overseas -- reflect the growing perception on the political left that the armed forces are just another conservative special interest group. This only serves to reinforce the perception military members feel of increasing marginalization and isolation from the societal norms found 'outside the main gate.' At the very least, this is cause for concern because of the corrosive effect it has on recruitment, retention and morale. More dangerously, the distrust it engenders between civil and military society may constitute the first step on a slippery slope that leads to fear, hatred and, ultimately, violence."

       During the end of his impeachment process in the House of Representatives, President Clinton made an attempt to 'reach out' to the active-duty military[41]. He wished to "...counter talk of resentment in the ranks toward the commander in chief." He visited an Army post in Korea during November 1998, "...shaking hands, posing for pictures and joking with the troops. He promoted a private, sang 'Happy Birthday' to 45-year-old Sgt. Maj. Charles Thomas and shared a lunch of field rations with soldiers in a heated hut." It is of note that the picture accompanying the article shows faces that are all 'minority' members, except that of the president.

       This photo-op visit did nothing to quell the storm. President Clinton's newly-appointed Secretary of the Navy, Richard Danzig, created quite a stir with his verbal attack on the submarine service, and, in a revealing personal comment to the wife of the retiring Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Charles Krulak.

       First, Danzig addressed the subject of women serving in submarines, a combat vessel on which they have been denied service in spite of the fact that they have served since 1994 on surface combatants. In dropping his depth charge on the Navy's submariners, he warned[42] that they"...had better shape up and prepare to accept women in submarine crews eventually--or else." There was nothing surprising in this speech. The obvious intent of the Clinton administration and its feminist partisans was eventually to eliminate all restrictions on women in combat -- everywhere. "However, Danzig's rhetorical bow wave was remarkably gratuitous--patronizing in the way that only one who has never worn a uniform can be."

       "The submariners, he said, are operating a 'white-male bastion,' ignoring the many members of minority groups who serve and have served in that strenuous duty. 'The most Narcissus-like thing about creating something in your own image, about being in love with your own image, ' he told the Navy Submarine League, 'is the continued and continuous existence of this segment of the Navy as a white-male preserve.' The reference to the mythical Narcissus (destroyed by his intense obsession with the self) was insulting to the sailors who routinely risk their lives beneath the sea. It was especially so since it is White House policy--at least on the surface--to exclude Navy women from combat duty only on the fleet's submarines."

       "Mr. Danzig, 55, like his ultimate boss, a Yale law school grad and a Rhodes Scholar whose compelling interests didn't include military service during the Vietnam war, did more than affront the submariners. During the summer, he is permitting female ROTC students to spend two nights aboard a ballistic-missile submarine."

       In his speech, Danzig succinctly summed up one perspective of the debate. "I am not animated by some feeling of affirmative action or political correctness. I am animated by the fundamental perception that we are a democracy. The character of the country is changing. As the character of our country changes, so must the character of our military." This specious argument was, of course, refuted by T.R. Fehrenbach in his 1963 history of the Korean War. "'The danger has been the other way around--liberal society, in its heart, wants not only domination of the military, but acquiescence of the military toward the liberal view of life. Domination and control society should have. But acquiescence society may not have, if it wants an army worth a damn. By the nature of its mission, the military must maintain a hard and illiberal view of life and the world. Society's purpose is to live; the military's is to stand ready, if need be, to die.'"

       "The philosophy toward military service that Mr. Danzig's comments illuminate is precisely acquiescence to the liberal view of life, of which a putative sexual equality is a tenet. If this was a liberal society three-plus decades ago, it is profoundly more so today. At some point, however, Americans will be forced to decide between the systematic civilianization of the armed forces and sexual integration--and that 'hard and illiberal view of life and the world.' This country has been able to beg the question up to now. It will not be able to do so indefinitely. At some point, the Fehrenbach thesis and--let's call it the Danzig Doctrine--will collide. Horrifically perhaps, as in the early weeks in [another Korean war]..." Or in a war with China.

       There was an immediate negative response to the Danzig Doctrine in The Washington Times. The response was also frenzied in its attack on Danzig's cavalier and insulting treatment of Gen. Charles Krulak and his wife at Krulak's retirement ceremony. Danzig told Mrs. Krulak that her marriage is "...the only menage a trois the Marine Corps approves of." The responses to this impudence called for Danzig's immediate dismissal. "To dishonor the naval service and the general in a public statement is more than reason for his dismissal. Mr. Danzig makes former Army assistant secretary Sara Lister's comments about Marines being 'extremists' at risk of 'total disconnection with society' seem trivial," said one resondent. He also accuses Danzig of making "...some of the most racist remarks a public official has made...when he states the submarine service is a 'white male preserve.'"

       Another respondent, a former submarine officer, said, "It's fine for our commander in chief and our Navy secretary blithely to espouse acceptance of women and gays in the military. After all, these leaders have no experience to draw upon. The purpose of the military is to fight wars--to defend our great country--to die, if necessary. War is for warriors."

       Another respondent, a Navy wife, wrote, "...Danzig's recent remarks, both those he made in reference to the submarine service and those he considered appropriate at former Marine Corps Commandant Charles Krulak's retirement ceremony, illustrate the rhetorical and ethical bankruptcy of the Clinton administration's understanding of the military and the narcissism of the feminist agenda. Could someone please, for once, be practical and realistic about the singular nature of naval (especially submarine) service? Can Mr. Danzig and his cohorts really believe it would be beneficial to the Navy to have men and women sharing racks on a submarine? Is it really pragmatic to add even more pressure on serving naval families? Does it really serve the Navy's interest to increase the misery these months of separation create? There is no way to justify the additional anguish that anxious wives might have to endure by adding concerns of sexual activity. Apparently, no one cares about the Navy wives left at home. After all, these forgotten women are only wives and mothers and, one is led to suspect, are written off simply as bimbos. After all, it's difficult for a Navy wife to have the currency of a career with which to purchase value for her existence, following her husband from station to station as she does. There is no respect for either marriage or family in our new Navy."

       The Navy wife continues, "Significantly, not even the wife of the Commandant of the Marine Corps is safe from this fundamental lack of respect for the position of spouse. I suppose that from the Clinton administration's point of view, Mr. Danzig was being inclusive and sharing by inviting Gen. and Mrs. Krulak into their menage-a-trois club. How nauseating and ultimately predictable. I hope many Navy wives will return to the Navy that nice program it hands out about the incredible importance and value of the Navy wife to the success of the service. It was obviously just words."

       One of the respondents to SecNav Danzig's proclamations provided a common-sense suggestion, although one that the Navy would be loathe to take.  He states, "There is a way to give women all the opportunities for naval advancement that men have while avoiding the pregnancies, broken marriages and broken careers that go with shipboard sexual integration. Give women their own ships. Having ships with all-female crews competing against ships with all-male crews is the best way to evaluate whether women are really carrying their share of the load in the fleet." Not a bad suggestion. Would anyone care to bet on the women?

The Debate on the Professional/Defense Intellectual Level
       The adultery-centered debate about the military/civilian culture gap receded after the president escaped removal from office by the Senate after his impeachment by the House of Representatives. The 'culture gap' debate then turned on the differences in party and ideological preference of political candidates for office between military officers and civilians. The measure was whether or not the military was becoming more 'conservative' than the population at large. The nation's press was on fire with articles addressing this 'dilemma.' NAVY TIMES[44], warned that "military leaders [are] drifting far from the U.S. mainstream." The Wall Street Journal[45] presaged this drift by noting in 1997 that the "Military is becoming more conservative...The situation concerns top military officers...[One who] calls the single greatest danger facing the U.S. military today the possibility that a politicized military will stay that way, perhaps growing less and less responsive to civilian control over time. [A retired Army colonel who now teaches at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies], says that 'Despite our best efforts to pretend otherwise, we have a serious problem [of civilian-military relations] on our hands.'"

       The Wall Street Journal article noted that senior military officers had drifted to Republicanism over the period from 1976 to 1996. But "even more striking is the disappearance of uniformed liberalism. In 1976, the ratio of conservatives to liberals in the military was 4 to 1, not surprising for such an inherently hierarchical institution. Now, according to [a Duke University poll], the ratio is 23 to 1, with only 3% of senior military officers saying they are 'somewhat liberal,' compared with 27% for civilian elites. And this rightward shift occurred even as the officer corps gained more women and minorities, who tend to be more liberal than their white male counterparts." Observe that this group of officers tend to be in the Boomer generation cohort.

       The Journal article observes that "the situation may be even more acute than the poll indicates because [it] surveyed only senior military officers--that is, colonels, generals and admirals. Junior officers [those in the 'later cohort' of the Boomer generation] appear to be even more Republicanized and anti-Clinton than their superiors...In [the] 1996 poll, 92% of those (few) senior officers born after 1954 said they were Republican...The mood is less tolerant among junior officers...[An instructor at the National Defense University] recalls advocating a tolerant attitude toward gays in the military when speaking to a group of captains and majors [13er generation officers], and being 'booed and hissed.'... In a 1995 survey, two-thirds of West Point cadets called themselves conservative...Military analysts argue that the new politicized, more alienated stance of many military leaders ultimately could prove dangerous to the nation. No one is talking about a coup. But there is worry that the military is becoming less and less responsive to, and trusting of, the civilians who oversee it."

       Just what is it that set the 'power elites' of the Boomer generation into such a tizzy over the direction of the military culture in America? In essence, they were worried that the U.S. military was resisting their New Age foreign policy of using armed force to further 'humanitarian' goals worldwide. While the America citizenry was asleep (or just 'absent minded,' in the words of Irving Kristol), the young President of the '90s was using executive power to forge a new and misguided[46] 'imperium' - a move toward Empire (see at this link, a review of a book on this subject - a socialist/Marxist world evolving from the dominance of multi-national corporations in the era of free trade, the Internet, and the free flow of capital across national borders) that the military, among others, judged was not in the pattern of the nation's historical use of force. Based on the experience of the senior officer corps (then mid-grade officers in the Vietnam War), there was consensus that America should not become embroiled in foreign adventurism abroad which would not be supported (in the long run) by the American people.

       The 'power elites' of the Boomer generation, then in power, were reeling under the opposition of the military to their 'armed adventurism' abroad. For example, when the Clinton administration sent troops into Bosnia in December 1995, there was considerable shock displayed by the troops and dismay in their families. The all-volunteer force was being sent abroad into the middle of a Balkan civil war with no apparent national interest at stake. Americans are not accustomed to this situation.  But the 'power elites' in the nation's news media carried the torch for intervention on 'humanitarian' grounds.

       For example, Cokie Roberts, an elite pundit on the TV media circuit exclaimed with shock and indignation[47], "Our military is an all-volunteer force.  How can they possibly be hesitant to deploy to Bosnia.  They knew the risks when they volunteered."  Implicit in Ms. Roberts' remark is the idea that "We pay for your volunteer service. Do your duty." Unwittingly, she is actually characterizing an attitude appropriate to a mercenary armed force, willing to do its masters bidding because 'we pay for it.'  Elizabeth Farnsworth, a nationally known interviewer on the MacNeil News Hour, conducted[48] the same conversation with the wives of demoralized wives of soldiers about to deploy to Bosnia before Christmas 1995. Richard Cohen, a nationally syndicated columnist penned[49] "Such fears [of reprisal if U.S. soldiers capture Bosnian-Serb war crimes indictees] should never be casually dismissed, but really, isn't risk part of being in uniform?"

       It was in this atmosphere that the issue of a military/civilian culture gap was first raised. The president made several attempts to quell the military's growing disenchantment with him and his interventionist policies. Scarcely a month elapsed after the signing of the Dayton Accords and the President dropped in for a three-hour visit[50] with the U.S. troops in Tuzla. Photo opportunities abounded with the President, in a shiny leather military jacket in the company of 'his' troops, cheering them on. The U.S. media wildly acclaimed the triumphant visit by the Commander-in-Chief. Not so widely reported, however, was the fact that[51] "Out of concern for the president's security, all soldiers who listened to the president's speech were required to remove the magazines and the firing bolts from their M-16 assault rifles and to keep the barrels pointed toward the ground. Officers and military police also were forbidden from having clips in their pistols."  A knowledgeable veteran, observing this report, noted that[52] "...Implicit in disarming the men and women who are carrying out the nation's foreign policy in the presence of their commander-in-chief is that they somehow pose a threat to him, either because they might assassinate him or because they did not know how to handle their weapon safely...I doubt there was one man or woman present at the president's speech who posed a direct threat to his security...In my entire life I cannot recall such a patronizing insult to the armed forces of the United States...I am not aware of any other case in which men who are putting their lives on the line were so blatantly humiliated." Obviously, this public relations effect was not the one desired by the President. But it was the dominant impression for those who understood the real game being played with the American people.

       As the presidential promise of a 12-month deployment of troops in Bosnia was broken with a one-year extension and, finally, an admission that ground troops were to be stationed there 'indefinitely,' military confidence in the Commander-in-Chief eroded. It was in this climate that Secretary of Defense William Cohen torched off the debate in a 1997 speech at Yale University. He claimed to see[53] "...a chasm developing between the military and civilian worlds..." The issue of such a 'gap' was placed in the hands of academics under a grant from the Smith Richardson Foundation to the Triangle Institute for Security Studies, a consortium of faculty from the Raleigh-Durham, NC area. The question at the end of the 1990s was said to be a 'cultural' one[54]. "Has a 'gap' in values between the armed forces and civilian society widened to the point of threatening the effectiveness of the military and impeding civil-military cooperation?" A book[55] was published in 2001 which provides the survey data and analysis by the academics involved in the study. The study survey data were made public much earlier - in the late 1990s - in order to foster debate in the nation's leading academic, military, and foreign policy journals.

       The survey of attitudes, values, and world view was taken of three groups of Americans - 'elite' military officers (those identified for promotion and advancement), civilian 'elites,' and the general public[56]. The civilian 'elites' were drawn from what I call the 'power elites' of the Boomer generation. The 'elite' military officers were primarily Boomers who did not demonstrate against the Vietnam War and did not identify with the mid-60s counter-culture revolution carried out by the civilian group. The public at large are represented in the red/blue (Bush/Gore) year-2000 election map. These are primarily 'blue-collar' Boomers as well as members of the G.I. and Silent generations plus the few of the 13er generation who bothered to vote.

      The results can be broken down into heirs of two distinct camps. The contemporary heirs of Morris Janowitz, who argued in the 1960s that[57] "...in a democracy military culture necessarily adapts to changes in civilian society, adjusting to the needs and dictates of its civilian masters." The heirs of Janowitz see the all-volunteer military as[58] "...drifting too far away from the norms of American society, thereby posing problems for civilian control." Given the fact that at the end of the Cold War and the extraordinary changes (see the paragraphs above re the Clinton military and foreign policy initiatives) have taken place, there was concern in this camp that the military would not 'just shut up and follow orders.'

       The Janowitz heirs make four principal assertions[59]. "First, the military has grown out of step ideologically with the public, showing itself to be inordinately right-wing politically, and much more religious (and fundamentalist) than America as a whole, having a strong and almost exclusive identification with the Republican Party. Second, the military has become increasingly alienated from, disgusted with and sometimes even explicitly hostile to civilian culture. Third, the armed forces have resisted change, particularly the integration of women and homosexuals into their ranks, and have generally proved reluctant to carry out constabulary missions. Fourth, civilian control and military effectiveness will both suffer as the military - seeking ways to operate without effective civilian oversight and alienated from the society around it - loses the respect and support of that society."
       The other viewpoint, provided by Samuel Huntington[60] in the 1950s, is that "...the divide could best be bridged by civilian society tolerating, if not embracing, the conservative values that animate military culture." Huntington also suggested that "...politicians allow the armed forces a substantial degree of cultural autonomy." The contemporary heirs of Huntington would then argue that "...a degenerate civilian culture has strayed so far from traditional values that it intends to eradicate healthy and functional civil-military differences, particularly in the areas of gender, sexual orientation, and discipline."

       The Huntington camp makes four key claims[61]. "First, its members assert that the military is divorced in values from a political and cultural elite that is itself alienated from the general public." That is, the 'culture war' in the civilian domain between the 'power elites' of the Boomer generation and their followers versus the rest of America. "Second, it believes this civilian elite to be ignorant of, and even hostile to, the armed forces - eager to employ the military as a laboratory for social change, even at the cost of crippling its warfighting capacity. Third, it discounts the specter of eroding civilian control because it sees a military so thoroughly inculcated with an ethos of subordination that there is now too much civilian control. Fourth, because support for the military among the general public remains sturdy, any gap in values is inconsequential. The problem, if anything, is with the civilian elite."

       These two camps are represented by several commentators on the survey results. Richard Danzig, the Secretary of the Navy during the last two years of the Clinton administration and one of his Oxford and Yale contemporaries - one of the 'power elites' of the Boomer generation - supported the Janowitz view. Danzig said[62], "Our military cannot live apart from our society. That risk is low for our diverse and fluctuating enlisted ranks. It is high for our much smaller and less representative corps of career officers." Of course, Danzig is a counter-culture revolutionary of the mid-60s who joined the Clinton administration to complete their revolution via executive fiat in the 1990s. He has publicly (and in writing) supported the 'democratization' of the Navy's officer/enlisted corps[63][64][65][66],^,,, fuzzing the lines of authority and undermining the chain of command in the traditionally hierarchical Navy. Even before this process of 'democratization' under Danzig as SecNav, the Navy was experiencing difficulty in assuring the discipline of the enlisted recruits. Apparently, with Danzig as the Undersecretary of the Navy (the No. 2 civilian post) 'democratization' was not working[67][68][69].^,, This same agenda surfaced in the aftermath of the Korean War when the 15 percent of our returning POWs were excused (by some leftist academics) for collaborating with the enemy during their 're-education' indoctrination. The liberal leftists' answer to this collaboration was to 'democratize' the military command structure[70]. See the essay at the link: The Danzigization of the U.S. Military for a detailed analysis of Danzig's reign as SecNav.

       Another commentator, a conservative republican syndicated columnist, supported the opposite view. George Will wrote[71], "There should be a gap between civilian and military cultures, especially in a democracy. The widening gap should be narrowed somewhat, but not by permeating the military with the civilian culture's values...Civilian society, if it thinks the gap between it and its military is too wide, might try moving toward the military."
       John J. Hamre, Clinton's Deputy Secretary of Defense under Wm. Cohen said[72], "The average American knows very little about the military anymore...and even more troubling, the average middle-and upper middle-class family doesn't tend to look on the military as a career they want their kids to follow." This, of course, from another 'power elite' of the Boomer generation who never served. But he wasn't alone in this view. John McCain, another member of the adaptive Silent generation and a Navy hero, and Vietnam War POW, is quoted in the NAVY TIMES, as saying that[73] "...the military is a career I would not recommend for my son at this period in time."

       Interestingly, the TISS study's authors conclude that one of the factors shaping the military/civilian culture gap is that "...the curricula at military academies and war colleges fail to provide officers with a coherent understanding of American society, its culture, and the tradition of American civil-military relations. In some cases education accentuates civil military differences[74]." Of course, this is the liberal left view of the military world. We have seen (Read the essay at the link: The Anatomy of a Closet Leftist to learn how the 'civilian elites' of the counter-culture revolution took over the New Age 'ethics' program at the U.S. Naval Academy) that the tug of war going on at the Naval Academy regarding the new 'ethics' curriculum is directly related to this observation made in the TISS study.

       The TISS study, after hashing and rehashing old saws, finally got to the meat of the problem - the cause of the mass exodus of young officers and mid-grade enlisted men from all branches of the military during the last half of the 1990s[75]. "Finally, the fusion between civilian and soldier at the most senior policymaking levels will not compensate for the distrust of civilians expressed in the lower ranks of the services. In fact, the divergence of opinion between the senior and junior ranks has created a troubling divide within the officer corps itself. In suggesting that the military has a responsibility not merely to advise but to insist on policy, field grade officers believe that their leaders, under certain circumstances, should resist civilian direction or resign in protest...Mid-level officers who endorse this thesis express frustration with their senior leaders for not resisting more vigorously political pressure and perceived civilian mismanagement. Many complain about readiness, gender integration, and declining standards of discipline and training. Nearly half of the officers we surveyed said they would leave the service if 'senior uniformed leadership [did] not stand up for what is right in military policy." See the essays at the links: The Hollow Force Debate Results, The Pretender: Anatomy of a Collaborator, and The Anatomy of a Closet Leftist to see the reason for this attitude. The 'power elites' of the Boomer generation in the Clinton administration purged 'warriors' and the 'warrior ethos' from the armed forces all during the 1990s.

       Most of the recommendations made by the TISS panel of 12 academics who carried out the analysis of the survey data could be summarized in one sentence - more 'sensitivity training' to ensure that the military is responsive to the commands of the civilian 'power elites' - right or wrong.

       Eliot Cohen, a defense intellectual who is a professor of strategic studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, believes the TISS report performs an important purpose. The 'gap' is an important issue that must be addressed by our nation's policy makers. He takes us through the military history of the past several decades: the decline of the mass army, the change in social norms, the transformation of America's global position since the end of the Cold War, the admission of the fact that we now have an 'imperial' army[76].

       Cohen, to his credit, understands the path taken over the past thirty years in the military establishment, both in terms of its world view and its relationship to the civilian leadership. He also understands the threats that pose great risk to America's future. For example, he states that "...For the moment, the United States dominates the globe militarily as it does economically and culturally. It is doubtful that such predominance will long go unchallenged; were that to be the case it would reflect a change in the human condition, that goes beyond all human experience of international politics over the millennia."

     After citing these threats, Cohen observes that "...None of these poses a mortal threat to the Republic, or is likely to do so anytime soon. Yet cumulatively, the consequences have been unfortunate enough; the inept conclusion to the Gulf War, the Somalia fiasco, and dithering over American policy in Yugoslavia may all partially be attributed to the poor state of American civil-military relations So too may the subtle erosion of morale in the American military and the defense reform deadlock, which has preserved, to far to great a degree, outdated structures and mentalities."

       Cohen rehashes the Vietnam War and makes the obvious conclusions that anyone who reads the headlines of the nation's leading newspapers could make. But he never gets to a core forcing function that made all of the 'stuff' happen.  For example, how is it that "...In one survey, only a third of military respondents said they believed that 'when my Services' senior leaders say something, you can believe it is true'"? The answer is that the General and Flag-rank officers implemented (without resistance, and often with relish) the potentially disastrous 'feminization' and 'open homosexualization' of the nation's military and they allowed civilian facilitators use behavior modification tools, i.e. 'sensitivity training,' to coerce the fighting force to accept these 'social engineering' concepts - the military became a 'jobs corps' instead of a ready fighting force. The weak and compliant senior military leaders simply talked a big game of resistance (without attribution, to the press) but only a few (e.g. Gen. Ronald Fogelman, Chief of Staff of the USAF) resigned in protest[77][78].

       Cohen says, essentially, that all is well now, but all may not be well in the not-too-distant future. "For now, to be sure, the U.S. is wealthy and powerful enough to afford such pratfalls and inefficiencies. But the full consequences will not be felt for some years, and not until a major military crisis - a challenge as severe in its way as the Korean or Vietnam War - arises."

       Then Cohen states the essence of the problem as he sees it. "[The gap's] roots lie not in the machinations of power hungry generals; they have had influence thrust upon them. Nor do they lie in the fecklessness of civilian leaders determined to remake the military in the image of civil society; all militaries must, in greater or lesser degree, share some of the mores and attitudes of the broader civilization from which they have emerged. The problem reflects, rather, deeper and more enduring changes in politics, society and technology...There is no danger of a coup, but there is dry rot."

       In assessing this military stew, Cohen somehow or other treats the 'changes' that have occurred over the past decade as if they just 'happened.' He treats these 'changes' as if they occurred in a vacuum without any connection to the actors who carried them out - or their agenda. He seems to have simply forgotten the battle cry of the Democrat party in the 1992 election, 'Have the courage to change.' Indeed, the introduction of Cohen's 'dry rot' has a definable beginning. The 'changes' Cohen identifies came about as the 'elites' of the Boomer generation, who started a counter-culture revolution in their 'coming of age' years, came to executive power in the 1990s and attempted to complete their 'cultural Marxist' revolution under the reign of Clinton/Gore. The problems identified in the civilian-military culture gap are simply the same problems in the civilian population. The 'culture war' in the civilian strata is, in fact, deeper and wider than any military/civilian culture gap that has been identified. The problem is not a military one, it is a civilian one.

       The 'cultural Marxists' of the mid-60s and their foot soldiers have attempted to turn America down the road of the French revolution - the Franco-German path to socialism - instead of maintaining a course down the Anglo-American path of the American revolution. Cohen and his colleagues argue on too narrow a historical plane. Thereby, they miss the essence of the problem altogether. It is a fact, that the military is the penultimate institution that has been under attack over the past 30 years. The family is the last. All other American institutions have been subject to the 'cultural Marxist' 'march through the institutions.' Why are we surprised to learn of a so-called military/civilian culture gap? It is part of the process with two possible outcomes of the counter-culture revolution; one the 'socialization' of American civilization taking it down the Franco-German path of the destructive socialist movements of the 20^th century, or alternatively, a renewal of the American dream based on the concepts handed down to us by our Founding Fathers.

       Cohen does, however, make a cogent general conclusion[79]. "The crisis in American civil-military relations is neither so immediate nor severe as to alarm the body politic. The ship of state is very far from hitting the rapids of open civil-military conflict. Rather, the problems more resemble disturbing currents running below a seemingly placid river. The hazards lie down-stream and could take the form of a nasty shock from a submerged reef, whose presence is betrayed only by a few ripples on the surface." Were professor Cohen a student of ancient history or even acquainted with the writings of Victor Davis Hanson, the classics scholar, he would know that America will awaken in the time of a 'real' future crisis and purge the pretenders in both the military and civilian policy-making worlds and demand the leadership of a new Grant, Sherman, Patton, MacArthur, Lincoln or Truman - to preserve American civilization. See the essays at the links: Hanson on Terrorist Myths, A Metaphor: the North Tower and Women-in-Combat, and War as Entertainment to understand this truth.

       The problem of all this 'expert' analysis of the military/civilian culture gap is that the participants take a much too narrow view of the factors that act together in a complex fashion to effect an outcome. The 'eruption,' when it comes always arrives at a time of crisis - a secular crisis of large magnitude. Napoleon rose out of the ashes of the destructive socialist French revolution. France never returned to its place of domination in European culture. Yugoslavia has essentially disappeared after the death of Tito in 1980 which led to an economic crisis that broke down the political and social authority of the government. Disintegration and chaos ensued.

       The history of America, based on generations - their formative 'personalities' and the social moments which forge them - reveals that we have just entered a Fourth Turning, a period of impending danger. If the cycle persists, as it has for four centuries, America's next secular crisis is due in the 2020 time frame. The terrorist attack on 9-11 was only an opening warning of the danger that lies ahead. If the secular crisis strikes early, as it did in our Civil War, America could be in grave danger. Why? Because the alignment of the four living generations are such that their 'peer personalities' are inadequate to bring the crisis to a successful conclusion. For example, the Idealist Boomer generation is not suited, by virtue of its 'peer personality,' to lead the nation through the coming crisis. This hedonistic generation must age to elderhood, out of the way of the practical middle-age leadership of the 13er generation, in order to overcome the next secular crisis. The Millennial generation must reach its 'young adulthood' years in order to take the place of the last Civic generation - the G.I. generation - in bringing the next secular crisis to a successful conclusion.

       Nevertheless, many bright scholars - a few with current military experience - keep on analyzing the military/civilian culture gap to exhaustion. The very well-respected Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) which publishes the Orbis periodical has addressed the problem in full detail. They have presented essays on the Internet on the subject[80], "America the Vulnerable: Our Military Problems and How to Fix Them."

       In an FPRI essay entitled, "The Coming Transformation of the U.S. Military," Michael Noonan and John Hillen write that "...The U.S. is unlikely over the next 25-30 years to face an adversary challenging its military in a symmetrical fashion...With the possible exception of the Marine Corps and special operations forces (SOF), American forces are still not optimally organized to take full advantage of new geopolitical realities and information technology advances - impeded as they are by their particular service cultures and reigning orthodoxies...Over the past fifty years the ideal officer has shifted from the combat leader to the manager or technician to, most recently, the soldier-statesman/scholar. This has led to the rise of military officers more capable in the political-military realm than in troop-leading assignments. Elevating such leaders at the expense of combat leaders can only hurt the military's ability to carry out decisive actions."

       The essay expresses a compelling need. "The military needs defense intellectuals within the ranks capable of innovative thinking. These are just as critical as skilled and able warfighters. Unfortunately, the military has historically been resistant to innovation. The services' cultures and bureaucratic interests have been an enormous barrier to change. Talented young officers are needed who can overcome this barrier to develop new military capabilities."

       "An entrepreneurial climate that rewards valor, audacity, risk-taking, and innovation should be engrained throughout the ranks, and tactical and operational commanders must be given more autonomy and trust. Without such qualities the military risks becoming...an 'obedient military bureaucracy,' devoid of the notion of self-sacrifice and responding to the directives of civilian leaders in an uncritical manner. The secretary of defense and the civilian service secretaries must increase oversight of the service promotion processes to ensure that the proper mix of warfighters, innovators, and soldier-diplomats are advanced through the system. All of this should be done in a top-down manner that identifies the appropriate general and flag-rank officer to drive the process."

       In another FPRI essay entitled, "Civil-Military Relations," Eliot Cohen observes that "...The end of the draft in the early 1970s created a noticeable gap between civilian and military elites. That gap widened with the dramatic shrinkage of the military in the wake of the Cold War...The gap between the military and society is exacerbated by the military's increasing tendency to recruit from narrower segments of the population...some 15 percent of new entrants into the military now come from military families. Of greater concern, in the view of some, is the increased role of the military academies as providers of officer candidates. Whereas West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy produced only 10 percent of new officers during the Cold War, today they produce roughly one-quarter." Cohen suggests solutions such as 'reforming the military academies (recruiting an officer corps as widely as possible and modeling the military academies along the lines of Sandhurst), devise recruiting schemes for the citizen-soldier, and providing a professional military education for the officer corps.'

       Sam C. Sarkesian, another FPRI contributor with the essay entitled, "The U.S. Military Must Find Its Voice," suggests that the military engage the civilian 'elites' in public debate on two of the most critical issues of the 1990s. They are the 'democratization' of the military (convergence or divergence between the military and society) and the problematical utility of military force in the foreign policy contingencies of the century to come. He claims that these issues are interconnected and have a profound impact on the military's operational effectiveness.

       Sarkesian claims that "...the American military belongs to the American people, and military professionals have the duty and obligation to insure that the public and its political leaders are counseled and alerted to the needs and necessities of military life. This cannot be done by adhering to a notion of the military profession as a silent order of monks isolated from the political realm."

       Sarkesian states that "...At some point, the wise, professional, and patriotic course may be for high-ranking officers to insist that such missions  (e,g, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq) simply cannot be done with the present resources and structure. Indeed, such a view may be a refreshing change from the 'can do' syndrome that seems to paralyze open military debate." It appears that, unlike during the Clinton presidency, the military is speaking out regarding President Bush's initiative regarding the invasion of Iraq in the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attack on America[81].

       Then Sarkesian strikes home. "...issues of race, gender, and diversity have become major concerns in American society. As a result, questions are raised again about the degree to which the military should reflect society at large - questions that define a large part of modern American military history. A case in point is the hesitancy with which the military profession responded to issues of gender relationships, sexual scandals, and homosexuality within the ranks, including the Navy's Tailhook affair, the Air Force's Lieutenant Kelly Flinn story, the murder of a presumed homosexual soldier by another soldier at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and the sexual harassment allegations made in 2000 against Major General Larry Smith by Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy, the highest-ranking woman in the U.S. Army. Regardless of civilian perspectives and criticisms, the failure of military professionals to articulate clear principles did little to encourage faith in the profession. Only in the first months of the new century has ther been some effort by senior Department of Defense officials and military professionals to respond to such matters and articulate clear guidelines[82]. One exception was General Ronald R. Fogelman, who resigned as air force chief of staff in 1997. Being "dedicated to the most basic ideals that forge a coherent force, he found it necessary to explain to U.S. lawmakers why disobedience and lying by a commissioned officer cannot be tolerated. In contrast to the hesitancy displayed by most other senior officers with regard to the Kelly Flinn affair, Fogelman spoke out."

       Sarkesian reminds us that "As the Clinton administration came to an end, it was obvious to many that it had viewed the U.S. military as an arm of the Department of State, that is, as a tool of foreign policy to be employed in peacekeeping operations under the rubric of OOTW...For many in the military profession the 'Albright syndrome' threatens to undermine military culture and deny the very purpose of the military...Such matters must be placed in the public arena.

       Sarkesian concludes that "The inescapable fact is that an effective military system must be authoritarian and driven by the need for combat cohesion, unit effectiveness, discipline under a chain of command, subordination of individual rights to the group, and unity of effort. Not least, this unique military culture must be nurtured within the American democratic system. At the same time, within these parameters, individual dignity must be maintained. This was never an easy proposition and it appears even more difficult today, at a time when the reigning ethos of the civilian culture appears increasingly hostile to the professional military ethos, places social agendas above military preparedness on its list of priorities, and embraces the notion that a technological 'revolution in military affairs' (push-botton warfare) makes possible 'clean' wars and a kinder, gentler battlefield."

       "The task before us should be obvious. It is to reinforce, not undermine, the military culture - a culture that remains rooted in the psychological and physical notions of killing the enemy - while maintaining its loyalty to the principles of democracy and civilian supremacy...that task is not advance by [military] silence. On the contrary, the voice of the military profession must be heard if the military is to serve the nation effectively...Only a politically savvy military profession can remind the public and its elected officials that the military's prime purpose is 'to kill and break things' in the defense of their way of life...John Keegan said it best:
                              Soldiers are not as men - that is the lesson I have learned from a life cast among warriors. The lesson has
                                 Has taught me to view with extreme suspicion all theories and representations of war that equate it with
                                 other activity in human affairs...War is fought...by men whose values and skills are not those of politicians
                                 diplomats. They are those of a world apart, a very ancient world, which exists in parallel with the
                                 everyday world but does not belong to it. Both worlds change over time, and the warrior adapts in step
                                 to the civilian. It follows it, however, at a distance. The distance can never be closed."

       John Hillen, a young 13er generation former Army officer who served in the Gulf Storm War and a tour in Bosnia, is an astute analyst of military/civilian affairs. In an FPRI essay entitled, "Must U.S. Military Culture Reform?" Hillen poses the critical nexus of the debate. "Exactly how does a military protect the professional culture necessary to perform its missions in the unnatural stresses of war within the legal prerogatives of its government, and yet remain responsive to and reflective of the civilian culture it serves?"

       Hillen observes that "Military culture, or cultures, cannot be centered on values invented in the abstract...Quite simply, soldiers need codes of conduct, values, methods, procedures, and organizations characterized by what we might quaintly term the 'military virtues,' including Duty, Honor, Patriotism, Courage, Discipline, Commitment, Strength, Integrity, Trust, and Resolve...for the most part the values of the military have been shaped by the unique requirements of its workplace, and the best test of a given military culture was whether its recruits could train and fight effectively, especially when they first came under fire."

       "The Kelly Flinn affair of 1997 and other sexual scandals revealed that many Americans seemed neither to understand nor to appreciate how and why military culture was special. Editorials and opinion columns ridiculed the military ethos as an archaic manifestation of a patriarchal institution. Civilian elites (including the conservative Senate majority leader) seemed not to grasp that the military is the way it is because of what it does and where and under what circumstances it does it...Despite the gravity of her profession, many letter writers to the New York Times and Washington Post appeared mystified that the U.S. Air Force would make a crime of widely accepted societal trespasses such as adultery, lying, and disobeying orders."

       Hillen discusses the social imperatives on military culture. "First, there are pressures from small but vocal constituencies seeking to use the military as a vehicle for social change, or even what Charles Moskos and others have called 'social experimentation.' Some observers believe that these activists seek not only to further their agendas via the military, but to destroy its prevailing culture in the process[83]. One is reminded of the gleeful pronouncement of Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.) during the Tailhook investigation that the troubles of the Navy represented 'the sound of a culture cracking.'

       Hillen describes a category of 'elite' civilians called 'The Agenda Pushers,' "The military, being a 'top-down' institution driven by authoritarian dictates, is viewed by many as an ideal vehicle for imposing social change. President Truman recognized this when he fully integrated the armed forces in 1948 while much of the United States was still locked in a pattern of legal, systemic racial discrimination. The social imperatives pressuring the military today also derive from demands for equal opportunity - in this case, for women and homosexuals. Many of their advocates make no secret of their radical politics and aggressive agendas. Dr. Madeleine Morris, a Duke University law professor officially advising former secretary of the army Togo West on gender issues, wrote a 130-page law review article putting forward an 'ungendered vision' of the military based in part on the model of Communist Party cells and proposed a plan for dismantling the 'masculinist military construct' that encourages a 'proclivity for rape.' This sort of unsubstantiated deconstructionist agitprop is taken seriously in much of the academic world and in activist circles, but had not previously penetrated the sober world of military policymaking."

      Hillen continues, "By 1994, however, the equal opportunity agenda, informed by 'analysis' such as that from Dr. Morris, had begun to have an impact on policy. Within eighteen months of President Clinton's election, several steps were taken that seriously challenged traditional military culture. In January 1994 Secretary of Defense Les Aspin announced that he was lifting long-standing exclusion rules and opening some 15,000 to 20,000 combat and near-combat positions to women[84]. By that time Clinton had acted on his long-standing campaign pledge to eliminate the prohibition against avowed homosexuals in the armed services. This controversial move was resisted...and resulted in the enigmatic and legally ambiguous 'don't ask, don't tell' [and 'don't pursue'] compromise. Finally, although it had been tried and deemed to have failed in the 1980s, the army and navy reintroduced sexually integrated basic training. A series of embarrassing and highly publicized incidents soon occurred, sparking a national scandal worthy of investigation by two blue-ribbon congressional panels in 1997 and 1998[85]."

       Hillen writes cogently of a group he labels, 'The Accommodators.' "If women in combat, homosexuals in the military, or coeducational basic training damage traditional military culture, that damage would most likely be manifested in lesser cohesion in combat units (traditionally based on small-group dynamics among males), privacy concerns, and increased incidences of sexual misbehavior...these phenomena represent friction in the classic Calusewitzian sense...military culture is formed precisely to overcome friction, especially in times of greatest stress. However, the sources of friction normally cited in critiques of these social experiments are the double standards, reduced standards, less rigorous training, indiscipline, and reduced readiness derived from the need to accommodate female in the ranks...For instance, the army has known for a decade that women tend to quit basic training at a rate almost twice that of men. But rather than accepting that as the price of maintaining high standards in a demanding environment, the army lowered its standards so as to 'gender-norm' the numbers...numerous examples of this sort of appeasement [appear in] the Kassebaum Baker commission report."

       "Clearly the pressure on the military to make these social experiments 'work' reveals that the U.S. military and America's political system are not mature enough to handle 'gender and sexual orientation issues' honestly and in ways that are fair to the institution as well as the individuals involved. Political and military leaders seem convinced that American society, and therefore its military, must inevitably progress on a path leading to a social order in which gender is physically and behaviorally irrelevant, in which sex and sexual orientation have no impact, and in which teenagers view each other according to a benign and respectful androgyny. This new orthodoxy is a purely social construct without any functional imperative and was justified, in the words of accommodationist Les Aspin, simply because it 'is the right thing to do[86].'"

       Hillen brings us back to reality. "To say that the battlefield imposes its own timeless logic, including a viciously impartial meritocracy, would seem to be a simple enough proposition. But in times of peace it can be overwhelmed by social imperatives pressed by activists with a larger agenda, which accommodators in turn accept as 'the will of the people.' Thus, a statement from the army's leadership that 'any proposal that calls for gender segregation of both trainees and cadre violates the very foundation of the Army' led one incredulous observer to ask, 'which foundation is that? Winning wars for our nation; the will to win; 'Duty, Honor, Country;' 'There is no substitute for victory?' What specific foundation was the Army leadership referring to?"

       Hillen observes a truth about the 'gap.' "A gap between civilian and military culture does exist. It always has and always will so long as American society remains as it has been since 1865: a relatively unthreatened  polity focused almost exclusively on the 'pursuit of happiness' while its military is responsible for acting outside America's borders to preserve that basic condition...To many observers, the values and social mores of 1990s America - narcissistic, morally relativist, self-indulgent, hedonistic, consumerist, individualistic, victim-centered, nihilistic, and soft - seem hopelessly at odds with those of traditional military culture. Critics ranging from Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to pollster Daniel Yankelovich have warned of what William Bennett calls a 'palpable culture decline' and 'marked shift in the public's beliefs, attitudes, and priorities.' Even Garry Trudeau's characters in the [liberal leftist] comic strip Doonesbury poke fun at the nihilism of Seinfeld, saying the television show was 'the last gasp of a self-centered, dysfunctional, arrested generation choking on the banal, irony-soaked detritus of its own popular culture - not that there's anything wrong with that."

       Hillen believes that gap-closing "is a false game. We should accept the fact that military and society can coexist and complement each other despite different values...if the military socializes its culture at the expense of functional imperatives, it can fail in the most critical way - in war. Both the initial failure of American troops in Korea in 1950 and the sorry state of the military in the mid-70s have been traced in part to attempts by the military to mirror prevailing civilian culture too closely. Regarding the Korean War debacle, which he blamed on the social imperatives behind the Doolittle reforms of 1945, historian T.R. Fehrenbach wrote that 'in 1945, somehow confusing the plumbers with men who pulled the chain, the public demanded that the Army be changed to conform with decent, liberal society.' The changes did not appear to have detrimental effects on the U.S. military forces because 'the troops looked good. Their appearance made the generals smile.' What they lacked couldn't be seen, not until the guns sounded."

       Still quoting Fehrenbach, Hillen tells us that "In the aftermath of the disaster, Fehrenbach angrily wrote that 'liberal society, in its heart, wants not only domination of the military, but acquiescence of the military toward the liberal view of life. But acquiescence society may not have, if it wants an army worth a damn...Society's purpose is to live; the military's is to stand ready, if need be, to die.'" The upshot of this truth is found in Hillen's comment "Thus, the army, in its never-ending effort to sell itself  in the absence of conscription, stresses such incentives as financial benefits, training, and job security, as if the army were a sort of high school with a salary and fresh air. Nevertheless, enlistments decline and the army is having to accept enlistees who would have been turned away five years ago. And thanks to the trend toward feminization, the army is losing Hispanic recruits to the Marine Corps, which alone satisfies their pursuit of machismo."

       Hillen concludes that "Unfortunately, the peacetime 'default solution,' the path of least resistance for the military, is just to abandon many tenets of its traditional culture and surrender to society at large. The result is that social imperatives are imposed at the expense of functional imperatives. If the purpose of having a military establishment in the first place is to promote cozy civil-military relations, then military culture should be forcibly brought into line with civilian culture. If, however, the purpose of having a military is to provide for the common defense, then the military must nurture the unique culture developed for that purpose. 'Different, but not separate' must be the slogan guiding an effort that keeps the military responsive to society without ruining is functionally unique culture...In the absence of up-to-date and reasoned criteria for maintaining healthy civil-military relations in a time of peace, we are confronted by the simple demand to 'Close the gap!' Thus, Senator McCain has said, 'It's a fundamental principle that armed services can truly serve a democracy only if they are a reflection of that society and are impacted by the same social trends.'"

       "But what exactly does that mean? If society is 'slouching towards Gomorrah,' must the military slouch along with it? It would be hard to imagine the ex-POW McCain approving of a military shaped by the same narcissism, relativism, and 'culture of complaint' that social critics tell us characterize American society today. And yet Secretary of the Navy John Dalton said in July 1994 that 'as American society changes, the Naval service changes with it. That's not bad - that's the way it's supposed to be.' There are many today who insist that America fix the 'gap' problem by abandoning the military's functional and legal imperatives in order to accommodate societal pressures. But for anyone with the least historical sensibilities, that notion is simply preposterous."

       Don Snider, another of the FPRI panelists contributed the essay entitled, "An Uninformed Debate on Military Culture." Snider claims that "...the dialogue has been misleading largely because of the missing voice of the uniformed military leadership, that is, those charged with representing in a professional manner to the American people the nature, characteristics, and needs of our military forces. Their abdication of this responsibility has left others to take it up, albeit with far less effectiveness than they could do themselves."

       Snider points out the fact of the 'heterogeneity' of the U.S. military. "It is doubtful that any single policy change will be equally effective when applied uniformly to all of the services, as the secretary of defense is now attempting to do with adultery and fraternization. Broadly based policy changes applicable to all services and branches simply fly in the face of a more informed understanding of military culture...Another way to grasp the heterogeneity among military cultures is through the metaphor of the spear. Warrior subcultures within services, such as the infantry, fighter pilots, and all who do the actual killing, are at the point of the spear. Others farther down the shaft support those in direct combat through communications and intelligence. Still others near the base of the spear constitute the service support and civilian components that provide theater-level logistical functions such as medical services, material logistics, and mobility operations. Though laid out in operational format, this metaphor of the spear has its roots in an important body of sociological research quite relevant to the debate today."

       Snider believes that the stratification of the military culture into officer, noncommissioned officer, and enlisted personnel is seldom addressed by those civilian 'elites' who make broad-based policy changes. "It, too, is a distinction seldom addressed, much to the detriment of our current discourse. If it were addressed, then feminists advocating women in combat would recognize, and perhaps even accept, that the vast majority of female soldiers do not rally to their cause since the issue affects for the most part only female officers. [This] is perhaps even misunderstood today by members of the profession of arms, including some of the senior officer leaders."

       A major point made by Snider bears on the training of officers. "If you change what the officers think, you will succeed in changing the culture. No wonder that Huntington would confidently conclude decades ago that a military can only be considered professional so long as the vast majority of its officers are loyal to its ethos." This fact is borne out in the Hollow Force Debate Results essay resident on this Web Site. It is also very apparent in the attitude of mid-level naval officers, one of whom I label The Pretender: Anatomy of a Collaborator. It is also very apparent in the case of ADM Charles R. Larson, USN (Ret.), the Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy who implemented a New Age 'ethics' program there infested with Clintonian ethics. Read about this situation at the link: Anatomy of a Closet Leftist. It is clear that many Boomer generation officers are not loyal to the traditional military ethos. They talk the talk while carrying out the Clinton agenda - some wholeheartedly and with conviction and others who 'know not what they do' while following their own best interests - even after the 'power elites' of the Boomer generation were 'evicted' from the White House during the 2000 election.

       Countering the Danzig agenda for 'democratization' of the military hierarchical structure, Snider reaches back into history to defend the traditional approach as a military imperative. "[An argument] for the unique dominance of the officer subculture is that officers, through their formal commission as well as their unwritten contract, are the military's connection to American society. It is true that all Americans who have ever served in our armed forces remain connected to their service, if only in memory. But it is also true that officers, particularly while on active duty, fulfill the representative function of the military to civilian society. They are the ones who have received a commission, a warrant, from that society to be its agent and to act on its behalf, and it is logical for society to expect individual accountability. At noted decades ago by Marshall, it is the responsibility of the officer corps to serve such that they strengthen the claim of the service on the affections of the American people. Thus, the concern shown by average Americans to the Tailhook and Aberdeen scandals, though exploited by certain lobbyists in Washington, was entirely logical and correct."

       Snider concludes that "America can have military cultures different from those that now exist within the services, and in fact further change may be both necessary and desirable. But we will not learn that from the debate as it has been conducted to date...The purposes of the military and its ability to fulfill those purposes should drive the debate, not its racial or gender composition...Uniformed military professionals must also become much more involved in the political debates over military culture with well-researched analyses and recommendations...There is an important reason why uniformed professionals within the services must articulate better the needs of their services with respect to potential changes in the culture of the organization they lead. Simply put, they are the professional experts and no one else is...It is high time, therefore, that our military professionals reread the advice of General Ridgway as he and President Eisenhower faced the mission of 'preserving the peace:
                                            I say that the professional soldier never pull his punches,
                                                 should never let himself for one moment be dissuaded from
                                                 stating the honest estimates his own military experience and
                                                 judgments tell him will be needed to do the job required of him.
                                                 No factor of political motivation or political expediency could
                                                 explain such an action."

       The final FPRI essayist addresses the question, "Does Military Culture Matter?" Williamson Murray addresses the "...generational change that occurs in military organizations as the collective experiences of the senior officer corps evolve with the passage of time. Such change has been occurring in the American military over the past decade, as the Vietnam War generation has reached retirement. When such change in the collective experiences of the officer corps occurs, officers come to view the world differently."

       Murray continues, "...as suggested above, there has been a generational change in all the services as those with experience in the Vietnam War retire. The Vietnam generation returned from Southeast Asia skeptical that technological solutions offered a means to simplify the complexities and ambiguities of war. In a profound sense, they were Clauswitzian in their outlook on the utility and conduct of war...[They believed that] 'Friction - the accumulation of chance errors, unexpected difficulties, and the confusion of battle - will impede both sides. To overcome it, leaders...must be prepared to risk commitment without complete information, recognizing that waiting for such information will invariably forfeit the opportunity to act."

       "The new generation of officers [Boomers], with the exception of the Marine Corps, has proven far more attracted by technological, mechanistic solutions to the complex problems raised by war. In fact, a considerable number of senior officers have been arguing that advances in computer technology and communication systems will allow the U.S. military to see and destroy everything in the wide expanses of a battle. Others have gone so far as to suggest that these advances will eliminate friction by allowing commanders absolute knowledge about what the enemy is doing: 'The emerging system...promises the capacity to use military force without the same risks as before - it suggests we will dissipate the 'fog of war.'"

       "Indeed, what appears to be occurring - especially in the air force - is a reprise of the sort of mechanistic, engineering, systems-analysis approach that contributed so much to failure in Vietnam. As the air force's New World Vistas suggests: 'The power of the new information systems will lie in their ability to correlate data automatically and rapidly from many sources to form a complete picture of the operational area, whether it be a battlefield or the site of a mobility operation' (italics added). Such claims betray a general disinterest in and ignorance of basic science. But the navy, too, has displayed a considerable penchant for believing that technology is a 'silver bullet,' and its thinkers argue for something called 'network-centric warfare,' according to which integrated information systems can grasp everything that is happening in a vast battlespace and destroy the crucial targets on which the enemy depends."

       "Clearly, [these info-warriors] believe that the theater commander will fight a future war the way a ship commander runs his combat center. Fog, friction, ambiguities, and uncertainties will ostensibly disappear under the searching eye and superior capabilities of technology that provides U.S. forces with an ever greater flow of data and information...even some senior army officers display such faith in technology. Two years ago a senior army general announced to the students of the Marine War College that 'the digitization of the battlefield means the end of Clausewitz' - in other words, computer technology and modern communications will remove fog and friction from the future battlefield, at east for American military forces."

       Murray cautions that "...What makes this techno-craze so dangerous is that it flies in the face of 2,500 years of history, not to mention modern science. Friction, ambiguity, chance, and uncertainty are not merely manifestations of inadequate communications and technology that U.S. military organizations in the next century may overcome, but rather manifestations of the fundamental nature of the world, where if something can go wrong, it will." Barry Watts of the National Defense University agrees[87]:
                                                    Consider, after all, how much would have to be overturned or rejected
                                                          to conclude otherwise. Among other things, one would need to overthrow
                                                          nonlinear dynamics, the second law of thermodynamics, the fundamental
                                                          tenets of neo-Darwinian evolutionary biology, and all the limiting meta-
                                                          theorems of mathematical logic...No small task indeed."

       Murray informs us that "The one oasis in the desert that is military doctrine remains the Marine Corps. Its doctrinal manuals connect with the real world and to the fact that the American military is supposed to be preparing and thinking seriously about war.
                                                         The essence of war is a violent struggle between two hostile, independent, and
                                                         irreconcilable wills, each trying to impose itself on the other...It is critical to
                                                         keep in mind that the enemy is not an inanimate object to be acted upon
                                                         but an independent and animate force with its own objectives and plan."

       Murray observes that "One of the dangerous aspects of the current cultures has been the growing propensity to shut down debate. The air force has traditionally been a service that aimed to speak with one voice and demanded that its officers submit their writings for policy review. The current situation with regards to the army is even more disturbing...As a recent editorial in Strategic Review has noted, 'in effect [an army regulation] proscribes an officer from even holding certain views which contravene official policy, much less espousing them; it would cast those who even think of dissenting as belonging to extremist organizations." Of course, this is and has been for a decade in all of the military services the dominant policy with regard to the feminization, affirmative action quotaing, and open homosexualization of the military - using the behavior modification techniques of 'sensitivity training.' Speak up, even in private, and you are purged.

       Murray concludes his essay with a warning. "Above all, the services need to practice some profound introspection, for unless they understand themselves and how different their world views are from those of the country's opponents in the next century, the United States is headed for a major crack-up that could prove even more disastrous than the Vietnam War. For at a minimum, notes an eminent military historian, American strategists
                                 must see clearly both themselves and potential adversaries, their strengths, weaknesses, preconceptions
                                 and limits - through humility, relentless and historically informed critical analysis, and restless dissatisfac-
                                 tion even in victory. They must weigh imponderables through structured debates that pare away
                                 personal, organizational, and national illusions and conceits. They must unerringly discern and prepare to
                                 strike the enemies jugular - whether by surprise attack or attrition, in war or in political and economic
                                 struggle. And in the end, makers of strategy must cheerfully face the uncertainties of decision and the dangers
                                 of action.

There are few indications that the American military is capable at present of engaging the world in such terms."

       Thomas E. Ricks investigated the military/civilian culture gap by spending considerable time at the Marine Corps Parris Island boot camp. He followed sixty-three raw recruits from their home towns to Parris Island. As three fierce drill instructors fought a battle for the hearts and minds of this group of young men, a larger picture emerged of the growing gulf that divides the military from the rest of America. This group of men were all from the 13er generation of young Americans. Ricks found that the Marine Corps, under the enlightened warrior spirit of its commandant, General Charles Krulak, was turning this generation of Bevis and Buttheads into proud fighting Marines - just as the Corps had done in previous generations. This group of proud new Marines not only became part of the Marine warfighting 'culture,' they looked with contempt on the civilian society they had left behind.

       Ricks informs us that[88] "The Marine Corps 'works' as a culture...It strikes me as the most well-adjusted of the U.S. military services today, at ease with its post-Cold War situation. Indeed, it is the only service that isn't on the verge of an identity or cultural crisis, as the Navy steams in the circles of its post-Tailhook malaise, the Army tries to figure out what it is supposed to do for the next fifteen years and gnashes its teeth over gender integration, and the Air Force has quiet nightmares about unmanned aircraft dominating the skies of the twenty-first century. I suspect the Marine Corps also is one of the few parts of the federal government that retains the deep trust of most of the American people."

       Ricks found that Marines were quite honest and straightforward in their answers to 'touchy' questions. "...even if in their political conservatism they don't particularly like the media, they are more open than the Army tends to be; the average Marine lance corporal speaks with more self-confidence to a reporter than does the average Army captain. I frequently hear responses from Army officers along the lines of, 'I don't want to say anything I shouldn't say.' I have never heard anything like that from the Marines...The average Marine is far livelier to interview than is the average Navy sailor, who tends to be less informed about the mission, and less interested in the world. And the Marine infantryman lacks the know-it-allness I've encountered in many Navy and Air Force pilots, who watch a few minutes of CNN and then hold forth on world politics. A day on the ground somewhere will teach you more than a year of flying over it." For corroboration of this last observation, read the essay at the link: The Pretender: Anatomy of a Collaborator, one of the Hollow Force Debaters on this Web Site.

       Ricks reminds us of the age-old role of a Marine drill instructor[89]. "The job of a drill instructor...is to undo 'eighteen years of cumulative selfishness and me-ism." In addition, Ricks rehashes some of the same attitudes discussed by the policy analysts on the FPRI panel, but with a more direct thrust. "These...attitudes, while perhaps most extreme in the Marines, are also found in varying degrees elsewhere in the U.S. military. 'There is a deep-seated suspicion in the U.S. military of society. It is part of the Vietnam hangover - 'You guys betrayed us once, and you could do it again,' observes Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel...This suspicion ... 'isn't going away, it's being transmitted' to a new generation of officers. Indeed, the museum of Marine history at Parris Island teaches that in Vietnam, 'American forces, though never defeated in battle, were removed from war by a wavering government and a divided populace.' This interpretation of history is gospel throughout the Corps."

       Ricks quotes General Krulak on the anticipated military situation in America's future. "...when we go into the twenty-first century, warfare as you and I know it will occur maybe 10 percent of the time. The other 90 percent is going to be chaos." The events of the 9-11 terrorist attack on America and the Afghanistan campaign against the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists has proven him correct.

       Surprisingly, Ricks introduces the fact that, defining 'chaos' as the threat, blurs the line between foreign and domestic enemies. He observes that[90] "...This haziness may already be occurring on an institutional scale with the Marines, for whom the Los Angeles riots of 1992 were a preamble to the Somalia deployment later that same year. From a military perspective, the operations were similar. In both cases, Marine combat units based in California were sent to intervene in fighting between armed urban factions. 'As soon as we got to Mogadishu, we were struck by the similarity to LA,' commented one Marine colonel involved in both operations."

       In this same context, Ricks reminds us that the Marines are thinking ahead to a time when America's 'enemies within' (See my essay at the link: America's Enemies Within) may deserve attention. "...a paper written at the Marine Command and Staff College with the evocative title, 'The U.S. Marine Corps and Domestic Peacekeeping,' [argues] that because of the 'rising potential for civil disobedience within the inner cities' it is 'inevitable' that the U.S. military will be employed more often within American borders."

       Ricks warns us that "[These] thoughts about a domestic role for the Marines shouldn't be dismissed as the isolated noodlings of a mid-career officer on a one-year lark at school. More likely, they represent a strain of thinking within the Marine Corps that remains a minority view but is gaining new adherents. For example, Gene Duncan, the Marine novelist and commentator, predicted in a 1992 article that the United States is moving toward 'violent revolution.'"

       Ricks continues in this vein. "More prominently, in a December 1994 article in the [Marine Corps] Gazette William S. Lind, a military analyst who has been influential on the doctrinal thinking of the Marines, wrote with two Marine reservists that American culture is 'collapsing:'
                                                          Starting in the mid-1960s, we have thrown away the values, morals, and
                                                          standards that define traditional Western culture. In part, this has been
                                                          driven by cultural radicals, people who hate our Judeo-Christian culture.
                                                          Dominant in the elite, especially in the universities, the media, and the
                                                          entertainment industries (now the most powerful force in our culture
                                                          and a source of endless degradation), the cultural radicals have success-
                                                          fully pushed the agenda of moral relativism, militant secularism, and sexual
                                                          and social 'liberation.' This agenda has slowly codified into a new ideology,
                                                          usually known as 'multiculturalism' or 'political correctness,' that is in
                        &