The enlisted ranks of the U.S. armed forces are pretty diverse. The officer ranks of the U.S. Army are not. For instance, there is one black colonel—one—running an armor, infantry, or artillery brigade in the world's premier fighting force this year.* Is this a problem? Hell yes, it is.

Certainly, the Army sees it as a problem today:

WASHINGTON — Command of the Army's main combat units — its pipeline to top leadership — is virtually devoid of black officers, according to interviews, documents and data obtained by USA TODAY.

The lack of black officers... threatens the Army's effectiveness, disconnects it from American society and deprives black officers of the principal route to top Army posts, according to officers and military sociologists. Fewer than 10% of the active-duty Army's officers are black compared with 18% of its enlisted men, according to the Army.

The problem is particularly acute in the combat specialties—infantry, armor, artillery—from which the service's leadership is typically drawn. There are 25 combat brigades in the Army, by the USA Today's count, and one has a black commander.* Those brigades are made up of 78 combat battalions, and "just one of those 78 battalions is scheduled to be led by a black officer in 2015," the paper claims.

Several sources told the paper that "African Americans have historically used the armed forces as a means of social mobility," but "parents, pastors and coaches of young black men and women considering the Army often don't encourage them to join the combat specialties."

But there are other factors at play, too. Black are underrepresented in military commissioning programs—West Point, college ROTC, Officer Candidate School—which is doubly unfortunate, since those programs offer low-cost educational benefits and guaranteed jobs. And then there are more troubling causes:

The downsizing of the Army is having a disproportional effect on African-American officers. From the pool of officers screened, almost 10% of eligible black majors are being dismissed from the Army compared with 5.6% of eligible white majors, USA TODAY reported in early August.

The consequences are far-reaching. Fewer minority officers means less diversity in high-level military planning—not just for wars, but for force structure and welfare of the troops. It could also convey a double-standard to the better-integrated enlisted echelons, suggesting to lower-ranking minority soldiers that their career prospects are limited and encouraging attrition from the ranks.

And there's a higher moral and strategic reason to recruit more minorities into the brass, says Col. Irving Smith, and African American officer who runs West Point's sociology department:

"First we are a public institution. And as a public institution we certainly have more of a responsibility to our nation than a private company to reflect it. In order to maintain their trust and confidence, the people of America need to know that the Army is not only effective but representative of them."

So far, the Army's concerns over its minority issues haven't caught significant criticism. But it's likely to rankle conservatives who previously bristled at giving gays full equality in the ranks or opening combat and shipboard roles to women.

"Social experimentation accelerates the demoralization of the military and promises to change the culture in disturbing ways," one of those conservatives' champions, Elaine Donnelly of the astroturfed "Center for Military Readiness," explained back during the Don't Ask Don't Tell debates in 1995. Donnelly later went on to argue that women should be kept out of the submarine service because the boats' recycled breathing supply could be dangerous to pregnant sailors' embryos.

The Navy decided otherwise, lifting the ban on women aboard submarines in 2010. No sick embryos or demoralizing incidents have been reported.

Update: The USA Today originally claimed there were currently no African American brigade commanders. But two of our readers, both soldiers, have correctly pointed out that the paper missed Col. Robert P. Ashe, the CO of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team.

Army officials in writing and in interviews with the USA Today confirm their concerns about minority underrepresentation in the top combat ranks, but the methodology that the paper used to tally its own numbers is unclear.