Last week, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced the cancellation of his department’s Women, Peace and Security (WPS) program. In doing so, he ignored the well-established overlap of insecurity and gender inequality.
When announcing the cancellation on X, Hegseth described WPS as a social justice initiative that is woke, divisive and hated by troops. He claimed WPS was a Biden initiative that ‘distracted from our core task: WAR-FIGHTING’.
In fact, Congress passed the 2017 Women, Peace, and Security Act under Donald Trump’s first administration, with Trump even claiming it as one of his greatest achievements for women.
The WPS Act obliges all relevant departments (including Defense) and agencies of the federal government to ‘promote the meaningful participation of women in all aspects of overseas conflict prevention, management, and resolution, and post-conflict relief and recovery efforts’. This includes the collection and analysis ‘of gender data for the purpose of developing and enhancing early warning systems of conflict and violence’ and expanding and applying gender analysis, to improve program design and targeting’. These tasks are vital to warfighting.
There are two major global datasets that show that gender inequality is a key indicator and driver, of insecurity. With the WomanStats database, Valerie Hudson and her team have qualitatively shown that the way a country treats its women is the best predictor of its willingness to go to war.
In 2017, Hudson and I used this research to show why we should all pay attention to Russia’s decriminalisation of domestic violence. We argued that such willingness to accept physical abuse of women was not only an indication of its willingness to go to war; it was also an indication of how it would behave during such a war. Since then, not only has Russia invaded Ukraine, but there have been reports of Russian troops perpetrating widespread sexual violence against Ukrainian women.
Georgetown University’s Institute for Women, Peace and Security has publicly condemned Hegseth’s decision, stating that ‘WPS makes America safer, stronger, and more prosperous’. Georgetown co-publishes the WPS Index, which scores and ranks countries in terms of women’s inclusion, justice and security. The most recent Index placed Afghanistan, Yemen, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Syria and Iraq among the bottom 10 places.
We have previously suffered the consequences of disregarding gendered aspects in security operations. For example, failing to include sexual slavery in financial intelligence and analysis of the economy of ISIS in 2014 meant military actions did not sufficiently respond to the enslavement of Yazidi women and girls. My research has shown that this allowed an estimated US$121 million into ISIS’s economy.
Many US military leaders are aware of such issues and have seen the value of bringing a gendered perspective to their operations. It seems that ending the department’s WPS program was one of three courses of action proposed to Hegseth, and not the one that was recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and combatant commands. They said WPS provided ‘a low-cost, high-yield uncontested advantage over our competitors.’
Lieutenant General Mark Hertling has gone on record saying ‘killing this program won’t make the US military more lethal. But it might make it half blind’. Hertling was commander of US Army Europe from 2011 to 2012. He also commanded the 1st Armored Division in Germany and the Multinational Division-North during the surge in Iraq from 2007 to 2009. He has described WPS as ‘the strategic inclusion of half the population in the fight against instability, terror, conflict and chaos’.
The US Naval War College and ‘home of thought’ for the navy has held an annual WPS symposium since 2012. The events bring together faculty, practitioners, and national and international scholars. They share knowledge on warfighting and conflict resolution, focusing on the gender perspective, to better understand the complex and dynamic security environment. Topics have included regional lessons, organisational culture and security transitions.
WPS is not a woke issue. It is about responding more effectively to challenges to peace and security, and its importance is supported by increasing and irrefutable data. While many security experts still struggle to communicate this to some disbelievers, the evidence is clear. Yet those with outdated beliefs may still push back.
Conflicts such as Russia’s war in Ukraine demonstrate what data already is already showing us: the importance of gender in security. Maintaining the capacity for gendered perspectives in all security organisations remains pertinent. Hegseth and the administration surrounding him are making a huge mistake—one that will limit the effectiveness of US security operations.
Despite having some extremely supportive leaders in Defence in the past, Australia still risks pushing WPS implementation too far down the food chain. In the wake of the US’s actions, we must remember the importance of gender in regional and global peace and security, and focus accordingly.