Women in Combat & the Death of Chivalry

Mr Horvat looks at the rise of egalitarian ideology in the US military and the resultant weakening of the armed forces. Why not go all the way and elect officers? Appointment on the basis of merit is 'unwoke'!

From The Imaginative Conservative

By John Horvat, II

The American military has always had recourse to the draft in times of emergency. Through this means, combat soldiers can be quickly recruited from the most effective human resource pool – strong young men. The draft is not about finding careers for young people or helping them develop their full potential. War ruthlessly depletes the supply of foot soldiers in the field of battle. The draft efficiently replenishes those lost.

Thus, behind the draft is the specter of death. Many die because they are called. The drafting of men minimizes the likelihood of death by choosing those more apt to survive the brutality of war. Nevertheless, the draft also represents a willingness of men to put the natural advantage of their strength at the service of good and suppression of evil. Thus, it takes on a noble character.

When Equality Trumps Readiness

In the name of equality, the exclusively male draft could soon be discarded. Imposing the draft upon all young American women is a logical consequence of a new “woke” armed forces oriented not for war but inclusion and diversity.

The Senate Armed Services Committee has cleared the way for a full Senate vote that would require draft registration for all young American women. There is no compelling need to make the change. The draft pool is now more than sufficient. Angry feminists are not protesting at the Pentagon demanding the right to be drafted. Most experts agree that it will jeopardize military readiness for the wars that America will one day face.

Thus, this expansion of the draft has nothing to do with winning on a physical battlefield. This metaphysical conflict is destroying institutions and certainties. For this reason, this fight is much more deadly than that of bullets and bombs. If a nation cannot agree on maintaining its institutions, then things will not function properly. If there is no agreement on certainties, everything explodes and polarizes.

Compelling Reasons Against the Women’s Draft

Thus, many people are circulating valid arguments about why women should not be drafted into battle based on the nature of war and the sexes.

War is the use of brute force to resolve conflicts between nations. The object is to destroy the greatest number of enemies in the least amount of time. Even the most mechanical wars are eventually reduced to very personal and intense combats between soldiers. War is a test of wills and strength.

This test requires physically strong soldiers to deal with the unforeseen consequences of injury, evacuation, capture, and adaptability. In general, men and women are not evenly matched in size, speed and brute strength as can be seen, for example, in sports. Thus, any army sending a mixed force into combat against another of men alone will be at a disadvantage in the heat of battle. In war, disadvantage translates into deaths and defeat.

Study after study confirms the conclusion that mixed units endanger the state of military effectiveness in combat. It will increase the likelihood of death of women. These poor victims must be sacrificed on the bloody altar of equality, however, to feed the twisted demands of feminists far from the battlefield.

An Affirmation of Inequality

Terrible as these outcomes may be, the equal opportunity to die on the battlefield is not the real reason why the left insists upon changing the draft.

The left hates the traditional draft because it reaffirms the immense differences between men and women. The draft implicitly recognizes and favors the roles that the two sexes exercise in the family. Thus, the more aggressive and protective nature of the man, as seen in the father, is more suited to war and therefore, he is drafted. The nurturing qualities of the woman found in the mother do not lend themselves to the battlefield, and thus she is not forced into combat.

The left hates such distinctions since it refuses to recognize these differences. To leftists, sexual roles are socially constructed and therefore false. Indeed, even sexual identity is constructed and can be changed at will. And that is the point of the drafting women debate.

It is a sad declaration of war that declares biological facts no longer matter, nature can be denied, and reality is whatever people want it to be. The left imposes this vision with reckless disregard for the fatal consequences. The culture war it wages on anyone who denies their distorted perspective is far more brutal than physical combat.

A Lingering Affirmation of Chivalry

There is one final reason why the left hates the exclusive male draft. It is a lingering affirmation of chivalry. It reminds the world that there once was a time when men freely sacrificed themselves for God, the nation and the defense of all.

The left hates how fearless knights selflessly entered battle following a code of chivalry that bound them to protect the Church, the nation, family, the poor, and the weak. The archetypal figure of the medieval knight (and not its Renaissance distortion) was also a gentleman of manners and culture. He was above all a man of Faith, abnegation and religious devotion.

He put the interests of God and others above his own. For this reason, the knight is the stuff of legends that captured the imagination of the West and still endures today. However, even the slightest memory of the knight must be destroyed if a sterile egalitarian society without legends is to be forced upon America. Thus, the male draft cannot be tolerated in a woke and inclusive military that dares affirm anything traditional.

Egalitarian Ideology Drives This Culture War

Topics like these define the Culture War. It is not a battle between opinions and preferences but about the nature of things.

On one side are those who believe that men are still men and women are still women. They believe there are things worth fighting for. God matters in their fight. The conflict is between those who affirm the existence of values greater than life itself and for which one is willing to sacrifice and even die.

On the other are those who subscribe to the secularist, socialist mentality, characterized by the denial of all things superior and a loathing for risk and pain. Its adherents demand security, license and the fruitless pleasures that eventually lead to self-absorbing nihilism. This desire for gratification can become so totalizing that the left willingly sacrifices the lives of others to obtain its goals.

The left’s culture war on all who reject their egalitarianism is what is tearing America apart.