Women's equality in the military isn't all about PT

Changes to DoD's rescinding of the co-location exclusion* has driven quite a bit of discussion - as can be expected. Most of it has not been about the reason I feel is the main crux of the matter (or why DoD didn't entirely remove restrictions on what jobs women can do in the military) and instead has focused almost entirely on the differences between men and women writ large. The best I've read were from Caitlin FitzGerald and Torie Rose DeGhett, but I want to dial down into something Caitlin talked about.

Caitlin delves into the arguments that a) men will react differently towards female comrades than male from a protective emotional basis and b) the physical differences of the sexes. I think she rightfully dismisses the former. There is some literature that this occurs apparently, but norms change and I think they will over time with this one. On the latter argument, Caitlin also rightfully draws out that not all men are stronger than all women. Lord knows I've served with women who were in much better shape than I was that I'm sure would have excelled in the infantry (take that statement for what's it worth: I was a mech cavalryman, but I'm pretty sure I have an understanding of what light infantry does from small doses).

So what do I have to add to all of this? I'll start by pointing to this AP article when the ban was lifted (that I lambasted on Twitter because of its very flawed description of brigades relative to battalions and what the change actually meant - this is not an endorsement of the entire article) and a quote towards the end from Anu Bhagwati, a former captain in the Marine Corps and executive director of the Service Women's Action Network:

"To continue such a ban is to ignore the talents and leadership that women bring to the military, and it further penalizes servicewomen by denying them the opportunity for future promotions and assignments that are primarily given to personnel from combat arms specialties."

I can't argue with her - it is unlikely that we'll see a woman as a COCOM commander, service chief, or CJCS if their career paths are combat service and combat service support. Logisticians of either gender are simply not considered for these roles. I'm not going to argue for or against this de facto policy - just acknowledging that it exists. And it's a very good reason to argue that women are being held back because of who they are - an idea that is antithetical to modern American military ethics. Or at least it should be. (I should also note that as the Air Force and Navy have opened so many of their positions up to women, they are going to lead the way with female GOs in a generation or so - that's when things are really going to start getting embarrassing for the Army).

But getting back to how this relates to the issues discussed by Caitlin. If the most practical reason for continuing a ban is that most women are weaker than most men, then the solution to integrating women into all combat arms MOSs will be to ensure that only our military's fittest women will matriculate into those combat arms. However, if the main reason to do this equality in general and specifically to provide women with a path to the highest levels of uniformed service, it seems that we're putting a pretty big emphasis on how much of a PT stud that woman is and not her capabilities to command, lead troops, think strategically, and so on and so forth, that you look for in a high-level commander. PT is important for males and their progression as well, but the bar isn't as high as it would be for women. I foresee continued problems with providing women with real equality in uniform even if we come up with physical standards that are equally applied to men and women.

It might take time (and we do still have to solve that little draft issue), but women in combat arms MOSs is an inevitability. Just as with issues of race and homosexuality, change is coming. And I do hope sooner rather than later, as painful as it's likely to be at first. But this might be a good time to also take a good, hard look at how we choose our highest ranking leaders. PT studs and successful brigade command do not a strategic leader make - for men or women. Full equality - that also meets the best interests of the nation - may require looking to those intelligence and logistics officers who think and lead strategically for higher commands, outside of AMC. So while physical differences are an impediment to full women's equality in the military, it's not the only one.

*(And can we all stop talking about "women in combat"? Women are in combat. They're not allowed in combat MOSs. It's not the same thing.)

DoD expands role of women in combat arms units but not entirely

But probably not enough for most people's satisfaction. DoD put out this document to Congress today that opens over 14K positions to women that were previously male-only. DoD is Congress to let them:

1. Eliminate the co-location exclusion from the 1994 policy; 

2. As an exception to policy, allow Military Department Secretaries to assign women in open occupational specialties to select units and positions at the battalion level (for Army, Navy, and Marine Corps) whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground; 

3. Based on the exception to policy, assess the suitability and relevance of the direct ground combat unit assignment prohibition to inform future policy decisions; and 

4. Pursue the development of gender-neutral physical standards for occupational specialties closed due to physical requirements

A lot of people are asking why didn't DoD go all the way and allow women into every position? Why can't they explain why they chose this middle path? I talked about it before: selective service registration and potential drafts. Buried at the bottom of the document in a section called "Legal Analysis" they lay out that the elimination of the co-location exclusion won't force women to register for selective service - and this seems to be worded as a positive thing. I can't really blame DoD for not wanting to drive changes to the law and effectively force women to register for the draft and potential drafting. That is a significant change to social norms in the U.S. - even if they are outdated norms in many minds (including my own) - and DoD has little right to drive it. As unlikely as it is happen soon, that train needs to be driven by Congress not by defense functionaries - whether it's opening the draft to women or doing away with selective service altogether until we need it in order to kick the can down the road.

U.S. women already are in combat, but they won't be in the infantry until we can draft them

In case you have not heard yet, Australia's Defense Minister announced the other day that Australian Defense Forces will phase out barriers that limit women in service to support roles and allow them to join the infantry and even the commandos. Essentially every job is open is every service-member as long as they pass the requirements. This is great for the women, current and future, in the ADF and I congratulate them.

Reading this story break twitter, I was wondering how long before the role of women in the U.S. military would be revisited, especially when you take this story into account with the recent repeal of DADT. Well here we are with CNN's Barbara Starr in a post titled: "U.S. military not ready for women in combat." (h/t @parafile on twitter.) I admire Starr quite a bit, but this article is not helpful for the discussion and the title is even worse.

Firstly, women are already in combat and have been for some time. Starr brings that out in her piece towards the end discussing women military police and pilots and casualty rates. If I recall, at least two women have been awarded the Silver Star in these wars. And let's also not forget truck drivers, medics, and other women who have actually been in combat.

This is one of the problems with this discussion - we're not using the right terms and we're not making the right arguments. It's not that there's an issue with women in combat (since we've already discussed that's happening now) or "combat units", there's an issue with women serving in combat arms branches. Currently women serve in what the Army (at least) calls Combat Support and Combat Service Support branches - these are your MPs, intel types, cooks, truck drivers, medics, veterinarians, supply, etc jobs - the jobs that support the people who find, fix, and destroy the enemy. Combat Arms branches are those that do the find, fix, and destroy: infantry, armor, special forces, field artillery, aviation, air defense, engineers. Women are permitted to serve in elements of the last four and not at all in the first three. In the limitations of the last four are for positions that get assigned to infantry and armor battalions. So that is what women are barred from: not combat, some combat arms.

So the question becomes why and how can we remove these barriers? There is of course the old boys' club element to infantry and armor - but that can be dealt with just as DADT was. There are some logistics issues (see Starr's comments on submarines), but professionals can figure these out, too. There is also the American public who often (and wrongly) find the idea of women in combat (especially mothers in combat) quite distasteful. This, too, can be ignored by government fiat and I imagine people's outlooks would slowly change over time.

But the biggest impediment to women serving in the infantry is the Selective Service - a list of potential draftees if a draft were ever needed. All males must register (with some caveats) once they turn 18 years old. Granted, we haven't had a draft since the 1970s, but the Selective Service stands by just in case we do (and according to House Republicans it's going to happen!). What there is absolutely zero political appetite for in the United States is drafting women. Every poll I have ever seen on the matter (sorry don't have one handy) shows dismal support for such a measure. Americans have a hard enough time imagining women in the infantry, they are not at all stomaching the idea that the government can force women to serve in the infantry.

In times of need the draft is a major feeder for the infantry - they go hand in hand. While I hope that we never have to use the draft, we can't ignore that possible eventuality - it is our true strategic reserve. If women are permitted into the infantry they will have to be drafted - it would be both unfair to males (as it is now) as much as it would be stupid not pull from half of the population from a policy perspective.

I think women should be able to serve in any job they qualify for in the military - just like men - and think that we can and should overcome the obstacles to that happening. For me this includes adding women to the Selective Service and making them eligible for the draft in the future. Our wars today have shown women to be as capable and brave as their male comrades (seriously, why wouldn't they be??) and it is only our antiquated notions of gender roles that prevents this from happening. I realize this is a huge barrier to be overcome and we will likely not have a solution in the near the future, but I hope DoD is examining it.

"Whoever said this is a f****** pogue"

What exactly the "this" is isn't clear, but that's apparently what Herschel Smith and his "authority" (his son) want you to know about me.

Look, let's get some things straight: being a Marine is hard. Being an infantryman is even harder. Like really, really damned hard. Too hard for most dudes, and considering the physical challenges, especially for women.

Ok, so are we straight on that? Honestly, I'm not trying to be facetious or sarcastic or glib or smarmy. Doing anything with a whole bunch of weight on your back is extremely difficult. Add in threat to life and limb and I would expect that it gets damned near impossible.

Important fact number two: yes, I am a pogue. I sit at a desk. My operating environment is not a difficult one. The most challenging thing I'll face today is a bout of drowsiness that results from eating too much kung pao chicken. I have never humped a full combat load in a war zone or anywhere else. I have never "strap[ped] 120 pounds on [my] body and play[ed] men's football for a season," not to mention "do[ing] it while being sleep deprived and with guys dropping around [me] from heat stroke." I have a tremendous amount of respect for the people who have done and do these things in service to our nation.

None of which really has anything at all to do with the subject of this little back-and-forth, which is Herschel Smith's contention that the inclusion of women in Red Army combat units was an important contributing factor to the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan.

It's not about whether or not women are as strong as men, or whether I have a Combat Action Ribbon, or whether Democrats want to integrate the Special Operations Forces, or even whether or not I think women should be able to join U.S. Army and Marine infantry units. If you've paid attention, you'll notice that I never even offered an opinion on that subject.

There's a conversation to be had about the suitability of women for combat. There's even a separate conversation to be had about their suitability for infantry units. (As Herschel and his son have pointed out, there are complications beyond simple upper-body strength, like the range of personal hygiene- and health-related challenges posed to corpsmen and medics serving with infantry units. And they didn't even mention it, but I hear cooties can be a bitch, too.) The point is that while we could invest a lot of time and energy going back and forth about all of that stuff, that isn't what my original post was about, and that's not the subject on which I was challenging Herschel. He made a simple claim -- that women's participation in infantry combat helped the Soviets lose to the mujahideen -- and I mocked him for it. Instead of explaining how or why his claim was legitimate, he went after the women-in-the-infantry straw man.

And now, he says, the case is closed. The authority has spoken. Only he's an authority on what it's like to be an infantry Marine, not on the combat-effectiveness of integrated Soviet line units in the Afghan war.

But beyond that, "authority" doesn't really matter in this conversation, does it? When women are allowed to enlist with any MOS, and when Don't Ask, Don't Tell and other impediments to the full and open service of homosexuals are repealed or removed -- and let's be clear: these are whens, not ifs -- the decision is going to be made by our political leaders, not by experts in infantry combat, not by me, not by Herschel Smith or his son, and not by Elaine Donnelly. So let's just dispense with the notion that "expertise" matters here, shall we?

So we could have all those other conversations that I mentioned before, but what's the point? We've come full circle: it's all back to politics and preconceptions. It's not Herschel's fault, really, that he lets his politics and his worldview inform his thinking on this issue: it is, after all, something that will be decided by the political process. The problem (well, for him, anyway) is that time and demographics are not on his side. And so his arguments (weak though they may be) and his appeals to authority aren't really worth the time, are they?

This just in: (UPDATED)

People will use just about anything as evidence for things they already believe.

Case in point: Herschel Smith thinks that the presence of women in Soviet combat formations is one of the top five most important reasons for their failure in Afghanistan.

I think that other things were essential to the loss, including [a] focus on the cities v. the countryside, [b] complete breakdown of the lines of logistics due to [a] above, [c] heavy losses because of Taliban control over the roads due to [a] above, [d] focus on mounted combat and mounted patrols as opposed to dismounted operations, [e] women in combat billets which led to a high number of lower extremity injuries and a high number of combat ineffective units, and a whole host of other things. [emphasis mine]

This comes in the SWJ comment thread about an article on "Sri Lanka's disconcerting COIN strategy," as part of a post in which Smith dismisses Soviet "ruthlessness" as one of the primary reasons for defeat in the Afghan war.

So in short, girls in the infantry were more damaging to the Russian war effort than bad counterinsurgency tactics. "There is the thing of testosterone, and it's different because God made it that way." Ok? Ok. Glad we cleared that one up.

UPDATE: Herschel uses eight words to every one of mine in a response to this 200-word post. Maybe I'll put together a more in-depth response a little later, but right now I just wanted to direct you over to his site for a chuckle. I expect it will be one-way traffic, seeing as he's copied this entire post in whole, rather than excerpting it. So along with the link, here's a lesson in blogging etiquette for The Captain: when you want to highlight something that another person has written, excerpt! Like this:

If I ever give you worthless tripe like you read at Ink Spots, you should savage me in the comments.

(But only if you have a Wordpress account, because the comments aren't open. So alternatively, savage him in our comments.)