We have long chronicled the negative effects that diversity, equity, and inclusion have had on the U.S. military, mostly in the realm of the heinous drop-off in recruiting numbers that all of the services are suffering from:
These effects are real and are resulting in a smaller U.S. military fighting force. But has the U.S. military lost its fighting edge?
Well, recently an Air Force B-1 bomber crashed short of its landing runway, resulting in injured crewmembers and over $450 million in destruction: $450 Million B-1B Lancer Crash Attributed to Crew Failures and ‘Degradation of Airman Skills’:
A B-1B Lancer valued at more than $450 million that crashed in South Dakota at the start of this year missed the runway by 100 feet, a mistake accident investigators attributed to the aircrew’s shortcomings as well as the poor training culture within units at Ellsworth Air Force Base.The scathing crash investigation report shared with Military.com pointed to “failure to perform standard crew resource management,” along with adverse weather conditions, ineffective flying operations supervision, lack of awareness, and “an unhealthy organizational culture that permitted degradation of airmanship skills” as contributing factors in the Jan. 4 crash. [emphasis added]That incident led Ellsworth to temporarily close down its runway and relocate roughly 250 crew members and Lancers to Dyess Air Force Base near Abilene, Texas.
And, while I don’t normally credit Twitter posts as fonts of reliable knowledge about the U.S. military, this particular one caught my eye, not only for its content but also for its author, who has proven himself to be quite reliable on various military topics:
Cynical Publius, an Army veteran with combat tours of duty in Iraq under his belt, never fails to impress with his wit and insight into the U.S. military. The key parts of the above post are as follows:
I have been posting a lot lately about the impact of DEI on organizational incompetence and how it relates to the Secret Service. We generally think about this phenomenon in terms of hiring and promoting people primarily based on factors other than competence, but I have sources at high ranks currently serving in the Department of Defense who have alerted me to an even more sinister impact of DEI.The original Star Trek series did a famous episode called “Mirror, Mirror.” This was the episode in which Spock famously had a beard, and the premise was that there was an alternate universe in which the Federation were the evil bad guys running amok across the galaxy. In this world, Starfleet officers got ahead by assassinating their superiors. My sources tell me that we are seeing this now at high levels in the DoD, except the tool of assassination is not a phaser, but a discrimination complaint to the local DEI office.Some people I have talked to inside the DoD at the SES and multi-star flag level (sorry, anonymity is essential here) tell me that we currently have a climate in the very high ranks where efficiency reports, disagreements on the job, promotion and advancement opportunities, and day-to-day operations are all heavily influenced by a fear of displeasing DEI subordinates. As a result, negative words are rarely said about poor performance and advancement opportunities are presented that are not earned. The drill goes like this. A high-ranking officer (who is usually a heterosexual white male) puts in a word (or is perceived as putting in a word) regarding the poor performance of a DEI subordinate (who is him or herself also pretty high ranking) and if things don’t go quite as the subordinate wanted for promotion or new assignments, he/she officially alleges racial, gender and/or sexual orientation discrimination on the part of the superior to their local DEI official, which immediately results in a formal investigation into the superior with a presumption of guilt. This is a death sentence for the superior, as even if the DEI allegations are proven to be unfounded, the mere fact that the claim was made is often found to mean that there is a “loss in confidence” in the white male superior, with that wholly innocent senior officer being quietly cashiered. I am told that every white heterosexual male at high rank understands this game, and does everything he can to avoid it. This is something straight out of the mind of Lavrentiy Beria, and as a consequence the halls of the Pentagon E-Ring [i.e. the part of the Pentagon where the Generals and Admirals work] are chilled with a sense of fear and walking on eggshells, and it is no wonder that the senior echelons of our military have become so dysfunctional and ineffective. In this context, the disgrace of Abbey Gate [i.e. the Biden Administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan] really starts to make sense.My sources are only inside the DoD, but I have to presume this is happening elsewhere in the federal government. When you consider the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is on record as selecting USAF pilots based solely on the color of their skin, and when you see Secretary of the Army Wormuth building a force of female Infantrymen (women), none of this is really surprising. When Trump v2.0 comes to office, selecting the best possible SecDef must be one of his absolute top priorities, and whomever that is must immediately take a firehose to clean out the Augean Stables that the Pentagon has sadly become.
I have two comments: First, this is just incredibly sad for me, as someone who dedicated 31 years of his life to the U.S. military and the defense of this country. This is NOT the way it was when I retired in 2008. Second, the B-1 bomber crash reported on above becomes completely understandable in this construct. No longer are the best and brightest promoted to General and Admiral, or probably even Navy Captain and Army Colonel. And even in cases where the best and brightest are promoted, they are hamstrung by DEI de facto policies that make real leadership, which sometimes requires negatively reporting on subordinates of all types, impossible. In this atmosphere, getting along to just get by until you can retire is obviously the plan for most.
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