The CRT argument is distracting us from what officers, leaders and citizens actually need to understand
The debate about Critical Race Theory in the United States has become a political shortcut. It is used to signal allegiance in a broader cultural conflict, often without distinguishing between CRT as a specialised academic framework and the far more basic work of understanding how human judgement operates.
That distinction matters.
Critical Race Theory emerged from legal scholarship. People can debate its claims, its usefulness and whether it belongs in a particular curriculum. That is a legitimate academic discussion. But it becomes intellectually dishonest when the label is stretched to include any teaching about prejudice, stereotyping, historical inequality, unconscious bias, group identity or the psychological conditions under which people make harmful decisions.
These are not ideological concepts. They are features of being human.
Behavioural economics has repeatedly shown that people do not make decisions as calm, detached and consistently rational actors. We use mental shortcuts. We are influenced by fear, social norms, authority, group loyalty and the framing of information. We are quicker to trust people who resemble us and more likely to make assumptions about people we see as outsiders. Under pressure, these tendencies do not disappear. They become stronger.
This is why such understanding is particularly important for military officers, police officers, managers, educators and anyone entrusted with power over other people. The question is not whether an officer should be made to feel guilty for the past. The question is whether an officer should understand the predictable judgement errors that can occur when authority, threat, hierarchy, fatigue and uncertainty converge.
A soldier operating in an unfamiliar community cannot afford to rely only on instinct. A commander cannot assume that group cohesion always produces good judgement. A leader cannot ignore how quickly labels can become assumptions, and assumptions can become decisions with consequences that last long after an operation has ended.
This is not an argument for ideological instruction. It is an argument for psychological maturity.
In my early studies in the South African Air Force, we were challenged to confront stereotyping and bias. Later, at the Military Academy, military psychology formed part of understanding what service demands of people and what it can do to them. The purpose was not political indoctrination. It was to make future officers more aware of the human risks embedded in their role.
The military was described to us as the “night-cart driver” of society. Society needs people willing to enter difficult and sometimes terrible situations that most citizens never have to witness. Yet when the full human reality of those situations becomes visible, society can distance itself from the people it sent there. That is precisely why soldiers need more than tactical competence. They need the capacity for reflection, ethical judgement and awareness of their own cognitive blind spots.
We should therefore stop allowing CRT to become a catch-all phrase that shuts down necessary learning. The important question is not whether every discussion of bias belongs under a contested political label. It is whether we want people with responsibility, authority and access to force to understand the ways human beings can misjudge one another.
That knowledge does not weaken discipline, readiness or cohesion. Properly taught, it strengthens all three.