 The U.S. Naval War College is a Navy's home of thought. Established in 1884, NWC has become the center of Naval seapower, both strategically and intellectually. The following issues in national security lecture is specifically designed to offer scholarly lectures to all participants. We hope you enjoy this upcoming discussion and future lectures. Good afternoon. Eighth INS lecture for this academic year. I'm John Jackson, and it's my pleasure to be the master of ceremonies for today's lecture. To kick off the event, we'd like to offer our president, Admiral Shoshana Chatfield, the opportunity to provide her welcoming remarks. I'll give you a chance to take a breath, Admiral. Well, one thing I don't want to do is hold up any of the rich information that is going to be passed this evening and the dialogue and questions that are going to follow. I do want to say welcome and thank you for joining us in person, but also to our online attendees, whether you're members of our extended community, members of the Naval War College Foundation, or other of our friends, partners and stakeholders. Thank you for entering into this rich dialogue with us this evening. I welcome you and hope to see you again in this similar format. We've enjoyed bringing you this series as a way to share a portion of the Naval War College's academic experience with the spouses and significant others of our student body. It has been expanded to include participation by the entire Naval War College extended family, including members of the Naval War College Foundation, international sponsors, civilian employees, colleagues throughout Naval Station Newport, and participants from around the nation. Looking ahead, I invite you to join us on the 8th of February, 2022, when Professor Terry Roeg will speak about North Korea. Okay, on with the main event. During the presentation that follows, please feel free to ask questions using the chat feature of Zoom, and we'll get to as many questions as we can at the conclusion of the presentation. Women have played an important role in warfare throughout history, both in America and internationally. However, often that role is marginalized by cultural restrictions or societal norms, preventing women from maintaining senior leadership roles. With fairly recent changes to policy allowing women to serve in all capacities of the U.S. military, this lecture will reflect on how the United States military and security organizations can best integrate women into their organizations. Jane Stokes is an Associate Professor of Joint Maritime Operations in the College of Distance Education. She earned her BA from Hunter College and her MA from the Naval War College. She is a former member of the Defense Council at the Truman National Security Project. She serves as a Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel and Foreign Area Officer, both reserve and active duty, specializing in international engagements and security cooperation. She has also formally served in various embassies throughout the Department of State Foreign Service. She is the author of Hesitation Kills, a Female Marine Officer's Combat Experiences in Iraq, which is featured on the Marine Corps Commandant's professional reading list. Jane, podium is yours. Thank you so much, John. I really appreciate the opportunity and thank you, Admiral, for your comments. And thank you everyone who's here today. I appreciate it both in person and virtual. I'm going to talk about a topic that maybe not all of you are familiar with, but I definitely find of interest. And so in lieu of a lot of people not understanding the background, I've included a lot of history in this too, to kind of paint the picture of where we were, where we are now, and where we could possibly go in terms of future warfare, but more important in the inclusion of women in this calculus and where women have served throughout history. In history, women have had a different role in combat and in warfare. Traditionally, when we think of warfare, we think of men serving there. We think of men using aggression and violence to conduct combat. But women have actually served in combat all throughout history, too. Many of their stories lost, forgotten, or never told because of cultural constructs that prevented their stories from becoming well known or just simply lost because of time. So I'd like to paint the picture of that, but also I'd like to talk about what I think is really interesting is future warfare. Future warfare, as our ideas change, as the character of war changes from traditional combat to now looking at this competition continuum, where do women fit into that? Do they have a different role than previously we've seen with traditional combat? Do women expand that role? And these are some of the things this lecture hopes to accomplish is to look at that and to see how women are linked in that whole discussion. Women have had a inextricable link between violence and conflict in that as women as a state is stable or fragile, women are correlated with how they are affected by that violence as well. And so because of that, there probably is a very large role for women in combat and warfare in the future. These are some of the issues I'm going to discuss. As I said, I'm going to take you through some of the history, some examples that have happened throughout. Then I'm going to talk about currently where our policy stands with regard to women in combat. And then finally, I'm going to look at some of those reflections on women's integration into future warfare. If you happen to go to ancient Egypt, you may have gone to the Valley of the Kings. And there you would have seen a tremendous building that's known as Hatshepsut Temple. Hatshepsut Temple is probably the most imposing building in all of Thebes, which is the Valley of the Kings, or Luxor, as it's come to known currently. She was a historic figure, a military leader, the Queen, known as the the King who would be Queen, as she was known on her inscription. And Josephus highlighted some of the most noteworthy acts of her very peaceful reign, which was 21 years. Some of the notable accomplishments were that she included different kinds of trade for the first time into Egypt, including frankincense and myrrh, and for the first time brought imported trees into Egypt. And that her reign, although mostly peaceful, she waged conflicts elsewhere in campaigns abroad, such as in Biblioste and Sinai. And so Hatshepsut had taken over from her husband who died. And although she had a stepson, he was too young to take over. And so reluctantly, she took over and for 21 years ruled until her stepson came of age and was able to take the reign. But some people say that he was the one who actually killed her out of jealousy for how successful she was. Deborah is another example. You might remember her as a singular biblical figure. Some speculate whether she was real or just historical, regardless. In judges, in the Old Testament, she's regarded as a prophetess or judge, which is a significant role in the Old Testament. Deborah was a military leader who single-handedly led 10,000 Israelites into Canaan and fought against them. In her strategies, military strategies, she devised a plan to bring the Canaanites who had these very advanced chariots and bring them to a swampy area where she had them ambushed. At that point, once she created that ambush, they were picked off by her archers until she crushed their army. Deborah is a very interesting figure also because of rabbinic tradition, didn't accept her mostly. And so she was kind of shunned as a figure, historical figure too, almost lost in history as well. Samaramis, like Hatshepsut, was also the product of a husband dying, and that's how she succeeded in the throne. Initially rejected by the Assyrians, she was an Assyrian queen who had done so well in her military campaigns and her successful exploits in recapturing the Middle East and other areas that the Assyrians lauded her leadership, and she became very well known throughout history as well. Queen Bodica is known as a British folk hero. You've probably seen if you've gone to London, the statue that exists of Bodica in London sits right behind Big Ben on the Westminster Ridge. Queen Bodica is renowned for leading the Britons in a rebellion against the Romans in 60 AD. She was pretty remarkable in that she, Tacitus, describes her as a folk hero but also not just a queen but a revolutionary figure for all of the Britons who saw her as the one to lead against the Romans. In a fiery speech that Queen Bodica delivered, she said that she won't be captured by the Romans, that this would be beneath her. Her husband was killed, she was beaten by the Romans and her daughters raped, and because of this she led the Britons, 120,000 Britons in an uprising against the Romans. Although she wasn't successful to this day, she remains a historical figure of someone who took charge and led against an invasion. Most of us know Joan of Arc's story, the maid of Orleans. In her vision from Saint Michael, she decided to join forces with Charles VII who wasn't king yet but who aspirations of becoming anointed and she said that she could lead his army to success. She supported the Sage of Orleans and he granted her a position joining the reserves but she was so successful there that her morale led the French to go against the British during the Hundred Years War. And so Joan of Arc suffering, having been only 13 when she joined, was killed by the Britons when she was only 19 years old. Some other notable figures are Major Pavlicenko and Lydia Litvick, both Soviet soldiers during the 40s during World War II. Pavlicenko is very interesting. She was a sniper. She joined the Red Army, one of the first females conscripted at the start of the war and she had more confirmed sniper kills than any of her other fellow soldiers, 300 and something to be exact. And she was renowned sniper. She led sharp shooting efforts and did various other military acts after she retired. And then Lydia Litvick had a remarkable story too. She joined the air pilots. She was known as the White Rose of Stalingrad and she was a remarkable pilot, fearless, took risks everywhere and was successful in doing more raids than any other pilot against the Germans and became renowned for her daring exploits, going out their fearless into the sky during World War II. So as you can see from this list, it's a formidable list of women, but these are just some of the many that exist. And like I said, many were likely lost due to cultures not accepting women during this time. And then there's all their countless ones that I'm sure you've heard of many other women who have successfully been throughout history, examples of women in warfare flash forward ahead of time. Now, women have served also in international militaries. After World War II, there were many changes that advanced and women in international communities have recognized that women can serve in very different roles and have taken advantage of that. The most remarkable one I think is the Scandinavian countries have really gone quite forward. They, even prior to the U.S., have really embraced women's role. Norway, for example, has a special forces unit that is exclusively female. In the 80s, their Norwegians allowed conscription of females since the armed forces. And Norway's special operations female unit is actually special. They've gone to Afghanistan. And the reason they created it was that they saw that women had a unique role in bringing intelligence to the battlefield, very different from the male counterparts. They could engage other females that the men couldn't. They could gather intelligence. They could do things a little differently. And so they created them. Israel, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, opening up many different roles for women as well. Israel, a lot of people know the Israeli defense force has made significant strides for women, too. One of which is, although they've had their challenges, too, because they have a conservative religious society, too. But one stride that they've made is their grounds, their unmanned ground vehicles. The IDF does a lot of experiments, which is good. They have half female conscripts there, so a big pool to kind of examine and see how women perform in combat. So as they were testing their unmanned vehicles, they determined that women had so much attention to detail and focus that they were greatly out, they were surpassing men's ability to perform with these unmanned vehicles. So much so that they put the females entirely in charge of this unit because they had just superior ability to do this, including with the armaments. Women's ability to have self-reliance and ability to conserve the weapons power allowed them to really take advantage of doing really well with these unmanned ground forces. Kind of an extreme example of how they've gone the other way and allowed females to actually take over this unit. There's been many other international communities have done great things. Eritrea is notable for having so many females in the military during their civil war. They just allowed females to flood in and go against Ethiopia. Remarkable in that women in a very also conservative society have had a very different role being in the military there than they would otherwise have as mothers and homemakers in Eritrea. People ask about the green nuns in Libya. They're the bodyguard force that protected Omar Gaddafi. Maybe not the best example of females, but Gaddafi had an all-female bodyguard force that protected him at all times, and they were known as the green nuns. Japan and India have done remarkable things with including women too, as has Pakistan and the Philippines. Thailand's done a lot of counter terrorist efforts as well, including having pilots in non-combat roles as well. I think greatly the international community has recognized the role of women is paramount in success of their future militaries. They brought a different dimension into warfare for them, whether they're being employed with increasing manpower strength, bridging cultural handicaps or counter extremist efforts. They're doing different things differently and being successful in that and how they're being employed is really a model for other countries and how they can employ women and integrate them in their armed forces. I'd like to talk more about the international community because there are so many great examples. I'm focusing my lecture mostly on the U.S. warfare because there's so many rich issues in America to discover. I wish I had more time to have two lectures on that. So what I'm going to talk about right here is how the U.S. policy has changed with women's integration into the military, starting with a little bit of history about women's integration to actually the combat exclusion lifts and then how integration is going right now. The expansion of women's roles in the military as we know World War II was a great period of change. It was a great period of change for women. Women were allowed to work in industrial jobs for the first time when there was a shortage of manpower for men and so a huge thrust of women came to support the war efforts. 19 million women were working at the time of 70 million women around during the 1940s. 19 million were mobilized to work in different fields especially supporting the war efforts. This tremendous lift and effort that women made really turned the tides of the ability for America to outcycle their adversaries in the war and to turn the tides of how quickly they could logistically bring supplies into you know into supporting Europe and the Pacific Theater and so women had a very remarkable effort during that time. Another thing that they did that was pretty remarkable too is 400,000 women joined the military too. They joined in support roles non-combat roles and they built armaments they worked on airplanes they flew as pilots they worked medical they did every kind of support role available to them and did a tremendous job joined all the different services the wax wasps waves the Marine Corps reserves and the spars the the coast guards version of the reserves but after the war had ended and America was successful women were demobilized decommissioned and this was just like the men this was a very hard thing for many women who had served to deal with going back to what they saw as kind of their mundane job no longer supporting the war efforts. And so because of the need and necessity and also the good things that they saw that that women had done they enacted the Armed Forces Integration Act in 1948 which allowed women to serve in an active duty capacity but with a cap of only two percent of the armed forces having women integrated and women's rank was capped at colonel as well during that time. After women had began integrating in different roles in 1967 the cap was lifted and women were allowed to serve in as generals and also there were more women who were allowed to join on the different services too. Other changes came such as services emitting women and in 1994 there was a very distinct policy change which allowed women to serve in support roles in combat as long as they were not serving below the brigade regiment level and this was known as the combat exclusion law but women could no longer still not serve in combat even though this combat exclusion law existed. However in 2015 really 2014 DOD and the US government determined that women were already serving in combat roles having served in Afghanistan and Iraq many women were already serving in combat and that it was now the time to begin looking at women supporting in all capacities in the military as that was already being done by women. They were already going out on combat missions women who served as pilots were already you know doing exactly the same thing as their male counterparts. So after examination of of integration and some challenges with that DOD mandated that women could be integrated into all jobs at that time. So US policy change integration of women into military jobs has gone fairly well. The integration required that all women are integrated into combat no later than 2016. The Marine Corps was pretty adamant about requesting a waiver they didn't see that their service would benefit from it. They requested a waiver and I was actually part of a unit that tested experimented to see if women could meet the standards of these jobs. It was called the ground combat element integrated task force and it was opportunity to determine that women had already passed the combat MOS schools how they would perform with their male counterpart and it was a very remarkable experiment but even with that experiment and what came out of it DOD said you have to go integrate as well. Some of the main arguments that existed with regard to integration that I would argue still kind of exist today are the physical abilities of men compared to women. Some studies have shown that in fact many studies have shown that the physical abilities of men are different from women especially upper body strength. Some studies detail US Army study from I believe 2008 indicated that men had as much as 30% greater upper body strength and as much as 15 to 30% greater aerobic abilities than women. Other studies confirm that to University of Pittsburgh that ran the Marine Corps experiments to show there's a physical difference between women and men. An undeniable change in physical ability for women and men. Another issue that was brought was unit cohesion is degraded with integration and this one depending on how you look at unit cohesion has been greatly debated as well. One of the main arguments for integration and I think what pushed it over the edge with the Marine Corps too was that regardless of physical abilities there were women and in fact many women who could meet the minimum standard required for combat roles and so that standard was set and if they could meet it even if they were at the bottom 30% they still had the opportunity to go into combat roles because they met the requirements of that. Surprisingly or not surprisingly integration has gone fairly well after the policy changes with Iraq and Afghanistan over 300,000 women have served in these campaigns and there's been over 10,000 women who have been given combat action ribbons or badges as well as some women who've earned bronze stars and high awards with distinction for their service in combat. Women have achieved greater seniority and leadership across the services. As of 2018 63 women were in the general admiral ranks. I'm happy to say there's one at the college too. The Air Force and the Coast Guard have done a very good job at integration with increasing numbers to the expected mandate. However the Marine Corps and Special Forces lag behind with their integration largely as a result of recruiting efforts and also getting females to pass the the vetting programs and initial combat jobs. Attrition rates tend to be much worse for women especially in those infantry drops as you know the Ranger School as well as you know the the infantry officers course from Marines are very hard to pass as are the Special Forces vetting schools as well. Some recruiting retention issues do exist. It would be remiss in not mentioning issues. There are unique issues with women integrating into military and in combat roles such as sexual harassment issues and also motherhood being a big one too an issue that women don't want to stay in past a certain time and so there's a cap on how long women are willing to stay because they want to experience that and and have a family. So those issues should be considered as well as they develop the policy changes as integration increases and I know that there's some look at how to to mitigate those as well. When we talk about women's integration in the military it's important to note that integration in the military involves policy making decisions. Policy making decisions don't just happen with with the military it happened above that levels with the policymakers and so integration also needs to happen with other organizations thinking about where women can effectively make decisions as senior leaders in warfare is just as important if not more important than than having women embedded at all different levels and so women as as leaders in NGOs and think tanks in department of state interagency is so important as well. Without these integration and incorporation of women into all aspects of policy making decision makers you're you're you're leaving a huge gap in their ability to affect policy and being part of the discussion in academic institutions as well women should be equally integrated for for this integration to be effective and this is captured a little bit in what's called the US SCR the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 that started in about the year 2000 and that also led to Women, Peace and Security Act of 2017 which was a US kind of spin-off of that initial UN Security Council Resolution and that said women should be global leaders and be involved in peace and security issues they they must and it put the oneness on organizations to incorporate women into these roles recognizing that women were part of conflict and therefore it was necessary for women if they were directly involved in all aspects cause an effective warfare to be involved in resolving those conflicts too if women were more affected by conflict then why shouldn't they be part of that dialogue it was almost essential that they were the architects of that dialogue to to quote Joan Johnson Freese the author of Women, Peace and Security one of our professors here at the college and so women as architects necessary to affect and determine how to create regional stability if fragile states are created by and directly in in concert with women's violence then to prevent women's violence means that you're creating more stability with with nations and so the Women's Peace and Security Act seeks to do that to do that I will note too that in leadership leadership leadership roles presidents heads of state often have the same issues that military women do too in that that it's hard to integrate them even at that level while there has been notable examples there was a phenomenon noted that it's called the the phenomena of succession through through death basically most of the women or several many significant women who have been elected have been elected because their husband father have been killed and they take over in that role and assume position as though that justifies their importance and their ability to to lead we can look at examples of Ben Zarbuto and Akito as examples of that and also in some respects Eleanor Roosevelt was also a result of that too and a very effective leader who went on after the death of the president to go and join many other organizations too where she was a leader in her own right but it shouldn't have to be that way women should be able to stand on their own and also be heads of state without having to have you know their their husband being the one who marshals that relationship and there are great examples of course of of women who have been heads of state like Margaret Thatcher and Ellen Sirleaf too who was served in in those capacities all right I'm moving now to another state I want to kind of discuss why women and men have different characteristics and what traditional warfare has kind of looked for in characteristics I've taken a look at some studies about what defines what a military character might look at when looking for the right traits of a male or female so some of the things that were noted in some for example a book that wasn't so favorable about women in in combat was co-ed combat and looked at saying men were really good at thrive in competition hierarchy and conflict they had very risk-taking behavior they were impulsive and they they while they had greater physical strength they were aggressive these are great characteristics for attracting junior enlisted and even junior officers to have these characters great for traditional warfare right qualities that you want your your soldier sailors to have that will will make them into you know good combat effective troops women on the other hand some studies in in the University of British Columbia showed that women surprisingly had greater muscular endurance that that means that in some studies they showed that things like ultra marathons and also endurance sports that required great stamina over time and the longer the race the better women actually outperformed men they had a greater muscular structural ability for their their muscles to last longer there's some speculation because of their their fat fatty tissue and their ability to to withhold that longer they could sustain their movements at a much greater rate some studies also showed conservation of resources that women were better at certain tasks in the G at the GCT itf that I was part of one of the things where women excelled was actually the counterattack women conserve their resources they took their ammunition instead of expending it all on the first assault they they held it and then did the counterattack intend to do much better with greater accuracy on that team oriented problem solvers there's been a lot of studies that have shown that women have a really good ability to form teams and be form cohesive units and be very good with that uh detail oriented organized another hallmark trade that is associated a lot with with females another thing that came out of that study from co-ed combat also that women have an empathetic nature to them and that they thrive on equality and cooperation many of these don't look like great qualities for combat soldier or sailor you know they're they're counterintuitive who wants the empathetic soldier who cares too much about people or or adversaries right but consider this in the context of the industrial age model and what combat is expected from before and we're going to look through and see what our current construct our current national security looks like and how that might be different when you look at this through this model all right we talk of strategic competition requiring more diverse participants particular women at senior ranks so the new national security strategy says that we're in a strategic competition the competition continuum which means that traditional combat roles are changing and the need for traditional military is changing roles are changing with that when you talk about competition continuum you're talking about that phase before conflict that phase that you conduct different actions such as diplomacy security cooperation to prevent conflict from happening the gray zone warfare military doesn't exist in war and peace but it's in a continuum so that means a consistent presence is happening consistent action to take against working against adversaries no longer just a conflict here's another example of the competition spectrum right peaceful presence show of intent use the force escalation all before lethal combat is established some people call it gray zone warfare gray zone warfare being that that asymmetric warfare that may not even be recognized by the government acting that but is the military presence that does some other action on another country that may not be that may be clandestine for example in the great power competition more and more and and cold war actions are seeing in this spectrum here before lethal combat is established with that in mind how do we shape our force to look more like the types of forces we need to conduct those gray force operations to conduct those cyber offensive attacks or to be involved in economic sanctions diplomacy security cooperation right are those traditional skills that you saw in the couple slides before are those the skills that we need for our personal our military personal to have our military leaders to possess to do that don't forget those characteristics are the same ones that go and drive towards the senior leadership positions too so with those characters in mind are those the types of senior leaders we want to make decisions about our competition spectrum because in great gray zone warfare women become increasingly a part of the conflict as the battle exists everywhere all society is brought into the conflict there are no borders anymore with gray zone conflict there's not a battle that napoleon goes out and attacks the force and then comes back and withdrawals and there's specific area conflict is everywhere it can be in space in every domain so with this paradigm shift in mind from conventional warfare to competition continuum to controlled security this is just a look at how we can visualize our different our different characters of war i read a very good book by colin gray recently called another bloody century and in it he describes with a lot of premonition while it was written in 2005 he describes kind of the competition continuum he says the character of war can change and depending on what our end goal is we have to adjust to that so when looking at conventional warfare our end goal and immediate acting and making an immediate change sometimes we see just a land or navy based domain with that one or two direct combat goals achieved through violent action but with the competition continuum now you're using this gray zone warfare very ambiguous type of of needs maybe you're not even going somewhere maybe you're staying home and doing some kind of computer operation or you're doing some space technology or you're doing robotics or something or using artificial intelligence to enact some change it's in a multi-domain conflict below the threshold of war the goals are achieved through different means often the adversary is using manipulation with the goal of a gradual de-escalation of prevention of conflict and the future if we look to that what kind of environment and colin gray describes this very well what kind of future environment do we really want what is our desired end state is it not to achieve long-term stability and security and if that is the case then why shouldn't we achieve that through statecraft why are we so poor in achieving that end state if that's what we want or do we want conflict if we're interested in long-term stability and security then we use deterrence it's policy driven it's controlled security and maybe that character of war looks a little bit more female in character has some more characteristics that we've seen before on that other slide maybe we need more people who look like that who have those qualities that enable them to be good decision makers very with self-restraint the kinds of people who take that unmanned ground vehicle and are able to deliberately wait for the right time to launch that missile and determine whether those are civilians or those are adversarial combat forces against maybe those are the types of people who could help drive those decisions and enable them to have long-term stability and security so with all that in mind taking into what characteristics we want for the future perhaps it's more of a hybrid version we definitely need more tech savvy people who are enabled to understand this rapidly advancing technology in this new warfare spectrum people who understand who can think sharply who can innovate of course the traditional traits are very important it we probably cannot conceive of a of a military without ground forces nor should we I mean just look at the current construct of what's happening with Ukraine and Taiwan to know that that probably traditional combat is always here to stay that that's an inevitable factor of of war that violence will remain on some spectrum physical fitness is important aggressive leadership rates all those are very important for military but what about being culturally adept proficient at technical skills the ability to solve problems leadership traits how should we rank and prioritize those should we eliminate people who have those skills just because they're not physically fit to do that job why do we have one standard for all military personnel if there are some who are more equipped to do other tasks better and who could help lead and and be innovative in a different realm and still be effective parts of the military force or how about some of the things that military that women have the advantage of complex problem-solving skills social sensitivity when you talk about some of those those more up close jobs like security cooperation why not put more females and jobs like that where they have the ability to interact with the populace and make a real big effect pre-combat phase team oriented a very important skill to be able to go in and cooperate with other governments to be able to make a difference together as a team so some people argue that inclusion of women in the military actually takes away from combat effectiveness I think I talked about that a little bit earlier and in 1991 before the combat exclusion came came about in the discussion whether to include women in combat roles not in combat but in just in combat roles to support combat general Barrow the 27th comment on the Marine Corps said women should not be in combat because they it's not about women's rights equal opportunities career assignments for enhancement and selection to a higher rank it's about most assuredly about combat effectiveness combat readiness and winning the next conflict I concur 100% with general Barrow it is about winning the next conflict it is about combat effectiveness and about combat readiness we should never sacrifice those things that's how we win as a force but in a different operating environment that takes us somewhere different looking at the trends and the changes that have come about with warfare and the things that we need to succeed maybe we have winning the next war requires a different type of person maybe combat effectiveness and combat readiness look very different than the traditional industrial model that was seen before interestingly enough the current commentant general Berger created two new documents force design 2030 and talent management 2030 where he says our organization processes and approach to personnel and talent management are no longer suited to today's need and incompatible with the objectives therefore transitioning to strengthening Marines and improving the performance of our unit remains that we're most ready when our nation is least it's a remarkable document that talks about maximizing our talent by understanding the diversity necessary to to bring people who understand different technology who have the ability to do different things who might not all look the same and we might not have all one structure where they neatly fit in they might have different physical abilities they might come in at later times in their life but looking at how we can actually effectively make the best force to fight the next war or to to not fight the next war to actually coexist and have stability and security so I know I've talked a lot about different ideas about women in future warfare and it's there's there's a lot to digest there but women and men are really not that different when it comes down to it I talked about some different characteristics that they have but in essence men and women in the military do a fair job together they have and in all fields women and men are generally integrated it's only in really the military and other fields that that women have been segregated and so if we think how society has run men and women have served and been integrated in America throughout throughout time I will point out that combat teams could be a diverse mix of people diversity has been shown to to enhance creativity it's been shown to have the ability to have people solve problems more effectively especially in a complex operating environment when rapid technological developments require our best and brightest to tackle problems if we recruit to women's strengths and not their weaknesses we're looking at a totally different construct the list I showed you before of those general characteristics a lot of women who join the military have those male strengths actually and that's why they joined because they were attracted to things that made them more masculine I fall into that category uh but why not recruit to things that women are very good at in general that that women have highlight we would attract much more people I think if we look towards where women have their their their most prominent strengths the complexity of competition gray zone warfare aligns to many of the women's strengths that were pointed out if we consider that those strengths might make our force look different then that's not a bad thing that maybe makes and enables us to make better decisions as policymakers as senior leaders enables them to become part of the equation about deciding for future for national security issues and what what happens without that how are we able to to solve those competition gray zone warfare and design that in a way that makes sense I really like the quote from Joan uh johnson frees women should be the architects in solving security challenges as they are the most impacted as I as I quoted before the fragility of states linked to women's violence and the fact that women are inextricably linked to that necessitates that women are involved in all different aspects from senior leaders policymakers to to ground soldiers too that they have that they take place in that and they're part of that dialogue in order to prevent conflict in order to prevent violence that they are the the missing equation to helping to to fix those challenges too in conclusion in order for the us to continue to maintain a competitive edge in an era of great power competition where gray zone warfare is the norm critical skills are required the us to reexamine how the military and political policy apparatus seeks to confront the changing character of war the inclusion of women is a future warfare considerations during the competition continuum seems a prudent way to gain more diverse strengths across the board seeking people with broad talents who contribute to members and senior leaders in securing us peace and security with that this concludes my lecture thank you thank you we have time for questions we'll start with any questions we might have here in the auditorium anyone have is that needed they'd like to identify yes sir no that's a great question I think there is a bit of you can't you can't integrate unless you're totally integrated right unless you don't make concessions so I would say that looking at in designing a new force the consideration should be given that you know there are unique aptitudes of certain people there are also some things that I think we should honor to women who have children for example who are not mentally you know willing to go to combat there there's in my opinion there's something sacred about that but putting some kind of conscription that involves maybe some support role with that I think is another way even for men who are physically unfit to do so and making support roles so tearing it a little bit instead of everyone's going to go off and rush and be an infantryman and be in combat why not tear that so that there's you know certain roles that people can do in that way it makes it very fair for for everyone to choose what kind of role they want to serve in professor stokes can you repeat the question that was asked and just as a reminder for the people that in the audience if you could use your mic so that the folks in that are participating participating in zoom can hear okay sure the question was about should women serve in selective service be required to be in us selective service thank you gary do you have any questions from our zoom audience I do the first question is what is the biggest challenge going forward for women in military leadership positions and also what's the greatest opportunity or benefit can you repeat the second part of the question what benefits would would sure what's the biggest challenge for women in military leadership positions as well as what's the greatest opportunity or benefit okay great I wrote chapter could probably answer this better than I can but if I could take this opportunity I would say that there's there's some challenges to and ma'am if you want to also answer that question that would be very welcome to since we have you here some of the the opportunities are that women have a different perspective often and any perspective that's different is good because it's bringing a nuanced view to how to do things having having different people at the table who think differently is very important when you're talking about policy issues getting people to agree disagree and come up with a better way of doing things is is very important and and so I think that's an opportunity there's also opportunities in many organizations to to be involved to on think tanks NGOs as I mentioned so I think military women leaders should be involved not just in their organization but interagency too there's a lot of influence they can give to other organizations about what needs to be done how to interact there's a lot of people who do that who are involved with many other organizations in terms of challenges I would say that as the glass ceiling becomes lifted there's still some challenges there there's still minority of females especially at the higher ranks who didn't have opportunities to go through any kind of combat role you know I that combat roles were open when I was just a captain I believe and so there's you know any anybody who's in the senior ranks even even less so there were no opportunities for them and so that experience of being in combat having that experience has taken away they're not yet invited to perhaps some of those conversations that would happen with people who have that combat experience not saying that's always the case but in general some of the more senior people aren't going to have that same experience level but the challenge for me is how do we get them there quickly even before you know that next generation comes up because they have an opportunity to to share so much they need to already be part of that conversation not 10 years or now they need to be there they're now ma'am do you want to add anything I don't want to put you on the spot I'd like to say first that was a wonderful lecture very I was very engaged with the material and I appreciate so much the historical references that you gave I will say that I and I'll say it with a smile on my face for those of you who are online that I'm generally cautious in making generalizations about any person or group of people and one of the byproducts of my experience in the military is to understand that each individual brings specific talents that may fall neatly inside of a generalization or far outside of any generalization and that I'm optimistic that as we progress in removing barriers to full and meaningful participation for women and other protected groups that we should look very very closely at the full capability and capacity of the individual because if we are going to talk about readiness and about fighting and winning our nation's next wars that we will be able to access the tremendous potential in each individual who serves thank you ma'am Gary any other questions and I and kind of related to that does the U.S. military have women trained in all major skill sets both in active hot war and support roles are we lagging in some areas some maybes will not allow women in submarines or women in combat what your opinion of this and I didn't catch if that was internationally or with the U.S. is there a particular reference of are they asking for with regard to U.S. integration or international I think the the the focus was U.S. Okay so women are allowed in all combat jobs right now so they have the potential of doing that but there are many jobs that require a vetting period and so that requires that they go through the training to see and assess if they are capable of doing that job and that's a standard that's held for example if they want to become a ranger they have to go through ranger school if they want to be an infantry officer in the Marine Corps they have to go through the infantry officer's course and pass it and be selected same with special operations they have to go through that training and be able to pass that assessment course so even though there's integration there's still challenges and barriers to being able to get through that course and and pass it which are very physically rigorous often and require you know very physically fit individuals to pass it regardless of gender let me throw one out one of the talking heads on television if you will they just took huge offense to the notion of a pregnancy uniform for aviators and said that the U.S. is becoming a weaker service and the Chinese and others are becoming much stronger because they don't do those kind of things any comment about that kind of an attitude and is there anything you can do to change that kind of attitude in America's public you know my my individual opinion is that women those are can be important issues right as much as uniform that they may seem like trivial issues but there's a morale issue with involved I mean I take pride in a marine uniform because it looks very sharp right people take pride in having their military uniform that looks and and with considerations about you know looking good as a as a woman who's pregnant is an important consideration too I would say that with regard to China making comments China and Chairman Mao previously had said that women are half of the nation something to that effect that women should be you know seen and revered as the same as men but that's not exemplified in the Chinese military at all in fact there's very few women have reached senior ranks there and it's a very you know different culture than America so it's it's very easy to criticize things that look trivial when when they're not their points of pride for a military culture to have those as as things that are significant for them so I don't see them as being trivial Harry anything else from zoom yeah maybe one other question are there adjustments that can be made to basic training to speed up incorporating men and women becoming stronger teammates in different professions I don't have a lot of information from this but I know that integration where they are trained along each other for example some of the integration efforts done in San Diego as of late with the Marine Corps have been successful and there's something to be said about training alongside men and women integrated officers have traditionally kind of had an integrated program now having enlisted having an integrated program I think is very important they see and train together see each other's aptitude it's harder for them to criticize when they know that everyone's doing the same skills and the same things are required from them and so just to speed along training I would say just more integrated training I'm I don't believe in making things easier but I do think making them smarter maybe developing skills where people can exceed in every kind of strength might be worthwhile having a more diverse way of testing people training there is a great program that's called I think the leadership course that officers go through where you go through a series of complex challenging tests very hard most people fail those are great team bonding training courses that require a lot of complex thinking a lot of teamwork that should be kind of incorporated more into more basic training they don't do enough of that and I think they're great skill building things even for units to go when it employ as teams to build that cohesion okay I think that concludes our discussions I'd like to thank Colonel Stokes Professor Stokes for her efforts and great discussion and I invite you all to come back in two weeks and we'll focus on issues related to North Korea thank you very much good night