I was really struck by the direction this article took. The author, Phillips Payson O’Brien, is a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He is the author of How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II. I have not read the book, and for all I know it is a masterpiece.

Unlike this article. The article doesn’t even qualify as a bad joke.

He starts off with an attack on traditional martial virtues–calling them “ruthless, hypermasculine, and reflexively brutal,” and then proceeds to caricaturize Ted Cruz’ and Tucker Carlson’s criticisms of the awokening of the military. The very title of the article is an attack on them both, comparing them to Vladimir Putin.

My latest piece for @TheAtlantic just dropped, why a smarter, more diverse and intellectually flexible (woke) army is much better than the hyper masculine, forces that are often seen as the military paradigm. https://t.co/YgEz6D1PDA

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) September 28, 2022

Now I don’t watch Tucker Carlson, although I am aware that a lot of people are accusing him of being a Putin apologist. I can neither confirm nor deny this because I don’t watch cable news–it drives me nuts in more than small doses. Like screaming and running for the hills nuts. So no Fox News Alerts for me, I am afraid.

But as the accusers hate Carlson with the white hot fury of the sun, I assume nothing about Carlson’s opinions about Putin or his war just from the accusations. I can see how a rational person could oppose getting deeply involved in the war without mouthing Putin propaganda.

The initial thrust of the article is that brains are at least as important as brawn in warfare, and that is quite true. Soldiers have to be smart, adaptable, and both tactically and strategically aware. It’s not about charging up a hill to take it if doing so costs you more than it benefits, or for that matter if it makes more sense to go around the hill. The point of war is not to kill people, it is to enforce your will on the enemy. An effective military is well led, collects and uses intelligence to great effect, and has a clear and achievable goal in mind.

Sure, OK. I get that. What does that have to do with going woke? Why does America have to transition to become Uzwokistan to be militarily powerful?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but woke is stupid. It makes people stupid. It turns large numbers of people into whiny slackers who detract from unit morale, and the last thing we need is soldiers accusing each other of misgendering them while the bullets are flying. Or when they aren’t for that matter. You can be smart, capable, adaptable without simultaneously being a fragile flower. In fact, if you are fragile you can be none of these. And nobody is as fragile as a social justice warrior.

Imagine a platoon of soldiers deciding that quiet quitting should be a military value.

O’Brien frames his argument in light of the Ukraine war, and the framing is utterly inapt. He suggests–no pretty much asserts–that Putin’s military is failing because it is hyper-masculine, while Ukraine, the kinder, gentler military, is winning on the battlefield because it is more enlightened.

This is pure, unadulterated BS. Putin’s military is failing because it is corrupt, ill-equipped, poorly led, and has terrible morale. Ukraine is winning because it has superior equipment, training, intelligence, and morale. Woke has nothing to do with the battles. Not one damn thing.

Arguments like these [from Cruz and Carlson] were much easier to make before Putin unleashed his muscle-bound and decidedly unwoke fighting machine on the ostensibly weak Ukrainians, only to see it perform catastrophically. More than seven months into the war, the Ukrainian army continues to grow in strength, confidence, and operational competence, while the Russian army is flailing. Its recent failures raise many questions about the nature of military power. Before Putin ordered his troops into Ukraine, many analysts described his military as fast and powerful and predicted that it would “shock and awe” the overmatched defenders. The Ukrainian armed forces were widely assumed to be incapable of fighting the mighty Russians out in the open; their only option, the story went, would be to retreat into their cities and wage a form of guerrilla war against the invaders.

The success of the Ukrainian military over the past few months, along with the evolution of the Ukrainian state itself toward a more tolerant, more liberal norm, reveals what makes a better army in the modern world. Brains mean more than brawn, and adaptability means more than mindless aggression. Openness to new ideas and new equipment, along with the ability to learn quickly, is far more important than a simple desire to kill.

Nobody thought Russia would plow over the Ukrainian armed forces because they have a hyper-masculine culture. They thought so because Russia is bigger, spends more on the military, has thousands of tanks, and a lot of experience in fighting wars. Few of us really knew how corrupt the military was and how inept its leadership. I suspected as much, but needed to see the Russians perform before I was certain. (I predicted on Facebook that Russia would be in deep trouble should it go all in on taking out Ukraine).

This guy is a professor of strategic studies? I would have expected better of somebody in his position, but of course academia is now the home of ideological blinders and total crackpottery.

O’Brien is is also engaged in a classic straw man argument. Asserting that somebody is saying something that they clearly are not, and then proceeding to tear that straw man to shreds.

The persistence of the Putin-Cruz-Carlson vision of war is surprising, because we have decades, even centuries, of evidence to the contrary. 

Putin-Cruz-Carlson vision of war? That is more than a stretch. It is pure idiocy. And no, we don’t have centuries of evidence that the particular ideological transformation taking place in the military is a good thing. Not even a year’s worth yet.

Since the Industrial Revolution, and in many ways before, the ability to run a complex system has been the cornerstone of strategic success. Though much military popular literature likes to stress the human drama of combat—the bravery and sacrifice, the cowardice and atrocity—it is not nearly as important in victory or defeat as many people assume. In state-to-state wars—a category that includes the current Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as broader conflicts such as the two world wars—the side that can most efficiently deploy more effective equipment operated by better-trained personnel has typically emerged victorious.

Again, what does this have to do with transgender ideology creeping into the military? More importantly, has this “professor” not noticed that since Joe Biden turned the military into a woke university people are not exactly flocking to join? Our military has been recruiting from a particular class of relatively conservative, patriotic, and largely Southern folks who are not attracted to the claptrap they are being forced to mouth, so they are opting out.

It turns out that military and “safe spaces” don’t mix well. Tolerance is necessary for unit cohesion. Gender conformity? I guess we will find out.

Just as the ability to absorb information is better than lunkhead hypermasculinity in a modern army, diversity and societal integration also bring major advantages. As Ukraine has become more diverse and tolerant, its army has benefited. In contrast with Putin’s homophobic military, the Ukrainian armed forces include LGBTQ soldiers who have incorporated “unicorn” insignia into their uniforms. The valor of these soldiers, and the rallying of the Ukrainian people around a vision of a tolerant and diverse society, have led to an overall increase in Ukrainian support for gay rights—and it underscores the belief that everyone has a role to play in the country’s defense.

The Russian experience could not be more different. Putin has made suppressing gay rights one of the hallmarks of his rule. Determined to capitalize on culture-war tropes of the American right, he has portrayed Russia as a victim of cancel culture. He has retained rigid control over Russian society. While the Ukrainians are opening up, he is clamping down—with what we are now seeing as rather extreme results.

Does anybody really believe Ukraine is winning due to being “open” and inviting? Or that Putin is losing because he lacks enough gays in the military? Why even try to assert something so ridiculous, except to reinforce the preconceived notions of the people the author socializes with at cocktail parties? The United States Institute of Peace doesn’t think Ukraine is terribly nice to gay folks.

According to 2019 surveys by the Pew Research Center, in Ukraine, 69 percent of respondents said society should not accept homosexuality, while 14 percent said it should — an acceptance level lower than six other Eastern European countries surveyed. Amid that environment, activists face threats and attacks. Human Rights Watch reported “a sharp increase in attacks against LGBT, anti-corruption, and women’s rights activists by far-right groups” in the first half of last year. While it is easy to dismiss this issue as violence by fringe groups, Sofiia Lapina, a prominent LGBTQ+ activist, emphasized last year that victims of violence go without justice due to inaction of authorities. Svetlana Shaytanova, with a German organization, Quarteera, that helps Ukrainian and other LGBTQ+ refugees, explained that, “It’s not the government that persecutes people; they put laws in place that allow the general population to be openly aggressive against queer people.”

I really can’t fathom why The Atlantic would publish such idiocy. It is transparently stupid. A military can simultaneously reflect the diversity of society and also have martial virtues. And you are not incapable of being strategic if you don’t ask for somebody’s pronouns. Last I checked, woke became a thing about 3 seconds ago, and the US military was pretty good even before that.

It isn’t Putin vs Ibram X Kendi, except if you are an academic.