In its ultimate form, the military is an institution of government-sanctioned violence to achieve the Nation’s objectives. The military requires legitimacy for its actions, and its institutional morality forms the “high ground” from which it can wage war.

As has been obvious for the past few years, that institutional morality has been changing. As noted in a recent article on loosening standards for recruitment:

The Pentagon is…scrambl[ing] to keep up with America’s changing social mores…

One specific quote within the article noted the weakness of such a goal: 

“There are certain standards that shouldn’t be jettisoned just because we need recruits,” said Phillip Carter, a fellow at the nonpartisan Center for a New American Security.

The problem occurs in deciding which standards should be “jettisoned.” Over the past few years, the most noticeable ones have those which have required moral behavior — a term used even by the military, which often requires “moral waivers” for some recruits.

Worse, of course, is the failure to recognize that there are some moral absolutes — standards which shouldn’t change. Ever. Even if the military chose to grant some waivers because it required bodies in uniform and didn’t care how, the underlying standard shouldn’t change.

This isn’t just about numbers, though, as even this article notes the military is meeting its recruiting goals — meaning there’s no need to access new pools of recruits. Rather, it appears to be very intentional social change [emphasis added]:

[This] marks the latest step by the Obama administration to push the tradition-bound, male-dominated Pentagon onto a more modern footing…

The military likes to portray itself as a trailblazer on social issues…

Some might describe that as a race — to the bottom.

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