Wartime is the Right Time

As the Obama Administration moves (slowly) toward repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, one argument in opposition is that the nation is at war, and fundamental changes in the military should not take place during wartime. One response to that point is that all hands are needed during heightened military deployments, and it harms American national security to dismiss trained soldiers. But there is a more fundamental reason why the argument against change during wartime doesn’t work: there is no end in sight to the war on terror. And endless war cannot be a reason for permanent stasis in military policy.

The no-change-during-wartime argument is an example of conventional thinking about war and American society. “Wartime” is imagined to be a temporary condition. It is a special kind of time. Wartime, by definition, is preceded and followed by “peacetime.” American history is thought to consist of the movement from peacetime to wartime and back again. In this conceptualization, wartimes always comes to an end.

This idea that wartime is by definition a temporary time is an essential ingredient of the argument that social change shouldn’t happen in wartime. This is presented as an argument that does not challenge change itself, but simply asks advocates of change to be patient. Change can come after the war is over.

But what if there is no end to war?

United States military deployment overseas has been on-going since at least World War II.

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