Sen. Tom Cotton, an Army veteran, said the use of the “insidious doctrines of critical race theory” in the military depresses unit morale.
Arguing that a “high level of unit cohesion” is as important as the “very concrete technical and tactical skills,” Cotton said critical race theory forced military personnel to focus on their differences rather than bond and create a strong unit.
“We cannot have an Army, a Navy, a Marine Corps, an Air Force, or a Space Force where young troopers are looking to their left and right and seeing not fellow citizens who took an oath to the Constitution, someone who’s willing to lay down their life not just for their country but to keep you alive,” he said during a virtual event hosted by the Heritage Foundation on Thursday.
“We can’t have them looking at their noncommissioned officers and their officers wondering if they’re getting the tough duty because of the color of their skin,” he said. “We need them to see each other simply as fellow Americans and fellow warriors who are there for the mission.”
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Cotton argued the military’s use of the “insidious doctrines of critical race theory … that some races are somehow collectively guilty for what other people with the same skin color have done or [are] inherently oppressive or privileged and other races are inherently victimized or oppressed” is “very dangerous to unit cohesion and morale.”
“That’s one reason why I’ve been so active in the Senate to try to stop it in its tracks,” he said, alluding in part to some lines of questioning that he pursued during Senate hearings.
Following the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a military-wide effort examining domestic extremism in the armed forces — an effort, Cotton said, he pressed Austin to justify.
“When Secretary Austin testified in front of the Armed Services Committee last month, I pressed him to answer what I thought were very simple ‘yes or no’ questions about doctrines that come from critical race theory, like whether there are any races that are inherently oppressive and oppressed or whether people should be promoted based on their skin color as a key factor … and of course, he responded that no, skin color should not be a primary reason for promotion [and] no, there are no inherently oppressive or oppressed races,” he said. “It’s good for troops across the service to see the secretary say that.”
Republicans in both the House and the Senate have been working to end the use of critical race theory in the military, with GOP representatives reportedly considering offering amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act that would curb “woke” military training.
“My Republican colleagues and I hear regularly from active duty and retired service members that even holding conservative values is now enough to endanger a service member’s military career,” Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said.
Last month, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley drew scorn from conservatives during a congressional hearing with his response to questions about Austin’s military “stand-down” order to address extremism in the military.
“I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin,” Milley said. “That doesn’t make me a communist. So, what is wrong with understanding … the country which we are here to defend?”
“I want to understand white rage, and I’m white,” he continued, adding that the military should be “widely read” on various topics, including race relations.
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Cotton alluded to the high-profile military leaders promoting the use of critical race theory in training, telling the Heritage Foundation that the training was “mostly top-down,” unlike “in some of these corporations, it’s very much the young, coddled, woke workers who are demanding the indoctrination and complaining if they’ve got any dissidents in their ranks who don’t buy the woke corporate line.”
Many private corporations have taken steps toward using similar training for employees. Oxfam, a charity based out of the United Kingdom, circulated a survey among its staffers defining “whiteness” as “the overarching preservation of power and domination for the benefit of white people and ultimately that which white supremacy serves to protect,” and Coca-Cola offered anti-racism training techniques that taught the company’s workers how to “be less white.” Coca-Cola later apologized “to those who were offended by this content.”
