I think it was the little dog in the picture that really struck me. There once was a time, I found myself thinking, when a man wouldn't be caught dead walking through a public place with such a tiny, unassuming, cute little dog. Back in the day, a real man would want a real dog at his side ‹ a big dog with a ferocious bark, a dog that could hunt and kill if it had to, a dog that mirrored the character of its master: a gentleman in the true sense of the word, not because he couldn't be mean and tough, but precisely because he could but wouldn't unless duty or necessity demanded otherwise.

But today lots of men walk with cute little dogs in public places without any sense of embarassment, without the terrible fear that their manhood might be held suspect by quietly amused passers-by. Indeed, men are not only supposed to like cute little dogs, but they are in many ways expected to behave like them. No longer are they expected to cultivate the manly virtues of stoicism, toughness of mind and body, martiality ‹ these are, after all, mere social constructs of a bygone, backward age. Rather, our culture embraces that all-important virtue of "sensitivity," and any man who has a difficult time with it is a boorish, mysogynistic Neanderthal.

Well, such attitudes are all right in Cambridge, I suppose; this is a town which epitomizes a secure, prosperous, rather decadent society that (at the moment) can afford the luxury of the "sensitive male" ideal. What happens, though, when such an ideal seeps into the collective mind of the U.S. armed forces? What happens when society's effort to eradicate the old culture of "boorish, mysogynistic Neanderthals" becomes the official policy of the Army and Navy?

A little-known phenomenon of the 1990s was the PC-ing of the American military. Here at Harvard we condemn the armed forces for their mean, intolerant Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell policy toward homosexuals, unaware that the military culture so detested by peacenik baby-boomers and their college-age kids is quietly imploding. Much of the military brass has accepted, if not embraced, the "sensitive male" ideal as part of its effort to assimilate higher numbers of women into nearly all spheres of military life. The idea is that the more "gender-neutral" the atmosphere at a military base, the more comfortable women will be. With the feminization of the military has come, imposed from the top down, a "New Military" ethic of emasculation, all of it part of a process officially termed by Army and Navy brass as "gender integration."

In her new book - The Kinder, Gentler Military: Can America's Gender-Neutral Fighting Force Still Win Wars? - freelance writer Stephanie Gutmann exposes the process of "gender integration" in its sundry emanations. She describes mixed-sex basic training exercises ‹ the norm in Army and Navy bootcamp and at the academies ‹ where male and female recruits are assigned "Battle Buddies" of the same sex, where they are permitted to take a "time out" if they are feeling "stressed", where obstacle courses have been renamed "confidence courses" because of the new ethos of self-esteem. She also speaks of grenade-throwing exercises in which it no longer matters how far you are able to throw the grenade, so long as you feel good that you threw it as far as you could. Never mind that in a real battle a grenade that is not thrown a certain distance will send you to Kingdom Come. And she tells of the institution of "Ability Groups", in which a recruit can feel proud of himself no matter how poorly he performs next to his comrades. One wonders if, in a real war, our enemies will similarly divide themselves into "ability groups" so as to preserve a sense of fair-play along the front lines.

Gutmann also describes how Army recruits are regularly herded into "sensing sessions" so that they can deliver "feedback" about the treatment they get from their instructors. Drill sergeants today are often at the mercy of their trainees, and when they complain to their superiors that the conditions of "New Military" bootcamp are bad for discipline ‹ that all-important ingredient of an effective fighting force ‹ they are not taken seriously but instead are reprimanded according to the new PC code that has overtaken the leadership of the military.

On the Navy side, sailors on board U.S. warships are forbidden, among other things, to drink alcohol. There are signs posted in Navy destroyers that say "U Booze, U Cruise, U Lose." According to the official rules of a Navy ship Gutmann visited, sailors are expected to conform "to behavior that would be acceptable in an open forum attended by family and friends." Fistfights ‹ which tend to break out between men who have to live with one another in very close quarters for months at a time ‹ are punished severely in the "New Navy." Unbelievably, men who will be expected to behave like warriors when and if a real sea-battle comes to pass are made to suppress every natural instinct of virile aggression. "There are worries," says Gutmann, "that a warship manned by men who are more like clerks than Vikings won't perform the same when the chips are down."

And what is the price we are paying for all this? Nothing short of the readiness and morale of our troops. Except in the Marine Corps, where the social engineers have not succeeded in forcing their agenda of emasculation, recruitment and retention rates in the armed forces are at an all-time low. These are conditions which could prove deadly should we find ourselves at war any time soon.

But of course that is a silly thing to say, isn't it? Wars are going to be different in the future, right? Ground war is a thing of the past, and we as a people have progressed beyond the point that we will ever be fighting full-scale wars again, right?

No self-respecting nation can risk giving the wrong answers to these questions. Sure, many government and military officials speculate that wars of the future will be fought entirely in the air, that it will be all about pushing buttons. But we should note that the judgment of many of these officials has not been steeled in the forge of experience; too many of those in charge of the military are career bureaucrats who have never witnessed war first-hand, and they are much too prone to view the realities of war through the thick-rimmed spectacles of academics, to whom military strategy and tactics are little more than a complex set of diagrams and equations on a chalkboard. And as far as our nation's civilian leadership is concerned, it goes without saying that we ought not put too much faith in the military prognostications of a generation of politicians whose most commonly shared personal experience with the military was receiving student deferments during the Vietnam war. As the Persian Gulf war proved once again, the only way to win is to put a man on the ground with a gun.

It is a symptom of dangerous complacency when we speculate that we may never again find ourselves engaged in full-scale war. If the twentieth century has taught us anything, it is that a "war to end all wars" often leads to bigger ones, and that man is the same volatile mix of good and evil he has always been. The confident belief we have that the present state of affairs ‹ economic prosperity, long-lasting peace and security ‹ will carry on interminably is delusional, and to risk the readiness of our armed forces for the sake of any cause, however good and noble it strikes our warm and fuzzy liberal hearts, is to court disaster.

This is why it is imperative that the military be freed from cultural forces destroying the warrior ethic it must foster in order to train and produce good soldiers and sailors. If this means that we have to strictly separate men and women in basic training (as the Marines do), so be it. If it means that drill sergeants will have to pay no heed to notions of "self-esteem" but instead follow the old philosophy of "tearing down" a new recruit in order to "build him up again" and make a soldier out of him, so be it. And if it means allowing insensitive, "boorish, mysogynistic Neanderthals" to excel in a milieu that embraces the manly virtues of stoicism, toughness of mind and body, and martiality, then so be it. For the sake of its own readiness and our national security, the military must be allowed to exist on its own terms, "separate and enclosed," as Stephanie Gutmann writes, "the fortress, the walled, gated monastary on the ridge above the village."

Nobody likes to fight, say the Marines, but somebody has to know how. Knowing how to fight well requires a seriousness of purpose that should not be softened, especially during peacetime when we are most at risk of losing sight of the real threats that will face us in the future. After all, which makes for a better watchdog ‹ a sinewy bull mastiff or a cute little terrier puppy? Most of the military rank-and-file, underpaid and underappreciated as they are, are yet desirous to serve their nation and its flag not unlike a faithful watchdog. Respecting that honorable desire ‹ which is born of a love of country and just as often out of a basic masculine instinct to challenge, be challenged, and to protect and defend ‹ our military leaders should stand up against the culture of emasculation and train our troops properly, turning them into the fine soldiers, sailors, officers, and gentlemen they have the capacity to be.