July 24, 2025: The new American president was elected on the promise that he would shake things up and one of those new policies led to a series of bizarre censorship efforts. Military libraries, websites including blogs, message boards were all forced to remove any books, photo collections, magazine subscriptions and DEI policies. DEI means Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. DEI was one of several new policies that caused a significant amount of damage in the military. This included disrupting frank communications between soldiers. Promotions were no longer based on merit but according to the demands of new policies that forbade a large number of books for tenuous reasons. Officers and soldiers were told what they could and could not say on social media. Private conversations were free of these restraints and military personnel were dismayed at damage done to their libraries, communications systems and free speech.

This is in sharp contrast to the experience of military personnel in other countries. Fifteen years ago Chinese generals and admirals were calling for more powerful armed forces, and the establishment of military bases overseas. These officers, all retired, write books and magazine articles backing their proposals, and show up frequently as TV pundits. All this was nothing new.

While China is a communist police state, it allows a surprising amount of freedom for those who do not attack the Communist Party or the country. This freedom is especially true for those who say things the government likes to hear, even if the message is not exactly as the government would prefer to hear it. This even applies to retired generals and admirals, who are allowed to call for more military power than the government is willing to pay for, or more aggressive military activity that the government is not ready to sanction. This sort of talk is seen as a good way to gauge what new moves can be undertaken, without a lot of public opposition. Even dictators pay attention to public opinion, as too much unhappiness can feed unrest and rebellion.

Most of this Chinese media activity does not show up in the West. Occasionally, one of the more outrageous sound bites by a Chinese military pundit will make the Western news, usually leaving out that the general or admiral is retired. This can lead to some strange after-effects.

For example, the 1999 Chinese book, Unrestricted Warfare, was initially only available to English speakers in a badly translated edition. Even the title is poorly rendered; it should be Unlimited Warfare. In effect, it's about the range of policy actions that a state can employ, from foreign aid to nuclear weapons, in pursuing its objectives. It's also essentially the views of the authors. Like the Soviets before them, the Chinese communists permit a lot of unofficial opinion in military literature. But just as Chinese officials sometimes misinterpret what they see in the Western media as official government policy, so do Westerners misinterpret books like this as official policy. Even dictatorships need some free exchanges of ideas, in order to find the best solution for problems. While there are limits to how far-out authors can be, this aspect of free speech does allow for a very wide range of proposals. But most of these books are just that, proposals, and will never become policy. But for Western media, searching for the next hot headline, a bad translation is preferable to an accurate one.

Chinese publishers are free to seek out retired officers who have exciting nationalistic and militaristic ideas for books or magazine articles. They can make a lot of money on it. This has become a competitive business, and the officers providing the manuscripts are believed to have enough sense not to spill any important secrets, but sometimes let someone in the military or security agencies check the manuscript first. Such self-censorship is common in China, and not considered worth mentioning. It's a different world, and that, unfortunately, rarely makes the news.

Eighteen years ago comments by American general Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, concerning the U.S. military's don't ask, don't tell, policy concerning homosexuals in the military was shamelessly misinterpreted and distorted in the media. It also has exposed a lack of understanding among not just the mainstream media, but among many bloggers who tend to be supportive of the military.

In 1993, there was a controversy over whether or not to allow homosexuals to serve openly in the military. The political/social agenda of the government was inclined to allow that. However, it ran contrary to the best advice from the generals, largely due to the fact that when alternative sexual orientations became known, it caused problems. Eventually, the current policy was enacted as a compromise. That said, one truth in any debate about military personnel needs to be kept in mind: The purpose of a military is to kill people and break things, not to serve as a reflection of society or as a laboratory for social experimentation.

It isn't just homosexuality that the military tends to have strong regulations against. Adultery is also forbidden. This often is because of potential negative effects it can have. Fraternization, specifically officers and enlisted troops becoming involved with each other, is also forbidden. This is because of the deleterious effects that such actions have on discipline and morale.

Military personnel, particularly officers, also give up a number of other rights, including freedom of speech. One Air Force general was cashiered for taking verbal pot shots at the president in 1993. In 2002, another officer was punished for the contents of a letter to the editor that referenced the current president. This even applies when the officer is in the right, as one general was when he vigorously defended the prosecution of the first female B-52 pilot when a Senator attacked it. Again, the issues surrounding this usually involve maintaining discipline by keeping the military out of politics.

These are important because of the context of military life. Sailors are often on deployment in ships or submarines with limited space. Soldiers and marines are often deployed in situations where there is very little privacy. Adultery, open expressions of political views, or open homosexuality can create problems in such an environment.

Discipline, unit cohesion, and maintaining morale are not just good ideas, they are essential for a competent military. There are a lot of restrictions on what military personnel can say or do, but those restrictions are one of the reasons why the United States military has been effective. If anything, the burden of proof is on critics of the policy to show that changes would not make maintaining discipline, unit cohesion, and morale in the United States military more difficult.

Twenty years ago the military was having a problem dealing with soldiers in combat zones who were using the Internet. One of the most accurate sources of information about military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan came from the troops themselves, via email and blogs written by soldiers. This was nothing new, as soldiers have long been writing home about what they were seeing and doing. These messages were not censored much until World War I. But by the time the 1991 Gulf War rolled around, there was cheap international phone service, which was too difficult to censor. So the troops were just warned to be careful what they said, lest they give the enemy any useful information. That worked, not just with calls home, but also with troops talking to journalists. This was important, because in 1991, some reporters had portable satellite dishes for the first time, and could report, live, from just about anywhere.

Between 1991 and 2003, the Internet arrived, and spread to everywhere, including battlefields. Even during the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003, some troops had Internet access, and that access grew the longer American troops were there. First came a growing flood of email, followed by bloggers and home pages updated with pictures and text from the front. Unit commanders, especially battalion commanders, found that the families of the troops liked getting letters from the boss, describing what the troops were doing, and what was being done to keep them as safe as possible.

The only problem with all this open communication was that it was unsupervised. It was only a matter of time before someone, most likely a younger soldier, said something someone in his chain of command really disapproved of. Because there is no military regulation covering troop use of the Internet, from a combat zone, it was uncertain exactly what could be done. The writers were invoking First Amendment freedom of speech issues. But their commanders have military law on their side, which is recognized as superseding some constitutional rights, at least for soldiers, who are subject to military law when on active duty.

Troops who post, either in a blog or email, information that is obviously useful to the enemy, can quickly be arrested and court martialed. But there are even degrees of what is obviously useful, and most of what gets written up in email and blogs is nowhere close to that. In fact, the military recognizes that email and blogs are not only good for troops, and family morale, but also provides a more accurate view of what’s actually going on in the combat zone. Many media outlets report what they want to be happening, not what is happening. The emails and blogs from the front have provided an increasingly embarrassing counterpoint to the mass media version of reality over there.

For the moment it’s a standoff. Some commanders will have to deal with the aggravation of seeing blogs saying uncomfortable, but not indictable, things. There's just too much to lose by trying to lean on troop use of the Internet.