The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Defense chief plans new steps to fight extremism in military
Prospective recruits will be asked about their views on issue.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin detailed new steps Friday that the military will take to combat extremism in the ranks, including screening prospective recruits on the issue and disciplining them if it is later found that they hid problematic affiliations or actions.
Questions asked during recruiting will now be designed “to gather actionable information” about prospective service members and “to clarify that any demonstrably false answers provided in response could form the basis for punitive action for fraudulent enlistment,” Austin said in a memo released Friday.
Lying during the enlistment process is a crime in the military and can result in a felony conviction.
Austin’s memo also directed a review of Defense Department regulations on what constitutes extremist activities and new training for service members transitioning to civilian life to warn them on how they could be targeted by extremist groups. Austin also told the department to commission a study on extremist behavior in the military to get a better understanding of the issue.
“The health, readiness and morale of the Total Force will always be one of my top priorities,” Austin said in the
memo. The “vast majority of those who serve in uniform and their civilian colleagues, do so with great honor and integrity, but any extremist behavior in the force can have an outsized impact.”
Austin’s emphasis on extremism comes after a mob supporting then-president Donald Trump smashed its way into Congress on Jan. 6 in a failed attempt to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory. Hundreds of people have been arrested in response to the violence, including a disproportionately large number of veterans.
Other service members have been ejected from the military over the past year for expressing extremist or racist sentiments on social media.
In his memo, Austin also detailed focus areas for a new Pentagon working group launched to counter extremism. It will provide its first report with recommendations no later than next week.
The group’s initial work will examine whether amending department policy or the military justice system to counter extremism is appropriate and help determine how to watch out for “insider threats.”
It also will consider how the Pentagon might screen publicly available information, such as social media, and improve training for commanders who must handle “gray areas,” such as a service member who openly follows or likes extremist content online, the memo said.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Friday that the intent of the forthcoming study on extremism is not “about being the thought police,” but will scrutinize the actions that people take.
“It’s about what you do with what’s between your ears,” Kirby said. “It’s about the behavior and the conduct that is inspired by or influenced by this kind of ideology.”
That has led to questions about whether the Pentagon should go further.
Service members are not explicitly forbidden from being members of extremist groups. Instead, they are barred from “active participation” in them, a stance that Kirby indicated on Friday could stand.
“I guess I take issue with your characterization of this as being an easy fix,” Kirby said in response to a question from a reporter at a briefing Friday. “The nature of these groups change all the time, and new groups pop up and old groups die off and they morph into something else.”