Month: December 2010

DADT, Unit Cohesion, and American Values

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(Was set to be published on Dec. 17, when the Senate voted for repeal, making it thankfully moot)

In the debate over repeal of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, Senators such as John McCain cling to the argument that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military might negatively impact on unit cohesion, and thus on war-fighting capability. The Commander of the Marines, General James Amos, has fueled such claims, suggesting that repealing the policy in a time of war could cause casualties. As the Senate begins its debate on the issue, it is crucial to understand the assumptions and validity of this argument.

The conclusion of the argument is itself tenuous. Over 25 of our democratic allies have changed their policies within the last twenty years to allow homosexuals to serve openly. Comprehensive studies of those militaries, including those of such close allies as Great Britain, Israel, Australia and Canada, have established that the change in policy did not result in any degradation of fighting capability. Moreover, prior to the policy shifts, surveys of military members in many of those countries found that there was strong opposition to the change, and suggested that there would be significant disruption if implemented. In other words, stated attitudes grossly exaggerated the likely impact. Yet the recent Pentagon study of the U.S. military found that 70% of service members already accept the change and think it would have little impact.

But let us assume for the moment, just for the sake of argument, that there might be some disruption to unit cohesion if DADT is repealed. Why would that be? No one suggests that it is because gays and lesbians are inherently less capable of fulfilling their duties or performing combat functions than their straight brothers and sisters in arms. It is not about their conduct at all. It is all about the response of their comrades.

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New START is About More Than Russia

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(Initially published in The Huffington Post, December 15, 2010)

The Senate is to take up ratification of the New START treaty for consideration again this week. While much has been written on the debate over the issue, there are important considerations that are not being sufficiently addressed. Quite apart from relations with Russia, a failure to ratify the treaty risks a fatal undermining of the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

To understand why this is so requires us to go back to the origins of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (the NPT). When it was negotiated in the 1960s, to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons, there was a grand bargain struck. In exchange for agreeing to forswear nuclear weapons, the non-nuclear countries that jointed the regime were promised assistance with the development of peaceful nuclear energy, and the recognized nuclear-weapons states committed to make meaningful efforts towards nuclear disarmament.

189 countries are now party to the NPT, and the treaty has survived as the primary legal framework for the international effort to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. There is no other legal prohibition against the development of nuclear weapons, and absent the NPT and its underlying bargain, there is indeed no principled basis why some countries should be permitted to maintain nuclear weapons while the rest are denied the right to develop them.

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