 Greetings, everyone. My name is Saira Yameen, and I'm the Women, Peace, and Security Chair here at the Naval War College. It is my privilege to introduce you today to a very distinguished panel on Women, Peace, and Security and why it matters to future war fighting. I will introduce our speakers, our panelists, in the order that they will speak. Our first speaker is Lieutenant General retired Dan Fickleaf. He has had a tremendous impact on international security as a war fighter, as a peacemaker, and an educator. But what I know him best for is his role as a champion of women, peace, and security, as a former director of the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, one of the DOD's six centers on regional security studies where I worked with him for several years. General Leif had a transformative impact on the organization, and not only that, he has been instrumental in raising awareness about women, peace, and security in the DOD and across the US government for a decade at a time when few people knew about it and understood its importance. Our next speaker is Dr. Joan Johnson-Freeze. She is a senior fellow at the Women in International Security Forum, but she's actually one of our very own. She retired very recently, a few days ago, after 20 illustrious years at the Naval War College, about half of them as a chair of the National Security Affairs Department. And she has been recognized as a national asset on space security studies, national security. She served in several PME institutions, but in recent years she has become a world-renowned author and keynote speaker on women, peace, and security. She's written two books and dozens of articles on this topic. Following her, we will have Dr. Ottawa Sanders. She is one of our postdoc fellows in the National Security Affairs Department. She is absolutely outstanding. Her teaching and research specializations focus on nuclear security, foreign policy decision-making, nuclear non-proliferation. We're thrilled to have her, and she's going to share some of her research insights on why women matter in national security decision-making when it comes to nuclear proliferation and deterrence. Our last speaker is Major General retired Suzanne Marslam. She is currently the newest president of the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. She's the first woman and first native Hawaiian to become president of this wonderful institution. I've had the great privilege of working with her closely when she served in key leadership positions in the US Indo-Pacific Command up until last year. And I saw her enduring impact on male and female security practitioners in the Indo-Pacific region as a military leader, speaker, mentor, and a bridge builder. So without further ado, over to you, General Lee. Thanks, Sarah. It's great to see you. I'm so proud of what you're doing here at Naval War College and loved working with you at APCSS. Aloha, Admiral. Thanks for letting me be part of this panel. At my age, I usually start any hour, really, with, why am I here? So why am I here? Why do I care about women, peace, and security? I have been a prime exemplar through much of my life of toxic masculinity and did better in bar fights and dog fights than in venues like this. So why do I care about women, peace, and security? Because it works. Pure and simple. Because the inclusive approach to security works better. I'm also here because of some exemplars. I have a now 37-year-old daughter who's the most capable leader I've ever known. And if Sarah has heard me say many times that if I could be anything in life, I'd be more like her. As the vice commander at Air Force Space Command, we had this extraordinary cadre of colonels who happened to be females who took space as their avenue to operational involvement in the Air Force when the cockpits were denied. And there were awesome people like Susan Helms, retired three-star former astronaut. And they were an exemplar. And then 12 or 13 years ago, right here at Naval War College, I had a chance to run into a famous China scholar, Dr. Orianna Schuyler-Mastrow, who at the time was a PhD candidate at Princeton. And I encouraged her and helped her get into the Air Force Reserve, where she now serves. All of these women bring so much to the fight, or better yet, not fighting, that how can we not involve them? It would be stupid. It is stupid. Now, having said that, I'm not politically correct. And I do not care about your pronouns. And you can't make me. Well, actually, since I'm at the get-off-my-lawn stage of life, I do care about your pronouns. And the focus on them irritates the crap out of me, because it's such a superficial approach to inclusivity. And if we do those superficial things, those handwaves to inclusion, we assume we're doing something when we're not. And it's almost worse than doing nothing. We have to do substantive things to normalize inclusive security, if we're going to be the best we can, if we're going to do the best we can. Now, names do matter, even though I just derided pronouns. Names do matter, and there probably isn't a worse chosen, more unfortunately chosen, name than women, peace, and security, because it implies men war and insecurity. And that is not helpful. If you don't promote inclusion by shifting your exclusion, by pushing any group to the side. So that irritates me. Can you tell I'm a grumpy old man now at my grumpy old age? Not really, but I care so much about peace and security that I want to see us do it right. So how do we do that practically? I'll share what we did as a team at AP CSS and why I think it worked and what our rationale was, and do that quickly. When I got to AP CSS as the director with the background of appreciation for women in security matters, we were having about 7% to 9% of our fellows who happen to be women. That's not enough. It's not even representative of the security communities. We had one course sponsored under UNSCR, the UNSCR on Women, Peace, and Security, that had about 20%. It was very early in my tenure. I observed it. I said, that's a good thing. It's effective. It makes for a better dialogue. And because I was the dictator of the college and far enough from Washington that we didn't get much oversight from our bosses, I said, OK, we're going to do 20%. We're going to have 20% women in every course. And women, peace, and security is now my top priority as director of AP CSS. And it will be my top priority until I leave, period. Couple things, that sustained pressure is necessary. You can't make it today's topic or this year's priority. If you're going to promote real change in any way, it has to be somewhat endless, at least in terms of your leadership tenure. So it was, why 20%? 20% was achievable for one thing. It was absolutely arbitrary. I made it up. But the other thing it did was get at least two women in every seminar so that there wasn't a token woman, if you will, who would either be marginalized or devised. And I saw that happen in the dynamics of the seminars. And more importantly, it made it clear that there isn't a woman's perspective. They're the perspectives of women who vary in what country they came from, what their security discipline was, military, civilian, whatever. Now, did it work? Because I know we're on a tight time schedule here. Yes, it worked. How do I know? I'm prone to use anecdotal evidence. I'm not a scholar like many of our panelists and other speakers. We had a modality for commencement of our long five-week courses at APCSS where the class, the class body, chose their speakers. Who would represent them at commencement and speak on behalf of all of the fellows? By the way, we initiated that at the suggestion of one of our female fellows. We didn't do that originally when I got there. With 20% or so females in the course, over the next four and a half years, over 50% of the selected by acclamation representative speaking on behalf of all of the fellows were women. I think that's a powerful testimony to the fact that their interaction in this security education environment had been normalized. And let me close by saying, or almost close, if we govern human behavior with norms, standards, rules, and laws, in something like inclusivity and equal opportunity, the laws are least important. They have to drive you to normalization. And so as leaders, you've got to ensure that diverse contributions to your security discussions, your formulating and implementing of security plans is normal. It's expected. And it's not exceptional. Thank you. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you very much, sir. The importance of male championship of women, beasts, and securities, absolutely of the essence. And I think we all benefited from your comments. And we look forward to questions. And now without taking more time, I'd like to invite Dr. Joan Johnson to freeze for her comments. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'd like to begin by asking you a question. How many people in the audience raise your hand? Feel that they have a kind of working knowledge or conversant in the topic of women, peace, and security. OK, all right. If I had to guess, I'd say maybe 15, 20 of you raised your hand. Don't feel bad. That's about the same percentage I get, whether I'm talking in Redding, Pennsylvania, the Naval War College, NDU, or in Ethiopia. If the audience is 10 people or 1,000 people, usually it's no more than 10%, which is kind of amazing, given that the framework, the Women, Peace, and Security Framework, was passed by the UN in 2000 and made law in the United States in 2017. Your security practitioners and DOD, State, USAID, and Homeland Security are the four agencies charged with implementation. You can't implement what you don't know about. So I'm going to take a few minutes and just walk through some of the premises that General Figg has supported. And we are so grateful for his support. First of all, I have to convince you of relevance. And as I was sitting there listening to the first panel, the Scare the Bejesus Out of You panel, I realized that I had to at least talk you into staying awake. And why does it matter to you? What is it? A lot of people who talk about this topic would begin and say it's important. And people would say, well, that's just your opinion. No, no it's not. It's empirically shown. A group of researchers at Texas A&M, led by a woman named Valerie Hudson, began working on huge data sets saying, what happens when you live in a society where gender equality is low? What statistically happens? And as you can see, there are a lot of indicators that show that there is a direct link between gender equality and state security. The Women, Peace, and Security title, I agree with you, it's a bad title, makes it sound like this is a social justice program. It is not a social justice program. It's a security program. So there is now a large bank of empirical evidence that links, again, gender security, gender equality to state security. The Women, Peace, and Security framework has four pillars. Everything from the UN has pillars and dots. But what I'd really like to say is it boils down to two things, inclusiveness. Gender, what's called inclusiveness. And that means that we're not looking for women to have a seat at the table. We want them to have a voice at the table. And we know that doesn't happen until there is a certain percentage. As you said, one woman is not going to speak up. And by the way, we're not a Borg. There isn't a woman's view. The term is intersectionality. Women have different views. And until you have 20%, it's about the minimum. It's usually about 30% where women feel they can participate without potential retribution for their often diverse views. It means including women in negotiations in Afghanistan. It means having a panel, this was a few years ago, and boy, did they get flack for it, having a panel on women's contributions to security and not having a woman on it. It's the idea of inclusive diversity. The second part of the Women, Peace, and Security framework is what's called gendered perspectives. And that means thinking about how policies and programs affect men, women, boys, and girls differently. Crash dummies, what has that got to do with anything? Well, there are more fatalities in traffic accidents among women than men. And it's not because we are worse drivers. It's because crash dummies are built according to men's body physics, which doesn't work on a five-foot-two woman. So it's this thinking it through, thinking through how do policies affect people differently. On a more macro scale, the other image there, the Food and Agriculture Organization, says that if we were to take the amount of food aid that is distributed globally and not added to it, just take the same aid and distribute it differently. It's usually given to landowners. And in many countries, women can't own land, but they are the primary agricultural workers. If we distribute it aid differently, we could have 100 million people globally who didn't have to go hungry. So it's thinking about inclusive diversity and gendered perspectives. If you leave here with nothing more than that in terms of what the framework is, we'll have advanced. So what do women bring to decision-making? You know, it's additive. And that's the point we want to get across. We're not saying one is better than the other, but all of you are charged with giving your bosses options. And what bringing women to the table does is enlarge your options because of a couple of things. This is a graphic that you will see many professors use in the National Security Affairs Department here, have used it for a very long time. My colleagues, Derek Revron and Jim Cook, published it in Joint Force Quarterly in 2014. And it's how we talk about strategy, strategy development. And it starts with what do you want to do? And we talk about that there are two external factors that will play into the strategy that you develop, critical factors. One is budget. Only poets write strategy without a budget. The second is security environment. Understanding the security environment is critical. The more you know, the more you can incorporate into your strategy. Understanding the Sunni Shia conflict in Iraq, initially we didn't get it. And it hindered us considerably. So the more you know, the more you can factor in. We have learned the value of including women into this. The female engagement teams in Iraq and Afghanistan were able to gather more and different types of information from the women in the villages that they could talk to that the men couldn't. So the first thing you get is more information. There are also different approaches to conflict management. And we're talking proclivities, there are always exceptions, but it probably won't surprise you to know that men favor two kinds of conflict management. Winning and avoidance. It's just proclivities, but that's what it is. Adding in women adds more options, adds in collaboration, coordination, even acquiescence. It adds too, you are going to get different options. The next panel's on space security, and I spent decades, literally decades, working on space security. And I spent lots of time on panels like this arguing for, okay, we're spending lots of time thinking about war fighting in space, but how much time do we spend on diplomacy because the number one threat in space is space debris. It's getting women to add in different types of options. Oh, sorry, let's see if I can back up. Also, we know that men and women communicate differently. You can come out of a meeting with men and women and the men will say, boy, this is what it was about. And the women might say, I read the room entirely differently. I heard different things. Women communicate to make relationships. Men communicate for far more pragmatic alliance-building reasons. Again, all this is just additive. So how does it matter? We know bringing women into negotiations brings up the chances that the treaties that result from the negotiations, the chances that they will sustain from periods of time go up by double-digit percentages. But yet, women are included only a very small percentage of the time. What we are arguing in women, peace and security, is to have this additive value that inclusive diversity and gendered perspectives brings. Finally, I'll just give you a couple of very brief examples. The one article is there from a former student of mine who is an Air Force, she's in the Air Force, part of the Kessel Run Unit that does cyber. And she argues that most women are funneled into the area of cyber that deals with basically keeping your email safe. And that's important. Don't get me wrong. But she argues that getting more women into cyber warriors, those who do the kind of things that the Admiral just talked about brings in more options and more perspectives. As I mentioned, in space, having women involved gets you thinking, or I tried for 20 years to do it with no success whatsoever, getting people to think beyond just war fighting and into what diplomacy can add to you. And the last, we talked, the last panel talked about AI. This is a great case study. It basically says who codes matters that our coding for facial recognition did not result in a system that would recognize black women because black women weren't included in the coders and so didn't think about the including those elements in AI that would result in effective facial recognition. That leaves a big gap in your knowledge as war fighters. So finally, I'm just gonna bring you back to this slide and say as you go through the curriculum this year, I would encourage you to ask your instructors to think about yourselves, what role does gender play and bring that into your decision-making regardless of what field it is. So thank you. Dr. Johnson, please thank you so much for a very enlightening and engaging discussion and for offering so many ideas for discussion in class and you made a very good case for Dr. Sanders to build on. So Dr. Sanders, over to you. Yes, thank you. Good morning, everyone. It is an honor to be with you today and I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to speak. Today I want to talk about the value women bring in national security decision-making particularly in the nuclear domain. UN Security Council Resolution 1325, the main supporting documents of the WPS framework encourages member states to increase the representation of women at all levels in national, regional and international institutions for the prevention, maintenance and resolution of conflict. Subsequent resolutions and the WPS agenda also focus on the participation of women such as UN SCR 1889, which highlights peace building and women's participation in all states of the peace process and UN SCR 2022 which sets out concrete methods for combating women's participation deficit. In addition, in the DOD Women, Peace and Security Strategic Framework Implementation Plan which supports the WPS Act of 2017, the line of effort number one addresses participation of women which emphasizes the integration of women and national security decision-making. Nuclear decision-making is an important aspect of national security where women can and should play a role. While issues of equity and equality are important, I along with other WPS proponents argue that it is more than just a social justice issue, it is a national security issue and the promotion of women and the domain of nuclear decision-making and diplomacy can advance US interests and protect national security. Recent research has been conducted examining the relationship between gender and nuclear diplomacy. Surveys of more than 80 multilateral meetings on arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament spanning 40 years show patterns and trends pertaining to gender balance in forums on weapons and technology for both military and non-military purposes. Finding show that women comprise only one third of diplomat accredited to arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament forums. Moreover, in smaller, more specialized forums, the average proportion of women drops to around 20%. Greater participation in nuclear negotiations is an avenue where women's perspective can elevate national security and produce better outcomes. Evidence-based research finds that there is a 20% increase in the probability of peace agreements lasting at least two years when the peace process involves women as mediators, negotiators and signatories. This rate increases over time. In other words, when women are part of the negotiating process, the durability of the agreement lasts. Why does women's participation in formal agreements produce better outcomes? One possible solution to this question lies in thinking about the gender-based characteristics of women. Women are perceived to be more trustworthy better listeners, more cooperative and better adapt at building relationships and networking with others. Research also finds that women have a greater sensitivity towards those with opposing opinions. All of these attributes make women highly effective at problem-solving and innovating skills required for meaningful nuclear negotiations. Now I'm not suggesting that women should replace all men in nuclear negotiations. I'm merely suggesting that women should play a more prominent role in nuclear negotiations as gender-diverse groups produce better outcomes than those lacking such diversity. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Aran deal, is an instance in which the negotiating team was gender-diverse. A team of female diplomats, one American, two Europeans, were involved in the negotiations and women were key to the comprehensive accord reached between Aran and the P5 plus one on July 14, 2015. The three women were Federico Mogadini, Wendy Sherman, and Halga Schmidt, who stated that women are better negotiators. Now what makes women better negotiators? Some might disagree with me as I put this point, but when women enter the room, they bring about a sense of calmness. They often lower the amount of heat in a room. They reduce the intensity of conflict and that makes women particularly advantageous when we're working in these forums together and trying to sift through these challenging problems. While our leaders are trying to resuscitate the collapsed nuclear deal, women spearheaded these early efforts. Moreover, our adversaries have also seen the benefit of having women as top negotiators. North Korea, for example, appointed diplomat Shui Sun Wei as the nation's first female foreign minister. She was a nuclear negotiator. Moreover, other states, including Russia and China, may seek to emulate the West by appointing more women as nuclear negotiators. I want to conclude my remarks by making the observation that women have value beyond the nuclear domain. A lot of our discussion over the past day has dealt with technological innovation and the changing dynamics of war. As state and non-state actors, develop and weaponize new technology to include AI, robotics, and quantum computing, agreements and negotiations will no doubt occur as we grapple with the ways in which we can control the development and proliferation of these technologies. Women play a role in these and these discussions. Moreover, as the presence of these new technologies redefine the security environment which in turn influences the dynamics of war, the US and its allies need individuals who are agile, creative, and innovative, who can help solve these problems and ensure that the US maintains a competitive advantage. It's time to tap into the potentials and capabilities of the other 50% of the population. Our national security depends upon it. Thank you very much. Dr. Sanders, that was outstanding, really fantastic. And now to our last speaker who I believe exemplifies how women in the US are indispensable to US hard power, smart power, and soft power, Major General Suzanne Weislam, over to you. Thank you so much, Dr. Yamine. Aloha mai kakou, a warm greeting from Hawaii that I bring to all of you here, Admiral Chatfield, and congratulations to all of you. It's wonderful to be here as an Army person, sitting in the middle of all these naval personnel here from around the world, so it's very exciting. I'm at the end of this discussion to talk about how you operationalize women, peace, and security. I can tell you bottom line, it really is about winning. It's about saving those resources and saving lives. Many of us here, how many of you think you would go into an environment and only have 50% of the picture, 50% of the resources? From my book on that metrics, 50% is combat ineffective. And I'm sure that most of you, you've done it before with very limited information. But this picture that I have up here, I'm gonna tell you a story because as we heard from Peter Singer stories, and while this one is not fiction, it's non-fiction, it's my story, that picture there is actually OIF3. And these young girls came up to me, a lot of young girls, but I can tell you a patrol that would go through in Iraq or Afghanistan for those who've been here. So I'm not telling you something you don't know. You know that you didn't have access. Now access was key and we heard that earlier with Dr. Johnson to freeze that you had female engagement teams. But when I was there in OIF3, we did not have female engagement teams. So guess what we did? You're a cook, you're a driver, you're gonna go with the infantry and when they do the cordon and search, we're gonna call you in and you're gonna search the women because guess what was underneath a lot of their garb, right? Weapons, camera that was videotaping the indirect fire that would fire on the bases. At that time, OIF3 was pre-surge, portray us as surge. So you had about 30 IEDs a day across Iraq, four to five times a week indirect fire rockets and mortars. So in order to find out that information, we would send these untrained female engagement teams because we realized we needed it. We didn't come into that environment understanding the operating environment ahead of time. We just went in, we did our Pemissi, we did our political, military evaluation of the operating environment, but we didn't think about the other 50% because the last time I checked, most of the world has 50% women and 50% men. So when we talk about women, peace and security, it's just like General Leaf said, maybe gender, peace and security, some people, when we're looking at the humanity, the total population, we break it down. Where do we have access? Particularly in an environment where religion and culture doesn't allow you that access, women become critical. We found that we had to find women for special operations activities. Can you give up six women? But these were all ad hoc. We need to institutionalize these things for the future. We need to think about where we are in space, where we are in cyber, what are the roles that women can play to tap into those resources because then we lose out if we don't. I wanna also spotlight, I'm at East West Center now, I've been there for six months, and we talk about women, peace and security from a non-traditional security realm because we know that, as you've heard, the statistics show that women's involvement equate to stability. And you don't have to be a researcher to figure that out. Just look at the list of countries that are least corrupt and most stable and most economically prosperous. Those allow opportunities for women. I spent the last five and a half years prior to retirement at Indo-Pacific Command working for Admiral Harris and Admiral Davidson, and they were key champions, much like Lieutenant General Leaf, on women, peace and security. In fact, the Indo-Pacific Command, which is the largest and oldest combatant command 36 nations, 14 time zones, four of the five national security challenges that sit there, they decided that what was key in these areas is that we needed to have a women, peace and security advocacy or looking at the gender roles under the surface of you-heard deterrence, all of the things that are happening in the world that integrated deterrence, underneath are people, people who live on the land, and how do we address the instability, the historical grievances that happen, the fact that gender-based violence does have an impact on long-term security. If you don't know that, just sit in a multilateral dialogue where there are historical grievances because of gender-based violence, and you're not gonna get very far. Some of you in here know what I'm talking about, and that was 75, 77 years ago, and yet it still comes up. But who's at the table to negotiate, just like that picture that we saw Dr. Johnson-Defri show up to talk about some of these gender-based violence historic grievances? Are there women at the table to talk about it? That's the question that we need to ask. Admiral Davidson was key in that he took on what Admiral Harris did, which was the first combatant command instruction on having gender advisors at all levels for all components within the combatant command, to provide commanders' insights so that we don't make those mistakes that we did earlier when I went into Iraq, or many of you did in Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 years of conflict. You went in there and you adjusted as many of us do, but we can learn from that and take a look at what is the future gonna bring and what do we need to do to assess, and that's what Admiral Harris did. And when Admiral Davidson came on board, he actually implemented the gender advisors for the command that would provide the kind of training not just for the institution itself, but attaching and building capacity in all of the 36 nations and partnering with our allies so that we can present to everyone this free and open society. What are democracies bring? They bring opportunities, and that was key. I just wanted to highlight also that the challenges to the Indo-Pacific as well as the world are similar. The statistics show, as was mentioned, when there is lack of education, lack of general health care, access to food and employment, protection from violence, equal opportunity, protection from trafficking, those countries are much more stable, and that's why it matters to us because we're about security. People often ask me, why are military care about women, peace and security? But when I tell them this fact that these non-traditional security issues affect us because they create instability, food insecurity, forced migration, all of these things that lead to instability and security. And again, as I mentioned, if you look at the top three countries, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Norway, or four, in terms of anti-corruption, those countries have very much invested in health care, education, access, and those countries do better economically as well. So what does it mean for our future? To meet those future challenges that was just mentioned, we need to think about accessing the human capital and accessing the unique position that women are in in various countries. So you overlap the gender, male and female, and culture, and looking at what the future brings, and that should give you that assessment of what we need to look at. But gender needs to be part of it, particularly as we look at climate security challenges. What is that gonna do? And how does it impact women? Humanitarian assistance disaster relief, and I have an example from Bangladesh that I wanted to share, as well as women's role in human trafficking and reducing violent extremism. Our approach needs to be inclusive, and this is a picture from the Pacific Air Forces right before I retired. General Wilsbach had a inclusive women's gender peace and security is what they called it, actually, general leaf, they took out the women, but we know what they meant. But you can see we've got most of the countries represented, and they were there. And General Wilsbach sat there throughout, just like Admiral Davidson would always introduce, or Admiral Harris would always, because most of the, when you're in a position of leadership and power, the smart way to do business, as Admiral Davidson said, it's not just the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do, is that you look at your entire human capital. In fact, during RIMPAC, which is ending right now in Hawaii, I've participated in many women peace and security, or gender peace and security is what they called it as well, is because it is about that human capital that's so very critically important, and I know I'm talking a little long. I'll go really quickly here. But I wanted to talk about Bangladesh, because they are one of the many countries in the Indo-Pacific that provide peacekeeping forces in Africa, and in fact, they have been doing it for over 30 years. They are one of the few countries that achieved the 16% requirement for women on peacekeeping operations, in fact, had one full team of women in Africa. And about what you said about how it brings down that temperature and brings down that heat, that was one thing that was said to be my, all these young women who I met in Dhaka, all of them have been on a peacekeeping operations, and they said when they go into a village or a country, many of the young women would come up to them and say, are you here to cook? And they said, no, I'm the engineer. I'm here to build you a new displacement facility. It really changed the dynamics on the ground, and the UN has seen the effectiveness of it. So when we talk about operationalizing women peace and security, this is what we're talking about, having women at the checkpoints so that you don't have terrorists exploiting those checkpoints dressing up as women. Also Bangladesh, when we look at climate change and flooding, the seasonal flooding that occurs in many of these small villages, women are left alone. And when there are natural disasters, if we don't train them to be able to take lead, to save lives, then we are missing a great opportunity. So we saw that in terms of training for capacity building in Bangladesh, which was very effective and something that we can take to other countries. And I also want to mention the Philippines very quickly is that in 2017, in Marari, not a small city, about 700,000, ISISP, of course, the fighting there was pretty devastating. 70% of that population just displaced. So what did the Philippines do to prevent radicalization is they sent a whole battalion of women to engage the displaced population, to find out what their needs were and also to prevent further radicalization. So the role of women by looking at the operating environment was key. And so I'll end here because I'm a little over time. I appreciate your indulgence. The last thing I wanted to mention. So what do we do way forward? Advancing it for tomorrow is investing in that education. As leaders, we should be looking at the total operating environment. We should also be looking at our human capital, 100% of it. One of the last things I did before I retired was a quad, a women peace and security quad. Admiral Davidson opened it up and we had rear Admiral Arti Sarin from India, Captain Philippa Hay from Australia, a surface warfare officer, one of the first women during RIMPAC to do a combined joint task force two years ago. And Captain Junko Kawashima from the Japanese Maritime Defense Forces. And she's also surface warfare officer. So we had all of them there, representing the quad, showing what a free and open society is. Our competitive advantage against authoritarian regimes are our democracy, our belief that everyone has something to contribute. And I think that is a powerful message. That's all I have. Thank you so much. General, thank you so much. As always, this was wonderful. Ladies and gentlemen, before we open it up for discussion, please join me in thanking the distinguished panel for their wonderful comments. Okay. I also need to give my panel full marks for staying on time. So now we have plenty of time for questions. All right. We would like to invite your questions and comments. We have about almost 25 minutes, almost, right. Okay. Sir. Major John Cohen, US Army Infantry Officer. My question is for General Varis Loom. So I'm coming from the Third Security Forces Assistance Brigade. We just got back from a operational deployment to the SENCOM AOR. And anecdotally, we had a lot of issues with our female team leader advisors in a leadership position, trying to interact with partner nations who might not have as progressive of an outlook towards women, peace and security, and sort of less willing to partner and cooperate with some of those women in leadership positions. Can you just provide some evidence how you've navigated some of those issues with partner states that might not have the same outlook on this issue as we do? Thank you. Thanks so much. And thanks for your service. Great example. And you know, when I was at Indo-Pacific Command, I entered the five and we did a lot of bilats with Asian countries. So guess what the first comment was? How are they gonna interact with the female general officer? I'm happy to say I had no issue. And one of the reasons why is people like Admiral Harris and Davidson shifting power, there is a thing called shifting power. So if you're in the seat of power that this person is my representative, it made a definite difference. The other thing is a concerted effort to help our allies and partners that we're working with and providing training on why it's important. Because what a lot of them believe is that it is this women's advocacy and kind of peace, not looking at it from a practical, operational perspective that it just makes sense. We're gonna get more effectiveness, particularly in countries where men don't have access. It's amazing, right? As you've probably learned what's revealed from talking to various women in their households. And I saw that when we'd walk into a community, they would invite me in, give the babies, come in the kitchen, kiss your face, all of that. So clearly, there was a lot going on. Who's who in the zoo? What are the patterns? So intel and civil society information. But it's almost like you have to convince them. And sometimes it would require men in that group to do it. You have to be sensitive as well. And knowing where the power is in that group. So if you come into a community and you know that the shake is the most powerful, you have to actually pave the way. It has to be iterative. So it can't just be, I just plop it on you, here it is. You have to assess the environment. Who is the one with power? That's who I'm gonna go to. Then I'm gonna open the door. I hope that helps. Thank you. Other questions, comments? Ma'am. Good afternoon. Net Washburn, Captain United States Navy. I'm a P3 pilot and working in emergency management right now in the reserve world. My question is fairly simple, but comes across from the group in here, some of us very senior leaders that have an opportunity like Lieutenant General Leaf was discussing of enforcing policy and making change within our commands or establishment institutions. Others are younger, more junior, and maybe don't have that place of influence quite yet. So my question is what practical advice would you have for us to get involved? How can we help? What can we do to further this process and this important evolution? Thank you. Great question, sir. Would you like to respond to it? And maybe others can add to it as well, thank you. That is a great question. It's a hard question to answer because the circumstances where you're junior and you may or may not have a voice, you may or may not have an advocate. This might sound a bit polyannic, but I'd just say press on and be persistent and insistent in whatever way works in that environment. If you're in an environment where you're marginalized, truly marginalized, well, there are ways to address that, right? But if you're just sort of kept to the side, find an ally, find the allies and partners matter individually as they do internationally, and be persistent and insistent and do it from a mission perspective. You know, Syra and others in APCSS didn't, and I'm not speaking for you, Syra, but I'd always say the mission comes first well before people. If that wasn't the case, we wouldn't let you get shot at. So that's pretty simple in my mind, but my interest in gender, peace, and security, thank you, Suzy, is about the mission. It's not about women, not about the incredible way, it's about the mission, and that's the compelling approach to leaders who haven't opened their eyes, haven't had the epiphany that some of us have, that it's just, it works better. So great question, insufficient answer. It isn't easy, but persistent and insistent. If I could add to that, this idea, we keep going back to women, peace, and security, that it sometimes is just right there, you get the hand. Some aspects, or some parts of the Australian military and the Canadian military and the Scandinavian, some Scandinavian militaries have already changed it to gender, peace, and security to kind of deflect that initial resistance, but the resistance that you are talking about, there's, we talk about blind fish, blind fish, some resistors, it's just a matter of blind fish. Blind fish, what is that? Two fish in a goldfish bowl. One fish says to the other fish, so what do you think of the water? And the other fish says, what's water? It's just a matter, if you have never been exposed to sexism, you don't see it. So sometimes it's a matter of pointing things out in a non-confrontational way. I like to think of these as having opportunities for education, and I heard Michelle Florne, I speak on this a while back, and she said, you also have to figure out, you can't be, what did she call it? Chimp and chump, I think it was. She said, you can't go around with a chip on your shoulder and argue with everybody who is a resister, but you also can't be a chump and just get walked on. So you really have to kind of pick your battles and more than anything else, go for opportunities for education of why gender equality is good for the mission. It's good, that is the point over and over and over again. It's not be nice to the ladies because it's a social justice issue. This is what will make you successful. Thank you for your question. It's a very good one. And I wanna second what the other panelists said here. I think when you are junior and just starting out, that it can be intimidating. It can be intimidating to be in an environment when you are experiencing some pushback. And I think it's important to reach out and seek out mentors and allies who can have your back basically. I think it's important to raise awareness within those around you to share your perspectives and your viewpoints and issues that you think need to be changed. Great, thank you. General Harzlum, did you want to add to it or? Sure, I mean, the women, peace and security, DOD implementation, which came out which actually requires everyone to have a program. But things that are put out there as regulations or acts but that are not resourced or informed. Don't come into fruition, right? So we can have a gender advisor at the highest combatant command. But if it's not down to battalion level, which is really what the implementation guidance says, it's gonna take some time and education, it's the why. When you think about it, we just changed the law in 2015 for women in all combat roles. So there's two parts of this, right? The institutionalization change of women's role in the military, insecurity. And then also the gender lens at which we look at the operating environment that we're operating in. So there's two parts, I think, from the military perspective when we look at human capital. But you almost have to continually make the case as to why it matters. I think that's important. And teaching, and it's venues like this where I hope that today you've learned more than you know more about gender, peace, and security than you did before. I'm not looking for the last word. I just thought of something about all of our answers. All of our answers were generally speaking to the women in the audience. So now for the men, dudes, you're part of the problem, be part of the solution. Look for opportunities to encourage a more inclusive approach to security, to be a partner, be an ally, be persistent and insistent for the mission. Thank you for that, yes, male allyship is critical. Other questions in the back, thank you. Hi, I'm Lieutenant Commander Vorganas from Norway. Obviously, I was a long-term CEO of our minor ships in the Norwegian Navy. And I asked my 12-year-old girl, wouldn't this be a cool job to have for you at some point? And she answered, yeah, that is a crazy cool job, but I don't think I want to spend that much time away from my kids. And the point is, I believe the Navy is gonna lose one crazy good officer because if she can have that perspective, being a 12-year-old, I imagine she will be a tremendous officer when she reach her 30s. Point is, before we reach the strategic level that we have heard a lot of very good examples on today, we need to fix the practical measures to be able to bring women up through the ranks while also being able to sustain and have children, have a family. And I think that is, well, really important. And the question is perhaps the elephant question. How, to what extent has the Roe versus Wade scandal, sorry, my Norwegian opinion, well, actually damaged the gender case of course in the US and thereby also damaging the effect of winning streak that we are discussing today. Thank you. Thank you for your great question. I think we ought to have the space to have these very uncomfortable discussions because that's the only way we can find answers to complicated questions. But I'm very glad I don't have to answer this question and I have... Thanks for your question. And Norway, one of the top four. So anyway, that's been brought up a lot. I had a chance when Secretary Esper was in office and I was at the Army Two Star and we had at that time General Milley before he became the chairman, I asked a question to both of them about women in mid-level career we tend to lose because that's the time they decide to have families. But when you look at Australia and New Zealand, they lead the way, if you ask me, about looking at talent management, providing opportunities. That means you can take leave without being penalized. So if you're an officer, you're a year group, you would go back and join another year group so that we invest so much. So we had Jamie Jamison, Air Force, first female F-22 pilot. We invested a lot of money in that training. Excellent pilot. And she married another pilot. So they have four children. They're in Japan. So the option for her was to go in the reserve and she was assigned to Indo-Pacific Command. So we were still able to use her talent and skill, give her that break. Should she want to go back on active duty, there's an option. The Army at that time didn't have that break. Now I understand the Navy does as well that you're offered that break. But it's those kind of considerations. If we wanna keep talent, we gotta think about how these are real life issues, families. I've heard a lot of men here who have dual military and myself. So you know it's tough and you want a family, but you can do it, but we as an institution need to think about how we help leverage that and how we engage young women, your daughter, to look at the possibility so that they don't, it's interesting, I spoke to a bunch of high school girls. It was General Fenton, he's now the SOCOM commander. So he invited me to speak to his daughter's class. And you know what the question was, was exactly that. You know, I really wanna do that, but I'm worried. So you're 16 and you're already thinking about why you can't do it, because they don't know what's available. So I think we need to help, we can still tap into that talent, particularly when you think about high tech opportunities. We saw we can do a lot of virtual working from home. You know, there's all kinds of ways and we can get creative, we can be innovative instead of stopping ourselves, putting up barriers. So thank you. Any other brave panelists who would like to take on this question? Okay, all right, it was, that was tough. We are brave there. Yeah. Dr. Humana, I cannot. An important question, I think you should take it to seminar, because a lot of people have brought it up, including the WPS team in OSD, that Roe versus Vaid hurts the US image. And so that's something for you to discuss. Does it, does it not, what are the options? What's the right thing to do? It's not an easy question. All right. Thank you, Ma'am, may I speak on that topic? Yes, please. And this is just for the room. This is an issue of policy that's being discussed in our country. There are strongly held beliefs on both sides of this present in the room today. And during these discussions, I would just ask that people be respectful, one of the other, when they are expressing their views on this issue. And for those in the military, the Office of the Secretary of Defense has put out a policy memo that does codify what is still available to military women in federal medical health facilities, which has not changed as a result of the events that have occurred recently in the United States of America. These procedures, however, are not extended to military family members, but military service members. Thank you, Admiral. That's very important. Your words are very important. And I would also like to add that when you have these difficult conversations, yes, as the Admiral said, please be very respectful. And I think being respectful begins with listening to the other side first. I do have a volunteer here on the panel, Dr. Johnson Fries, who would like to try and answer. I'm retired, so what the heck? Agency, the word agency, is a big part of gender empowerment. It means being able to control your choices. And basically, we look at data. I found it so interesting. All of us have prefaced all our remarks with data has shown, research has shown. It's because, initially, these discussions were all about, well, and I got this a lot. Well, Joan, that's just your opinion. No, it's not. It's data-based. Well, research has shown that if women, the more children women have at an earlier age, the less likely they are to be part of economic development. And economic development is a strong part of security. So the ability to control how many children you have and when you have them is a big part of agency. Is it part of the women, peace, and security framework? Not explicitly. It is part of something called feminist foreign policy, which many of the Scandinavian countries have adopted. Because there is such a strong feeling that if you can't control when, if, and how many children you have, you really don't have agency. And you will not be an engaged member of society. So the second part of that is the United States, when I talk to overseas audiences, and I'm sure it's true for others, they point out what a role model we are. That it's so important if we go overseas and talk about the importance of gender empowerment that we have to do as we say not, or do as we say is, what is that one? We have to have domestic and foreign policy match. We can't be telling other countries to do something and not do it ourselves. So I think there are going to be a lot of both, there's going to be a lot of ramifications of Roe v. Wade, a lot of unintended consequences that are going to, that are going to emerge that will affect gender empowerment negatively. Thank you, John. All right, we have a question. We'll take one from the back. Yes, please. Good morning, Commander Chris Hilliard. Sorry, it was a lady over there. She had her hand raised. Thank you. Hi. We're being inclusive, gender inclusive. Hello. I'm Emily Buerkie. I'm an intern with the Ethics and Emerging Military Technologies Program. I asked a question yesterday, if you don't remember. And I will reiterate, I am 20 years old. And so I am looking into my future in government work, hoping to go into the State Department or an intelligence agency. And there have already, at 20 years old, been so many people to tell me, don't go into the Navy or it's going to be incredibly difficult for you to do X, Y, or Z because I am a woman. And there are plenty of other people. I know that who are my age, who are incredibly discouraged from entering into these spaces because of their gender. And so I guess my question is, what advice do you have for young women who are looking into careers in the government and careers in the military specifically and are very apprehensive because of this advice that we get from other people and all of these warnings that we get from our peers about how difficult the road will be for us? Thank you. Thank you for raising that. Who would like to take this question? I'm happy to jump in there. I came in a time when women, again, weren't in combat arms. Yet my first duty station was a field of 3rd Infantry Division, Division Artillery as a fire support intelligence officer, so I thought, great. I thought I was supposed to be in an intel unit. But over time, what I found and what I think we don't message very well, that all my bosses have been men. They're the ones who put me in the position. It was General Fenton that allowed me and Admiral Davidson to be the deputy commander acting Indo-Pacific commander, acting chief of staff. They were men. All my bosses have been. And yet, they were the ones that were looking for talent. And that, to me, I think we don't message enough. Yes, what's going to get in the paper about those things that happen at Fort Hood for the Army is going to be that small percentage. But what we don't hear is the amazing leadership opportunities that young women get. And if you can ask, I mean, Admiral Chatfield, General Berg, I'm sorry, I joined you in the Army. But Admiral, but the amazing opportunities, things that you can do that you never, this is what we need to share to young women, that you shouldn't listen to what the Secretary General of the Red Cross in Mongolia said that when they travel long distances, there's all these dogs that come up to them as they're going on their caravan. And if they stopped every time, they'd never get to their destination before the seasons change. So don't listen to barking dogs, because that's what it is. And that could apply to everybody, not just women, that all of us and men can empathize with that, that if we all listened to barking dogs, you all would not be sitting here. So we need to tell that to both young men and young women. Thank you, General. That was a wonderful response. And I know we've run out of time, but General Leap would like to offer his last comment. Well, you just said, don't listen to barking dogs. That's key. One of the great things about toxic masculinity is my response to you can't do that is hold my beer. So I'd take the same response. And then go to the data, like Joan said. Go to the data. Look at the anecdotal evidence we have in this room from senior female leaders, but then go to the data and see what opportunities are really there and what the environment is really like. And I think you'll be a lot less apprehensive. Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me once again in offering a round of applause to this. I know many of you had some questions. And I will offer, I will volunteer the great panelists here to please spend a few more minutes offline during their break to take your questions. So you're welcome to please come up on stage and to engage with them. Thank you once again and over to you, sir.