By CDR J.A. Cauthen, US Navy ret, USNA ’02, taught at USNA

President Biden’s debate performance on June 27 shattered any remaining illusions of a lucid and vibrant commander-in-chief at the helm of our nation.  Instead, the American people witnessed the ramblings of a diminished and frail man.

That his handlers, a delusional Democrat party, and complicit national media obfuscated and lied about the president’s physical and mental state for the past three years is now beside the point.  Rather, we should be assessing the magnitude of this debacle for America’s standing on the world’s stage and our national security.

Every world leader, friend and foe alike, viewed the president’s performance.  No doubt our enemies — notably China, Russia, and Iran — saw opportunity to accelerate their dangerous agendas with renewed vigor.

America’s friends, likewise, must have been left wondering if the United States is capable of countering the world’s rogues and their machinations.

Peggy Noonan, in a recent Wall Street Journal analysis, summarized this problem well: “Can America afford for another four years to have an obviously neurologically impaired president?  No, it isn’t safe.  It is on some level provocative.  Weakness provokes.”

This weakness, exhibited in open, grotesque high definition, leaves America and her allies vulnerable in an increasingly volatile and dangerous world.  The vacuum of American leadership, embodied by a debilitated president, will invite more malfeasance and amplify an already perilous era of conflict and war.

The one institution that offers any hope of deterrence is a strong, unified armed forces able to project influence and power abroad.

Unfortunately, America’s armed forces have been compromised by the pernicious ideology known euphemistically as diversity, inclusion, and equity (DIE, also DEI).  This leaves our nation weaker yet.

DIE’s infiltration into the military has largely occurred in obscurity, cloaked by pleasant-sounding words and phrases designed to resonate with the casual observer.  After all, who would oppose a diverse and inclusive organization?

The reality, however, is quite the opposite.

DIE and its corrupt sibling, Critical Race Theory (CRT), are designed to classify and sort individuals by immutable identity characteristics like race, sex, and sexual orientation.  In short, they taxonomically organize individuals through the binary of oppressor and oppressed.

Employment, gratuities, offices, and honors are no longer earned through merit but assigned by identity.

Author and researcher John Sailer exposed the mechanics of how DIE is used by academic institutions, with the aid of federal government, to discriminate by a candidate’s identity during university employment search and hiring processes.  He writes, “The practice not only appears widespread; it is encouraged and funded by the federal government.”

The military is just as susceptible to these practices, perhaps even more so given its rank-based hierarchical structure and distinct legal system.

The consequences, however, will be far more destructive and deadly.

DIE demands discriminatory practices to distribute privileges contrary to the Constitution, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and similar subsequent federal and state legislation.  That so-called progressives resurrected retrograde discriminatory initiatives reminiscent of the pre–Civil Rights era is not only cynical, but illegal and immoral.

A military personnel system centered on DIE for selection, training, promotions, and command will supplant merit with discrimination.  This will fracture the unity, trust, selfless devotion to duty, and esprit de corps required for a modern military to function, deter, and if needed fight and win wars against our nation’s foes.

Arizona State University’s Center for American Institutions (CAI) recently released a report called “Civic Education in the Military,” highlighting these worrisome trends across our armed forces and in service academies.

As the report notes, “each of the services follow federal DEI and anti-extremism regulations and programs.  Staffing is extensive, starting at the top and reaching down to small units,” with commensurate increases in funding year-over-year.

The nation’s three primary service academies have also incorporated DIE into nearly every aspect of instruction and training.

CAI’s report describes the creation of DIE offices staffed by uniformed officers and civilian bureaucrats, training material infused with theoretical academic jargon reinforcing the oppressor and oppressed dynamic, pushing systemic institutional racism as fact, requiring mandatory faculty diversity statements, and introducing postmodern course instruction on race, sex, and sexuality.

How any of this inculcates the martial qualities necessary for a professional officer corps is left unsaid by the Pentagon.

Although many private companies and organizations have retreated from DIE, the federal government and military appear intent on forging ahead.  CAI’s report details the steady progression of DIE programs in the military over decades and the opacity with which it operates.

Senior military leadership will often blithely assert that diversity is a national security imperative without defining what they mean by diversity or how it contributes to a more lethal, effective fighting force.  In 2022 a senior Pentagon official said DIE must “be a consideration or a part of all decisions in the military.”

Supporters of DIE are, of course, concerned about diversity only in relation to one’s identity.  Diversity of thought is verboten and will often result in ostracization, castigation, or worse.

Some of the service academies have also created programs that are eerily similar to the political commissar structure in Marxist dictatorships like the former Soviet Union.

At the U.S. Air Force Academy and U.S. Naval Academy, there are now cadet and midshipmen positions designed to ensure compliance with DIE initiatives.  Of the former, Scott Sturman, president of the U.S. Air Force Academy class of 1972, wrote, “The cadre reports parallel and outside the military chain of command from the squadron level to the academy’s DEI Chief.”

CAI’s report on the infiltration of DIE and CRT into the nation’s armed forces and its service academies should be worrying for all Americans.

With a compromised commander-in-chief, how credible is the nation’s deterrence and ability to win a fight should hostilities erupt?  There are few who believe President Biden has the physical stamina and mental acuity to command our military.

And a military focused on perpetuating a discredited DIE ideology at the expense of readiness and lethality will invite further aggression.

CAI’s conclusion perfectly summarizes the stakes for our national security, now even more important given President Biden’s calamitous debate performance:

“The DEI bureaucracy advancing critical race theory in the American military is vast and intrusive.  Borrowing heavily from programs and ideas launched by human relations departments in large corporations and academia, that bureaucracy exists not to defend the nation or produce the military leaders of the future.  Instead, it produces training materials that parrot dubious, even dangerous, theories that sow the seeds of division and resentment within the ranks of the military.”

America’s armed forces are the bulwark of national security.  The nation’s commander-in-chief, front and center on the world’s stage, exhibited a weakness our country has seldom experienced.

To continue with faddish academic programs like DIE and CRT, with no bearing in military reality, we invite disaster for our nation and our allies.  

Our elected leaders, military officers, and the American people must disavow and rid ourselves of these ideologies.

If they are allowed to survive and thrive, we risk both reputation and global peace.

John Cauthen, a retired naval officer, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 2002 and taught in the academy’s history department from 2007 to 2010.  He is a commission member for Arizona State University’s Center for American Institutions report on Civic Education in the Military.

First published on American Thinker