Mark Latham: Diversity is not strength when it comes to military
POLITICALLY correct recruitment policies are weakening Western nations’ abilities to defend themselves, writes Mark Latham.
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“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
This quote, sometimes attributed to George Orwell, makes an important point: It is the job of armies to do what most people can’t.
Namely, confront an enemy, inflict damage, take and hold territory, and defend the homeland.
Yet now, in most Western nations, these capabilities are under threat as Leftist social engineers try to impose their values and priorities on all aspects of military service.
The diversity push in our armed forces started under the Gillard Government and the former Chief of Army, David Morrison.
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) was transformed into a welfare organisation, with grandiose plans to solve Aboriginal disadvantage and the challenges of gender fluidity.
Soldiers were recruited not on the basis of their fighting ability but because of their skin colour, gender, or sexuality. The result has been a loss of military capability.
To accommodate more diverse personnel, the ADF has redesigned its recruitment program, giving special advantages to so-called minorities. In terms of morale, the fastest way of deflating our troops is to place them under the command of someone selected solely for diversity reasons – a token appointment not up to the job.
Yet instead of focusing on their core responsibility for national security, our military commanders have formed a partnership with the Human Rights Commission.
The only human right the ADF used to worry about was to ensure Australians didn’t die at the hands of terrorists or foreign powers.
Now it’s obsessed with politically correct levels of workplace diversity.
Defence has received a series of recommendations from the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, concerning military capability and female recruitment.
Neither organisation is willing to outline the full extent of Jenkins’ involvement, other than to say, “All reports are provided confidentially to Defence.”
I’ve been able to access one of them. In June 2016, Jenkins told the air force how to go about “Improving Opportunities for Women to Become Fast Jet Pilots.”
Who would have thought it mattered whether our Top Gun pilots are male or female? Isn’t it commonsense to say we need the best person for the job in the defence of Australia? Not for Jenkins.
Her focus is on radical gender theory, stating that: “The air force training system is designed to graduate a particular type of individual and many of the required qualities are masculine, (such as) an ability to withstand continuous test stress; confidence in the cockpit that is masculine in its attributes; and ability to learn within stringent time frames.”
These are not male or female qualities but rather the skills needed for successfully piloting an Air Force jet.
Continuing, her report states, “The training system must be adapted to accommodate different learners, learning styles and timelines for learning.”
It’s insulting to Australian women to say they lack individual confidence, that they are too weak and stressed out to compete against men.
Jenkins’ solution is to water down the pilot training and entry requirements for women. She has produced 65 recommendations, of which the air force has accepted 62, including the introduction of gender quotas, modifying jet designs and discriminating in favour of female trainees by reducing “the physical requirements of repeated dog-fighting at high G-force”.
Among the report’s suggestions are that training be changed so that females could avoid the head-turning requirements of dog-fighting: “Some members at ACG suggested that pilots could prop their head against the seat and move it from side to side without making large head turning movements.”
There’s also a PC requirement for the air force to overhaul “its use of gendered language”.
Jenkins’ report is another sign of how badly the Human Rights Commission has overstepped its statutory charter.
Instead of responding to public complaints about discrimination, incredibly, it’s now in the business of micromanaging the recruitment of Australian fighter pilots.
The net result is to needlessly put Australian lives at risk by weakening our defence capability.
Taking a hearteningly different approach is US President Donald Trump. Instead of a defence force run for the benefit of social justice warriors, Trump wants a fighting force of military warriors.
He has brushed aside the fad for imposing “diversity and inclusion” on every conceivable workplace. He understands that certain jobs are suited to certain types of people.
Based on advice from defence experts, the President has decided the “military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender entails.”
Trump is right. Diversity is a poor philosophy on which to base a nation’s defence.
The best fighting forces display cohesion and unity of purpose. They do not need to be politically correct, made up of a rainbow coalition of personnel selected on the basis of race, gender and sexuality.
They just need to be effective, to win their battles and wars.
In a brilliant article on the US website, Intellectual Takeout, Martin Cothran has answered Trump’s critics, noting that “transgendered people are a favoured political class. Far from being discriminated against or disfavoured in society, if you are gay or transgendered, you get bonus points. You are applauded, celebrated, encouraged. Virtually every sector of academia and government is on this sexual/cultural revolution bandwagon.”
It’s the same in Australia.
Trump is trying to return America’s military to the days before they became a sub-branch of Left-wing identity politics.
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