Pentagon Critics Blame Diversity Policy and Employment Standards for Recruiting Woe – Military.com

Conservative politicians and critics of the Biden administration have launched a solution to the problems faced by the military: ditch efforts to add diversity, fight extremism, or fight climate change.

“What we’re trying to do is not militarize a destructive ideology that can have a negative effect on the ability to fight,” said Rebeccah Heinrichs, a board member of the Heritage Foundation, who wrote a recently released report on the public rollout. at the conservative think pool in Washington, DC, on Thursday.

The Report of inheritance Many of the same warnings have been issued by Republicans over the years — especially in recent months, as politicians allege “excited” violence. Many say the left-leaning politics embraced by the Biden administration lead to a loss of trust among service members, weaken the military and, in turn, hurt recruitment.

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The report, published by the Heritage Board, has the heads of regiments and privates, and a host of citations to news coverage and editorials designed to support the claim.

Mike Waltz, R-Fla., who chaired the panel, told the same audience that “these projects have taken a real toll on our military and public perception.”

The main concern of heritage boards is to “sweep the embrace of diversity, equity and inclusion” policies.

In particular, he cites critical race theory, known as CRT, as a key example, and cites the choice of a top Navy officer to book Dr. Include Ibram X. Kendi’s “How To Be An Antiracist” among other titles on your reading list in 2021. Kendi argues that there is no such thing as “non-racist” and his book has become a flashpoint in the ongoing US culture wars.

CRT is an academic theory that was developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s and is commonly found on college campuses. It is argued that racism has been embedded in the systems and policies of the United States for many years.

Waltz said that “the instruction and propagation of these divisive doctrines such as CRT should be prohibited,” but also acknowledged that “it is often not labeled” by the military.

The report also notes that “there are no such programs or policies expressly labeled” but asserts that the principles of CRT are informed and implemented through political activities.

Pentagon officials say there is no evidence that such programs distract them from fighting wars or drive away potential recruits. on the contrary, such programs strengthen the military.

“There has been no detraction from the primary mission of both the Navy and the Marine Corps to defend our country and deploy in this manner,” Navy Under Secretary Eric Raven told the Senate Services Committee at a recent hearing on recruiting challenges.

The military said the Covid-19 pandemic, a lack of qualified young people, a strong market and military error are the main causes of recruitment difficulties.

The decision generated a hotly debated commercial for cable news. Republicans have vowed to use their new majorities in the House to “woke up” to zero in on policies.

The legacy of the report is also relevant because it lowers military standards – specific physical fitness requirements – to “level the playing field”.

They cited the army’s new fitness test – developed last summer after a troubled development – as an example of the problem. The report argues that the majority of military recruitment is potentially harmed because women will not suffer by raising the minimum physical fitness standard in their care.

“I think if you dive in and take away something that’s hard, and frankly exclusive, about soldiers who join the military, I think it obviously has an impact on recruiting,” Heinrichs said.

As Heritage points out, the Army’s new Combat Fitness Test, or ACFT, first aims to generate neutral standards. An earlier version of the test also involved soldiers doing push-ups and touching their knees to their elbows.

That event was eventually replaced with a board and generic standards were set after it was discovered that nearly half of the women could not pass the previous version of the ACFT.

And the new test is widely considered to be a much better measure of fitness than its predecessor, which only did push-ups, sit-ups and two-mile runs. The new test measures deadlifts, hand-release push-ups, how long a soldier can hold a board, a two-mile time trial, an event in which soldiers sprint and carry a heavy weight, and another in which troops throw a 10-pounder. drug group as they can.

I think it includes a sad report through each head the inheritance is carried with civilian and some of the most important services.

Among the military, 41% of service members felt both a reduction in physical fitness standards to promote equity and an overemphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion programs were the top two areas of politicization that drew concerns.

The report found that “70% of active duty personnel … stated that reducing physical fitness standards to ‘even the playing field’ has reduced military loyalty.”

However, the individual censuses used only 301 service members — a much lower number than most national censuses and nearly four times fewer than the sample used in this census for the overall public. Inheritance clipped 1,000 Americans of all ages and 299 more Americans 18 to 24 years of age due to other issues.

The survey found that the number one cause of loss of confidence in the military among adults in the US is “sexual reporting in the military.”

For Mike Berry, a former Marine Corps attorney and another board member, the reason comes down to the fact that “we are in an age where our young people are being told, ‘America is not worth sacrificing; America is not slavery, America is not worth the risk of your life.

— Steve Beynon contributed to this report.

— Konstantin Toropin can be reached at konstantin.toropin@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @ktoropin.

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