"The increase in ideological instruction (to make sailors less sexist and prejudiced" I have asked soldiers about this, and none of them seem bothered by it- its like a day or 2 a year, telling them to treat their fellow soldiers professionally. Tucker Carlson and other fearmongers like to lie about this and many other issues- it riles up the old folks and gets the ratings. Anyway- it would be interesting to see a professional study on this issue from a disinterested 3rd party.

Having been a senior manager at a Fortune 500 company that is rife with political correctness, it isn't the seminars that kill morale or even get in the way. They waste a lot of money of course because you leave the class and most people just go on doing what they do and regard it as a waste of time and money. What is the killer is the top down spread of the cancer that is political correctness. The rewarding and promoting of a select favored few based on their toeing of the line, their possession of ovaries, possessing a dark skin pigmentation or preferring to engage in rectal intercourse with or munch the carpet of someone of the same sex that does the damage. You can be a stellar performer but if you don't meet the prevailing criteria for being rewarded, and it isn't always doing a good job. you get passed over. It is what will get your boss his promotion that counts. So he pushes women, minorities and the sexual others in order to make himself look good. With record numbers of military of all branches deciding to leave and the lowest recruiting numbers on record, its time for the Pentagon to rethink their push towards social engineering. Go back to basic standards of physical and job performance. Throw away the special group reward criteria and moves toward "group think." If they don't they'll end up with a military that is a made up of minorities and women. Its tough enough doing a good job, without having the baggage of wokeness and political correctness added to the load. We just did a repeat of Vietnam in Afghanistan. You'd think the Pentagon would be studying what when wrong over the last 20 years with us being unable to beat a sandal wearing group of tribesmen with the world's most sophisticated military machine. I'll tell you up front, it had noting to do with diversity, inclusion, or gender rights.

That is exactly right. I was doing tech consulting, and I was observing the promotion based on arbitrary criteria rather than on performance, and I watched the companies going dysfunctional. It can be shrugged off in civilian life, and as a consultant, I was not affected much, but the detrimental effect was obvious. In the military... Oh boy. The last thing I want is a bunch of people behind me who might just think that I do not deserve them risking their lives. Think about a tank line with infantry dropping their support... And the worst part is that you do not need any lectures and seminars to drive home that you are not wanted and that you cannot rely on others. Every day mistreatment and promotions will do that. Add to that the changes in training, and you have a combination of incompetence and lack of cohesion. Do you want to see such a military? I can point in several directions; they are not functional. I stumbled on a YouTube video about new methods of training drill instructors. The nonsense they are saying, the way they are led - my instant association was with the movie "Police Academy." Undoing this will probably require removing all Generals 2 stars and above.

“ideological instruction”….sorry SP, once again, not the problem.

Yeah, political indoctrination is a big problem. And indoctrination isn't about "treating colleagues professionally." It doesn't have to be a problem for everyone or most people. Some people are true believers in it, while many other people will shrug and go along with whatever indoctrination they receive. But it is a problem for a lot of people and those people vote with their feet. -