Talk about the military being "woke" in regards to racial issues as if it's a new thing should not be coming from a military historian. The military began desegregation in 1948, almost 20 years before the passage of the Civil Rights act and desegregation of the south. For decades, military academies have practiced affirmative action, because of the problems that can happen when you have a predominantly white officer corps overseeing an enlisted cadre who are increasingly non-white (see the USS Kitty Hawk riot).
"At about the same time, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin testified before Congress, promising to root from the armed forces supposed cadres of white supremacists driven by “white rage.” Yet neither he nor Gen. Milley ever supplied data or evidence that such cells or movements exist in the U.S. military.
That the Pentagon should foster such ungrounded suspicions of white males—one of its most important sources of recruits—is as if the British war ministers had questioned whether there were too many sexist British Gurkhas in the ranks, or Russian generals had wondered whether there were Cossacks that seemed clannish, or the Indian government had fixated on Sikh recruits as religious chauvinists.
Implying that white males collectively are intrinsically suspect of improper behavior seems a near-suicidal U.S. Army policy, given that the group died at a rate double its percentages in the general population in both Afghanistan and Iraq."
OK, so the brass didn't cite their sources. This doesn't mean such don't exist, and likewise recognizing the very real problem of fascist/far-right white supremacists in the military is not the same thing as "Implying that white males are intrinsically suspect".
Here's a link that indicates the military has a real problem with fascist infiltration, from the horse's mouth, as it were:
"Though the services do background checks for extremist views and will drop recruiting prospects when they find evidence of it, the armed forces has a particular challenge when it comes to extremist groups.
In short, there are aspects of military service “that are of appeal to these groups,” the official said.
“We know that some groups actively attempt to recruit our personnel into their cause, or actually encourage their members to join the military for [the] purpose of acquiring skills and experience,” the official added."
If someone had studied history, they would be aware of the importance of making sure the military is both reflective of and supportive of the broader society, lest it move from "defending" to "attacking". Especially since the Jan 6 events made it clear that there might be a risk of some military, police, or paramilitary elements deciding to support a coup. (In the end, none did, but there were some unprecedented "we support the smooth transition of power" statements issued.)
> Russian generals had wondered whether there were Cossacks that seemed clannish
The Russian military is extremely concerned with political loyalty, and extremely, violently, "anti-woke". That's part of why they're losing. It's also noticeable that how ethnic-Russian a unit is determines how suicidal a position they are given.
In fact, some elements of the military and police not only supported the coup on Jan 6th in spirit, but showed up and took part in the violence at the Capitol that day.
He started to lose me in paragraph #4, where he's bemoaning the decline of military history at colleges, etc. Last I heard, all history departments are getting brutally cut back at ~most American colleges. And getting a only-the-military-kind history education would rather poorly inform the American civilian elites, who he is endlessly concerned about making ignorant (bad) decisions about how to lead America, for lack of knowledge about military history.
Military analogy: If you are obsessed with soldiers named "Smith", "Jones", and "Wilson" in your unit taking 20% casualties from enemy artillery fire, but not overly concerned with the other soldiers also taking 20% casualties from that fire...maybe the armed forces would be better off without your "service".
Recruiting has been a challenge for decades, and virtually all other volunteer militaries in developed countries are facing the same issues despite having very different cultural backgrounds and norms. So that's unlikely to be the cause.
Maybe the incentives don't align with possibly being forced to die in the front lines of world war three? Military recruits tend to be younger folks, and if you haven't noticed they aren't particularly enamored with the state as it stands today.
There are innumerable factors that go into people deciding to join the military. What makes you think “wokeness” is the reason for declining recruitments? Why not stronger labor markets or the end of major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?
This reads like the History Channel's version of "military history" where it is 80% WWII with a little US Civil War thrown in during off hours. If all you talk about is the last few decades of US military history, all you will ever get is a myopic view of how one culture/country relates to a handful of its institutions.
And a myopic, US-centric, view of WW2 at that. It truly was a global war, involving nations from 6 continents. Yet how often to you hear about the fighting in Africa, or China? China saw nearly an order of magnitude more people dead than the U.S., but could anyone here name a major battle or campaign in the Chinese theater? When was the last time you saw references to the Indian famine, which killed millions? The devastation in Ethiopia, or the Baltics?
There’s an entire world of history in the Second World War, but all too often we scratch the surface, with an eye focused entirely on the US and Western Europe.
To anyone familiar with the field of military history, the article should come as no surprise. Victor Davis Hanson has an axe to grind with anything vaguely "left" of his own reactionary politics, and frankly embodies some of the worst characteristics of the whole field. Military history is filled with right-wing reactionary cranks.
Cynically, you could say that the field attracts (and keeps) those interested in history who either want to ignore social and cultural elements of historical events, or want to explicitly advocate for specific societies and cultures being superior based on their record in the field of battle. It does not help that much of the field is driven by popular history books which must be engaging for lay readers, yet the truly important parts of many military operations are often quite boring (e.g. the essential role of logistics and basic day-to-day intelligence work) or remain unknown to this day (e.g. still classified, or simply weren't documented in the first place).
Seems more like someone with right wing tendencies took a valid topic, the study and examination of military history, and conflated it with their own disdain for liberal politics. The topic is interesting but in this article it's too entangled with the author's personal political angle.
