Daniel Burke describes how the military defends its adultery ban:
The rules may seem archaic to modern Americans, but they are essential to the military, where officers and soldiers entrust their lives to one another other, Breasseale said. Imagine if a senior officer was having an affair with an enlisted soldier’s spouse. "His decision-making would rightly be second-guessed," [Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Todd] Breasseale said, "and that would cause a ripple-effect through the unit."
Reminding us again of how the protracted wars waged by the US have increased infidelity, Burke continues:
As in civilian America, extramarital affairs are fairly common in the military, experts said, as soldiers spend long tours of duty stationed far from home. Adultery tends to be prosecuted only when the conduct is egregious, when it accompanies other crimes like sexual misconduct, or when a high-ranking officer is involved. "It’s hard to make the case when I’m representing a senior military officer on adultery that the good order and discipline of the unit was not affected," said Victor M. Hansen, a professor at New England Law in Boston.
William Galston, on the other hand, takes issue with the Uniform Code of Military Justice's blanket focus on adultery:
It is easy to imagine circumstances in which adultery might well undermine the ability to command. But … [s]urely the burden should be on the military to demonstrate a concrete, functional, operational link between the adulterous conduct and military discipline. In the absence of such a showing, the simple fact of adultery should not suffice, and the UCMJ should make that crystal-clear. At present, it does not.
He adds some historical context:
All this transpires under the aegis of language that has been part of our military law since 1775 and that directly traces to British sources from the late seventeenth century. Can anyone seriously argue that public norms have remained unchanged for the past three hundred years? The U. S. military is not—and should not be treated as—a hermetically sealed world. It is part of our society.
The Dish 