Little risk in lifting "don't ask, don't tell"

This entry's title is too short to convey what's currently known, so here's a more accurate statement from the Washington Post article on the subject:

A Pentagon study group has concluded that the military can lift the ban on gays serving openly in uniform with only minimal and isolated incidents of risk to the current war efforts, according to two people familiar with a draft of the report, which is due to President Obama on Dec. 1.

If the report isn't due to hit the president's desk for another two weeks, how do we know this?

One source, who has read the report in full, summarized its findings in a series of conversations this week. The source declined to state his position on whether to lift the ban, insisting it did not matter. He said he felt compelled to share the information out of concern that groups opposed to ending the ban would mischaracterize the findings.

Who knows if this source is as well-meaning as s/he sounds? We'll just have to wait until the report is actually available.

This piece wouldn't have prompted me to comment except for an opposing view offered by a prominent military officer. In the Post article, Gen. James Amos, the commandant of the Marine Corps, said:

There is nothing more intimate than young men and young women - and when you talk of infantry, we're talking about our young men - lying out, sleeping alongside of one another and sharing death, fear and loss of brothers. I don't know what the effect of that will be on cohesion. I mean, that's what we're looking at. It's unit cohesion. It's combat effectiveness.

(By "the effect of that," I imagine he meant the effect of permitting openly declared homosexuals to serve. Just thought I should make my assumptions clear.)

I've heard this argument before. In fact, it remains the most common justification for the don't-ask, don't-tell policy. So what about unit cohesion? What is unit cohesion, for that matter?

A quick Web search for "unit cohesion" turned up a chapter from a 1993 Rand Corporation report, Sexual Orientation and U.S. Military Personnel Policy. The chapter, entitled "What is known about unit cohesion and military performance," is a meta-survey of prior studies of military and paramilitary units with an eye to answering the question: "What effect will the presence of acknowledged homosexuals have on the cohesion and performance of a given military unit?"

First, what does "unit cohesion" mean? The chapter cites many meanings for "cohesion," but perhaps the one offered by the Dictionary of United States Army Terms (1986), quoted by the chapter's authors, is the most appropriate for this context:

Unit cohesion [is the] result of controlled, interactive forces that lead to solidarity within military units, directing the soldiers toward common goals with an express commitment to one another and to the unit as a whole.

In other words, "unit cohesion" is pretty much what you probably thought it was.

There are a couple of ways for a group to bond. One is as a social entity: everyone enjoys one another's company. The other is as a working, or task-oriented, entity: everyone is focused on getting a job done. While social cohesion is nice, it turns out not to be critical for groups assembled to accomplish a job, as military units are. So-called "task cohesion" is what these groups must achieve, and to do so, it's most important for each member of the group to show he can carry his own weight. Once that happens, other characteristics that might otherwise govern how the others relate to him -- skin color, sexual orientation, etc. -- generally lose importance. (As the authors point out, gays have an advantage over racial minorities in this respect because homosexuality is an invisible attribute: it can be hidden until the soldier has had a chance to demonstrate his commitment and ability.)

The authors point out that task cohesion doesn't necessarily result in social cohesion. Even when soldiers jointly endure combat, the most intense and cohering experience they'll ever have, there's no guarantee that they'll stay in contact once they've left the unit. Nor does the military need them to do so. Friendship is secondary to getting the job done.

So what did the authors conclude?

The analysis in this chapter suggests that concerns about the potential effect of permitting homosexuals to serve in the military are not groundless, but the problems do not appear insurmountable, and there is ample reason to believe that heterosexual and homosexual military personnel can work together effectively.

No great surprise there for most of us.

The truth is, even if the military repealed don't-ask, don't-tell tomorrow, no ifs, ands, or buts, it's exceedingly improbable that there would be a flood of gay soldiers coming out. As the authors note, even outside the military, gays often remain closeted unless they feel the environment is supportive. The military is not likely to feel all that supportive for the time being. (Whether the atmosphere changes significantly over time will depend heavily on how well the officer corps focuses on what the soldiers have in common, rather than what divides them.)

General Amos and his ilk might not be comfortable with the thought of openly gay soldiers, but how long will we continue to shortchange our armed forces and dishonor our fellow citizens by catering to those who have an irrational fear, a fear that is without foundation, whose root cause they cannot even explain because that root cause does not exist?