Why conservatives turned on the US military

Why conservatives turned on the US military

Right-wing attacks are eroding trust in the armed forces explains Robert Ralston, Grand Strategy, Security, and Statecraft Fellow, at the MIT Security Studies Program. Ralson co-authored this piece with Ronald A Krebs, professor of political science at the University of Minnesota.

September 28, 2021 | Foreign Affairs | Ronald R Krebs and Robert Ralston
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Virginia, September 2019 Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
Ronald R Krebs and Robert Ralston
September 30, 2021
Foreign Affairs

Conservative American pundits and politicians have found a surprising new punching bag: the “woke” US military. “Anti-American indoctrination [is] seeping into parts of our military,” Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, railed in a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee in June. “Holy crap,” Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, tweeted in May in response to a recruitment ad showcasing the US Army’s diversity. “Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea.”​ The article is available here in Foreign Affairs