The common approach to the women in combat debate is to follow the "can" women fight versus "should" they fight format. On the first point, the reality is that women have proved they can fight throughout time. The claim that women have never fought a major ground war is counterfactual.
Of all the possible historical examples, none offers better empirical evidence that women can fight, alongside men, than that of Russia (later the Soviet Union) in the twentieth century. In both world wars and the Russian civil war, numerous women fought on the frontlines.
When it comes to "real" combat, it doesn't get much tougher than what the Red Army faced against the Germans on the Eastern Front in WW II.
Over 800,000 women served in the Red Army and Red Air Force during WW II. By 1943, more than half of them were fighting on the front as snipers, machine-gunners, tank drivers, and in the infantry. Several women commanded male platoons. Additionally, women fought as partisans and worked in combat support positions.
The Soviets introduced three female fighter and attack aviation squadrons into combat operations in April 1942. All three fought for the duration of the war, flying thousands of combat missions. By 1945, only one squadron was still composed of women only.
Female combat pilots flew in male squadrons and one woman commanded a male aviation regiment. During the Battle of Stalingrad, female fighter pilots augmented male squadrons, racking up numerous kills. Several women pilots were shot down yet escaped to fly again.
Significantly, while the Soviets initially fielded gender segregated units, few were able to maintain that identity because of heavy attrition across the Red Army. Under intense combat conditions, male units replaced their losses with women and vice versa.
In the American context, Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom constitute the first time women (in all the armed services) have officially served in aviation and naval combat. Not only do women serve in the junior enlisted ranks, they have commanded warships and combat aviation squadrons during these conflicts. In both the Active Duty and Reserve Components military men and women have demonstrated --once again-- that they can and do excel as a cohesive team.
The reason that there are no recent studies concerning these combat positions is because, after thirteen years of gender-neutral assignment policies, women's presence is considered part of normal operations. Mission capability, including personnel readiness, is reported through normal channels.
Of the approximately 200,000 military women deployed to Iraq since 2003, the majority serve in the Army, Army Reserves, and National Guard. Most of these are in traditional military occupational specialties, although many are associated with combat aviation. Women have been involved in ambushes, firefights, and other self-defense combat situations resulting in a number of awards for valor.
Along with female Marines, women are restricted by both Defense Department (DoD) and their respective service policies from assignment in direct ground combat positions. However, especially for the Army, there appears to be confusion over what the policy actually is and its purpose. This is complicated by the Army's recent organizational transformation into Brigade Combat Teams and the non-linear battlefield.
In 2006, Congress directed the Secretary of Defense to submit a report on the current and future implementation of DoD policy for assigning military women. The result was a 2007 report released by the RAND National Defense Research Institute.
The report points out that the 1992 Army regulation for assigning women predates the 1994 DoD guidance and was not updated. It also defines "direct ground combat" differently from DoD, resulting in a more restrictive policy.
RAND researchers concluded that if individual or small-group self-defense is included in the direct ground combat definition, then assigning women to units that routinely conduct self-defense is not in keeping with Army policy, even though allowed under DoD policy. Given the situation in Iraq, compliance with the more restrictive interpretation could close many, if not all, support units to women.
With this brief background, my next post will deal with the issues of physical strength, fitness, cohesion, aptitude testing, and other factors related to military readiness.
Related Posts (on one page):
- The Americanization of the Armed Forces-Closing Comments:
- The Americanization of the Armed Forces-How Many Women Does it Take to Make it Worthwhile?:
- The Americanization of the Armed Forces-Recap of Prof. Browne's Arguments:
- The Americanization of the Armed Forces-Response to Comments:
- The Americanization of the Armed Forces-Response to Comments:
- The Americanization of the Armed Forces-Entry Standards, Strength, Fitness, and Cohesion:
- The Americanization of the Armed Forces-Historical Perspective Women in Combat:
- The Americanization of the Armed Forces-Overview:
An interesting question (to me at least) is why did the Russians deintegrate women from their combat forces, after the war?
So:
1. We don't know how many women are in actual combat units.
2. We don't know how effective they are.
3. Capt. Mariner cannot address any of the empirical questions that arose in the colloquy between Aegis, Drill SGT, and GV:
After the war, most women demobilized. Anna Krylova argues that, because of the demographic crisis, they weren't encouraged to pursue post-war military careers.
The Soviet authorities were pretty ambivalent towards women in combat even during the war. To illustrate, but not demonstrate conclusively (though I think the body of work in this area is fairly definitive), I recently saw a Slavic Studies conference on Women in WWII; a couple of panels addressed war posters. One notable aspect about posters was the absence of women in uniform in them. Women were either portrayed as supporting the army on the home front or as partisans, reacting against the fascist occupiers. They were not depicted as members of the regular armed forces.
The above to say that, as soon as the crisis was over, they weren't keen on inviting women to stay on in the Red Army, although the army decorated and otherwise officially honored female veterans, and women had the right to volunteer to serve in the post-war army (but didn't have access to military colleges, where most officers got their commissions). This publicly accessible article, "Women and the Soviet Military", while perhaps outdated - in 1982 they wouldn't have had access to Red Army archives which would clarify the "reality vs. propaganda" question of the first paragraph, for example - examines some of the potential reasons behind "deintegration," which seems to have been a matter of adjusting women's access to the military after their demobilization.
The main point, it seems, is that the Red Army did not deintegrate women from combat because they were incapable of performing their duties or fighting alongside men, but because of extrinsic sociological and demographic factors.
Do take into account that this is merely a tangential point, one perspective on the worthwhile question of "Why didn't the Red Army keep women in combat positions if they were so good at it?"
What it does add to this overall discussion about "women in combat" is that it appears to be about more than the physical, mental, and psychological capabilities of men and women, which are presumably universal and ahistorical. One should also take the specific situation into account, and place it in its historical, sociological, and cultural context. When the context is total war, we see that no one gives a crap whether women are as "good" as men; when the context is selective military intervention abroad, it seems we have the luxury to be pickier and cater to some ideal for the body of soldiers and officers (of which at least two have been forwarded in recent discussions).
I'm aware that the above is probably too unconcrete for the tastes of some of the commenters on this thread. I'm also sure there will be plenty of empirical, hard-nosed questions of "define x" and "why should y?" to make up for this uneasy attempt to address a "why" question and bring it into the larger discussion. So, good day.
And if having all-woman combat units was such a good idea, why did they go from none, to three, to one fighter squadron? BTW, how many hundreds or thousands of fighter squadrons did the Soviets have (what percentage of their fighter squadron strength was comprised of females?)
That female population was one that was agrarian based and had:
lived under the Tsar
Were born in or lived through WWI and the Depression
lived through the Red/White Civil War
lived through Lenin's forced industrialization
lived through Stalin's purges
lived in a country engaged in a life or death struggle with a multimillion man foreign army occupying its territory raping and pillaging
How can possible think such a population was physically or psychologically comparable to the current American female population (the issue is, after all, the "Americanization" of the military??
Thanks for the info.
1. direct ground combat units (e.g. SOF (shooters), Infantry, Armor, CBT Engrs, various attached elements, e.g. FO's, medics)
2. combat support units (e.g. artillery (sorry guys, that's how I see it :), Signal, MP's, ADA, MI, Soft SOF (civil affairs, psyops), in Iraq add Transportation units here etc)
3. combat svc units (e.g. Medical, supply, finance, etc)
4. combat aircrew
5. other remaining service folks
The point is that most of us only have issues with women in group 1, and a few have issues with women in either groups 2 or 4.
Before we go farther on this thread I would again try to make a distinction between groups 1 and 2 that I think others try to blur.
1. Direct ground combat units have the mission of closing with and destroying the enemy through fire and maneuver. The strength and durance requirements are huge. privacy is non existant. these units are all male today in every army in the world I think.
2. combat support units contribute to mission success generally without being within eyesight of the enemy. The work can be dangerous, the strength demands can be high (gun bunnies for example) but generally soldiers work and fight from fixed positions or from mounted units so the loads are much smaller and can be shared. these units are often coed.
Iraq has retaught the Army that it needs to refocus combat support officers, NCO's and units on things like "convoy defense", and "defense of an Isolated Signal Position". Hell, my JAG wife reports that the JAG basic school has days and days of field training now.
Nobody is saying that women haven't performed generally well in Iraq combat situations, but those have been defensive fights of convoys or bases for the most part. We should recognize reality.
,
will be using data that has been demonstrated time and again to be worthless. These reports are written to demonstrate how well the officers preparing them are running their units. They often coverup gross deficiencies. They are written to support the current PC positions of senior command.
I may be falsely anticipating Professor Mariner's empirical support for her argument. But if it is based in any way on this type of documentation, her evidence will -- to put it kindly -- be suspect. I'm sure many current and past members of our military will be able to confirm my comment this with anecdotes and research.
This is a silly introduction. No one is claiming women literally "can't fight." Women obviously can pull a trigger, drive a tank, etc. The question is, can they do it as well as men, and what happens to a male unit when it is integrated.
You can just as easily make Prof. Mariner's point about children in combat. The Afghan mujahideen used 12 and 13 year old boys to fight, and so did Hitler at the fall of Berlin. These boys fought and died. So, in Prof. Mariner's view, this "proves" children can fight, too. Completely silly.
I don't think very many officers or NCOs have a problem with women who can meet the physical requirements in combat support, combat service support and other units. I know I don't.
The objections come in the 'hard core' combat arms, and I don't know anyone who's been in actual sustained combat who wants to see women in those roles as a matter of policy.
I think one of the points that needs to be addressed more carefully, when so very very few women could meet the physical requirements for special operations, ranger, airborne, or even leg infantry or combat engineer units, and when not all of the women who could do the job physically want to, is: what conceivable reason would anyone push our military to make such a fundamental departure from the accumulated wisdom of several thousand years of organized warfare?
In my view, it's almost never about the enlisted women who would actually serve in such units. Rather, it is about women officers who perceive (probably correctly) that the career path to flag rank (generals and admirals) is through service in the combat arms, and, when there are wars, through actual combat service and command of combat units.
Perhaps we should approach women in the combat arms from that starting point. Women junior officers, especially those who have attended the academies and the military colleges (Norwich, VMI, Citadel) are the ones most likely to want to be in combat arms units, and the ones most likely to have groomed the physical and mental skills necessary to even have a shot at succeeding. They're also the service members with the education and exposure to understand what they're getting into. Let those women compete for the combat arms jobs they want using exactly the same standards as men candidates for airborne, ranger, special forces, SEAL, recon Marine slots. If they can meet the criteria, then assign them to the units and see how it works out, with the understanding that the women are playing in a warrior's world and there will be no accommodation on the basis of gender. Give it a fair trial for 5 years or so and seriously evaluate the results before even considering putting enlisted women into ground combat units.
The Soviets ran out of combat age men to draft into service.
1.) (minor quibble): In the first sentence, wouldn't it more accurate to say 'fought in' rather than 'fought?'
2.) What about Israel? I would be VERY interested in hearing Capt. Mariner's explanation of why the Israelis experimented with women in combat at the beginning, and then apparently gave up the idea and never went back to it.
3.) Most of what she is saying here about Russian women in WW-2 could also be said about Russian teen-aged boys in WW-2. Doesn't it follow logically, then that if the USA is going to allow (and eventually conscript) 18 year old women into combat, we should also allow 14 or 15 year old boys to serve? And if not, why not? The average 14 or 15 year old male has more physical strength and more innate aggressiveness than the average 18 year old female.
This is certainly true in Naval Aviation, at least from what I can tell.
I was amazed that Browne was arguing against women flying combat aircraft, and even more amazed that some commenters didn't even know that women were already flying combat aircraft (and even commanding squadrons!).
Pardon the expression, but when it comes to women in Naval combat aviation, the ship has sailed.
Tellingly, Browne was at his worst when trying to justify an argument that women shouldn't be in combat aviation. He had nothing but speculative anecdotes, based largely on technical idiocy, and failed to address at all the actual record of women in combat aviation. Which I think might be marginally relevant.
This is another strawman. Nobody is seriously arguing that women can't pull a trigger or drive a truck/tank/chopper/plane. (Whether or not most women can use a bayonet effectively is another matter!!)
The issue is whether the benefits outweigh the costs.
The other problem is that CPT. Mariner still fails to clearly distinguish between the issues of women in ground combat (which many of us bitterly oppose) versus women in aircraft and other support roles.
or
entirely miss the point.
The objection the anti-integration folks have to letting women be integrated into combat is that women are physically unable to perform combat roles. The fact that other people may be able to perform combat roles is a side issue. The question we ought to ask is:
When national emergency overrides conventional wisdom and places women in combat, how do they perform?
The Russian and Isreali experience is directly on topic.
Unfortunately, particularly in the Soviet case, it is difficult to glean good information because of the pervasiveness of propaganda. Did women perform well or not I'm particularly interested in the female platoon leaders cited by one poster. Their effectiveness in commanding males in ground combat would be revealing on the unit cohesion question.
Both the Isrealis and Soviets decided to de-integrate their militaries when their wars of national survival were included. This supports the anti-integration crowd. The leadership of both countries (one democratically elected) decided that women should NOT continue in combat roles.
The pro-integration side has the onus of proving that the decision to de-integrate was not based on combat performance.
I'd like to hear more from ENT who wrote:
We ought to have access to the Israeli decision process - why did they do it?
The other issue is how women in support roles NEAR combat are trained... what is expected of them in the event the fight comes to them, and how to ensure that they are able to meet those expectations.
But Capt(ret) Mariner completely misses the "can vs should" debate by confusing what roles women are not allowed in.
Regardless of what confusing language the DoD rules and Army rules may state, it is very clear what positions in the Army women may not serve in.
Infantry, Armor and Special Forces are the only branches that women are completely excluded from. They cannot serve in any MOS for those three communities, period. Yes, they can serve in units of those types in support roles (finance, intel, etc.), and usually do at higher level headquarters.
For the other combat arms branches, Artillery, Air Defense Artillery, Engineers, and Aviation, women are allowed to serve in a limited number of positions. Usually in units whose normal mission sets do not involve them being on the front lines during conventional ground combat (aviation being the exception). Also, again, the higher headquarters (Brigade level and above) usually have women in support roles regardless of mission.
Why? Because of what Drill SGT already posted: the mission of said units is to close with and destroy the enemy. Sure, support units in this war (and previous ones) find themselves under attack. Women end up pulling triggers, evacuating wounded buddies, etc. and represent themselves well. But that is rarely the mission they are being sent out to do (Military Police patrolling is perhaps the exception). These units do not fight as well as combat units. They are not trained or equipped to do so and frankly, often lack the caliber of Soldier (male or female) to do so.
I have no issue with women flying fighter aircraft, attack helicopters, commanding squadrons (be they aircraft or boats), being promoted to general/admiral, shooting cruise missiles from the sky and/or the sea, serving as military police, or a variety of other jobs outside direct ground combat.
But it is a fact of biology that nearly all women lack the physicality to do the ground combat job. That matters, period. The few number of women that can would not be excepted for reasons of cohesion, need for aggression, trust and brotherhood.
Call it sexist. Call it wrong. But remember that it effective and tested through thousands of years we humans killing each other.
With respect to aviation, there were a number of studies conducted in the US during the 1990s that looked at aspects of women's performance. These articles are available through (the journal of) Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine. Although the physical demands of high-performance flying remain somewhat in dispute (and are under-investigated), the ability of women to actually withstand the same G forces as men (provided they're wearing a G suit designed or modified for a woman's body) is not in question. However, one study found that women scored consistently 15% lower than men in centrifuge tests on a target tracking test while under high-G's. The same study found that the women experienced no adaptation to physical training specifically designed to improve their resistance to G forces, something not true of men. It also found that the two brains of the two sexes used oxygen differently during these tests and that this may have been related to the difference in target tracking ability. Other tests have established that women are at greater risk of serious injury than men during ejection from aircraft and of injury if they have to parachute to the ground (stress fractures in female parachutists are about 4x those of men - 11% versus 3%). Overall, this is not equal performance even if the women can fly the aircraft. To my mind, more direct tests between the sexes are needed (e.g. at Top Gun or Red Flag exercises). The claim that aviation is a done deal is a bit premature, especially since no aviators (male or female) have actually engaged in combat against competitive air defenses or enemy air forces.
It should be noted that, historically, there is a difference between flying and fighting an airplane. This also applies to handling ships and submarines. During WWII, almost 50% of US submarine commanders were relieved for not being aggressive enough. This was despite excellent peacetime records and high levels of technical competence. Most kills in air combat, likewise, come from only a small number of pilots. This is not necessarily an indictment of women in that role, merely a reminder that there are a number of other factors involved beyond just flying the airplane.
In some cases, 100% of women sailors are unable to perform standard shipboard damage control and casualty evacuation tasks. That statement is supported by the Navy's own study into the situation, a fairly comprehensive report by Trent &Robertson (the exact title is long and not to hand).
More generally, the notion that some combat support roles are okay for women and direct combat is not seems a bit arbitrary. All soldiers should be fully capable of and trained for combat, at least until someone can guarantee that only specifically trained infantry will get into or be needed for a fight. The Marines use this "every man a rifleman" approach and it works. Historically (i.e. before the coed military), Army basic training was a lot more uniform too.
I am quite skeptical of this claim. The modern US military has a tooth-to-tail ratio of roughly 1-to-9 - in other words, there are 9 supporting soldiers (tail) for every one fighting soldier (tooth).
During WWII, I'm sure that ratio was less. And, I'm sure in the Russian army, it was less still. As a semi-educated guess, I'd guess that the tooth to tail ratio may have been 1-to-4. But to claim that 1/2 of women soldiers were actually fighters is either claiming that the tooth to tail ratio in that army was 1-to-1 (which is frankly unbelievable), or that women were actually preferentially sent to combat units; that they were more likely to be infantrymen than men. I find both premises extremely unlikely.
Sk
Nonsense.
I read the previous threads and I do not recall any discussion of Russian women in combat.
Did you read any of the hundreds of comments posted in the past threads in which people argued again and again and again that women were not physically capable of marching with heavy packs or _even_ flying modern fly-by-wire aircraft because they were too weak?
more to the point, all soldiers and units need to have these skills:
- preparation of a defensive position (day/night)
- reaction to ambush
- convoy operations
the distinction is that direct combat units are required train on a bunch of offensive operations, tooo numerous to lay out here. The problem for women comes in these, where soldiers, unlike the defensive operations need to personally haul 100 pounds each of equipment and fight while loaded.
I am quite skeptical of this claim.
As you should be, it is ridiculous and untrue.
I read the previous threads and I do not recall any discussion of Russian women in combat.
http://volokh.com/posts/1196907502.shtml#298044
http://volokh.com/posts/1196907502.shtml#298045
http://volokh.com/posts/1196907502.shtml#298060
http://volokh.com/posts/1196907502.shtml#298082
http://volokh.com/posts/1196907502.shtml#298094
http://volokh.com/posts/1196907502.shtml#298121
http://volokh.com/posts/1196907502.shtml#298124
http://volokh.com/posts/1196907502.shtml#298136
http://volokh.com/posts/1196907502.shtml#298147
http://volokh.com/posts/1196907502.shtml#298166
http://volokh.com/posts/1196907502.shtml#298413
And that's just from ONE of the Browne threads...
Being a tank crewman involves a lot more than just being able to drive the tank or acquire targets through a sight. Being an infantryman involves more than carrying a rifle and shooting it. Combat flying involves more than being able to manipulate flight controls.
The pro-integration folks tend to dismiss the physical requirement of the job (typically the first disqualifier). The physical requirements are simply not understood by a large number of people both in and out of the military (infantry of all types account for around 4 percent of the total military population).
It's not being able to walk miles and miles with a heavy pack. It's that plus being able to fight effectively for hours when you get there. Then being able to get little or no sleep or food and do it again the next.
For those offering the technological panacea, let me clue you in. Military issued stuff is often crap that breaks down. All the time. I need 40 guys who can close with and defeat the enemy regardless of whether the vehicle that is supposed to carry us breaks down, whether they have dry, clean, warm clothes, whether they have a rifle or and entrenching tool or pointy stick.
It's more than a list of physical requirements, it also requires a fortitude, aggressiveness and discipine possessed by few enough men.
Including the fact that if you get shot down over enemy territory and survive, you have just been automatically promoted (demoted?) to a ground combat role, whether you were trained for it or not.
Don't forget that the population of women serving was a very, very small percentage of the soviet population. 3 fighter squadrons? Maybe 1000 women total (if that many)?
I'd like to see the numbers too. But, the Soviets had 1.1 million troops just at the battle of Stalingrad. And suffered 750,000 casualties. The germans had about the same.
And the good Captain is being either accidentally or deliberately disingenuous. The number of women in the Red Army has NOTHING to do with the number of women in combat. Just as the US has 'no' women in combat but considerable numbers of women in the military, so did the soviets.
How many of the women in the Red Army (aside from the 3 squadrons of fighter pilots, and a few snipers, etc) were actually in combat? The US had a variety of different groups during WWII that placed women in military support roles (including the WACS, WAVES, SPARS, WM's, all who were actually in the military, and then support groups like the WASP's that made men available for combat roles by ferrying airplanes.
Frankly, Captain Mariner's arguments are weak, and I expected better.
Keep in mind that the Soviet Union was invaded, and I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of women who served in combat (a very small subset of the women in the Red Army, to be sure) served only within the nominal boundaries of the SU.
If the US was invaded by an enemy with a similar correlation of forces as Germany and the SU, I'd be all for letting women fight in combat - but they'd be better in guerrilla operations and intel gathering. And even women combat pilots would have a much greater chance of being able to either make it back across the FEBA or E&E across the lines than a female US pilot in any likely combat zone the US will enter.
Of course it is silly. Captain Mariners entire premise so far has been specious.
Quality is ideal, but as Stalin said, "Quantity has a quality all it's own". Utilizing all resources (throwing "everything including the kitchen sink") may have been necessary for the Soviets, but it's not necessary for the United States.
I was an Armor commander. I picked that branch after standing in a rice paddy near Hue and watching tanks drive by with lawn chairs and ice chests sitting on their back decks. I decided that was the soft easy way to go to war, not this grunt slogging sh_t. I say that to emphasize that the infantry have it much worse than tankers.
Having said that, we tankers used to have an alternate PT test the illustrates that all the tank related tasks are brute force related. These combat surrgate events as I recall were:
- road wheel roll. roll a 200 lb road wheel around all 4 bases on a ball field.
- tow cable crawl. low crawl 20 yards dragging a 150 lb, 10 ft long steel cable
- track block shuttle. run 10 yards, pick up a 20 lb track block, run back 10 yards, repeat 10 times
- ammo load. pick up a 40 lb main gun round and lift it over your head. repeat 60 times.
another event from an earlier, late 60's PT test that was eventually dropped due to too many blown knees was the 150 yard man carry. a surrogate casualty test.
pair off. pick up a man at least your weight. run 150 yards with him over your shoulder.
fun times.
But while it's all right to use the example of women in Russian uniform during WW2 to debunk myths that women have never been integrated into a modern army, it does not necessarily follow that there was no deleterious effect to unit cohesion or combat effectiveness. It's simply impossible to evaluate the two forces on the same scale, because of the enormous confounding influence of the total war environment. (That is to say, when your units are taking tremendous casualties daily, and you're so low on equipment that you order unarmed men to participate in infantry charges against prepared positions, that's so unlike the modern US military that you can't really compare the two.)
That said, what are the actual advantages of integration of the combat arms? They do exist, sure.
First, there's the point which was brought up earlier in the thread, with women officers and career advancement in the military. It's hard to get promoted all the way up the chain without any service in a combat unit; transfer to and service in a combat unit has traditionally been a path to male officer career advancement as well. We can disagree as to whether that's desirable on its face, but it's at least a legitimate goal.
Additionally, there's the advantages to having more gender integration in the ranks of the veterans back home. Consider that the military tends to greater conservatism, politically, than the population average - and that women, politically, trend a bit towards the liberal side of the average. To the extent that women joining the military undergo military socialization, that means that women veterans will average considerably more conservative than non-veteran women. So from the political perspective of the conservative, this is no bad thing (though we're probably not talking about much of a shift, given the limited numbers of people involved.)
Furthermore, military service, especially combat service, would prove to be beneficial to female politicians seeking advancement (in the same way that it is for the men.) This would have the effect of increasing female participation in the upper levels of policy-making - but again, the increase would be represented by female veterans, who would probably have a slightly different pattern of policy preferences than non-veteran women.
Finally, addressing the specific issue of policies on gun control, this is currently an issue in which there is a large gender gap, one where a significant amount of the support for gun control is fueled by good old-fashioned hoplophobia. That's not an attitude you can maintain through a military deployment. Increasing the number of women who, far from being afraid of guns, are trained on military hardware, would tend to decrease the support for gun control as a whole.
One can point out that the second and third advantages can be obtained by recruiting additional women for the non-combat arms (well, the "no direct combat" - I cede any points about women in aviation, and I acknowledge that women in support branches will still get into combat from time to time.) In fact, I don't know that integrating the combat arms would significantly affect the second or third advantage, given the inherently limited numbers of women involved - at the end of the day, we can't afford to ignore the physical differences, and while there are women who have physical performance equal to a fit man, they are a distinct minority of women as a whole!
I don't favor further integration of the armed forces at this point (mostly on a "it ain't broke, don't fix it" principle.) But if we're honestly going to discuss the issue, we need to discuss both sides of it. We've done a good job of focusing on the disadvantages of doing so, but we haven't really analyzed the advantages - so how can we judge if the one outweighs the other? If the costs exceed any expected gains, then we can table the idea until such a time as the situation changes significantly.
Also, I find in my own experience that the officer corps tends to be much more diverse in the liberal/conservative spectrum than the general military population (which is conservative).
None of those posts to which you link offer the detail and substance of the guest blogger's post.
Other benefits of military service to the country - greater understanding of the military by both citizens and politicians, a greater appreciation of the price of liberty and a connection with our citizen-soldier heritage, which can heighten awareness of need for civil rights such as the right to bear arms - can be satisfied by almost any sort of military service by women.
Without knowing more about the Soviet experience - and better information about just how women actually served - I wary of using the example of a totalitarian society in which both women and men were routinely worked to death in the gulag as a basis for US policy. The exigencies of the German invasion and Soviet indifference to the loss of life in trying to stop it, do not provide much basis for decisions about structuring an elite volunteer military in a society such as ours.
Actually, Soviet tooth to tail ratio was actually very close to 1:1 during WWII. The Soviets generally did not expect their combat units to remain combat effective for very long and maintain extended operations. Rather, they would throw in successive waves of combat units until the other side broke.
Hardly a mentality that would be appropriate to a professional army in which the success of the unit depends having a cohesive team of exceptionally capable warriors who can inflict damage upon the enemy far out of proportion to their numbers.
Link
(Article regarding internal IDF report, commissioned by Personnel Dept., on gender integration - dated this past September - and coming down in favor of more integration; article also mentions combat support role of women during recent Lebanon war)
Link
(Letter to the Editor, in Military Review, offering footnoted comments on the status of integration in the IDF - dated 2003)
Link
(Feature article by IDF spokesperson on the Karakal co-ed (co-mil?) light infantry battalion - dated this past August, so includes anecdotes from Lebanon war)
Second, until the bullets fly, it's very difficult to see who will be merely adequate, good or outstanding. True story - man tries to enlist in US Army in WWII. At 5' 5" and 115 pounds, he's too small for paratroops and Marines. Finally get into the Army, does a stint, and takes up acting after the war.
His first role? Playing himself in "The Audie Murphy Story." If you didn't see the movie, it's the true story of when Audie wins the Medal of Honor for combat valor in Italy.
It seems obvious that being effective as a soldier is down to what you are not how you're built. (quote from Brian Dunbar at http://bdunbar.livejournal.com/289080.html)
If not, we need to keep people like him out of the armed forces.
I guess that is the argument anyway.
I would like to see links to these studies, and their dates. The information I saw the last time I looked was that in the late 1990s, after changes were made to the helmets, g-suits, and other equipment issued to women to accommodate longer/thinner necks, different body shapes, etc., there was no evidence that women were less capable of flying combat aircraft than men.
In any event, I assure you -- women in Naval combat aviation is entirely a done deal. They appear to be performing admirably, and I've never seen any evidence otherwise. Why mess with success?
I have talked to several Naval aviators who have told me that some of the most lethal pilots they know are women. And note that these pilots mix it up with each other under conditions that fully simulate combat against an "equivalent" air force.
Another poster writes:
This -- the "what if they get shot down" argument -- is to my mind the only potentially viable argument against allowing women to fly combat aircraft. But I don't think it's a good argument. A shot down pilot isn't suddenly an infantryman; he or she is a fugitive on the run. Women actually make surprisingly good runners. I can certainly dream up scenarios in which male-only brute strength might be needed, but in an equivalent number of situations it might also be useful to be left-handed, and we don't restrict pilots to left-handed people.
We're apparently in the world of anecdotal evidence, but I like mine: Scott O'Grady described the experience of eluding capture as being like a "scared bunny rabbit" and emphatically maintained that he was "no Rambo."
The relative unimportance of physical conditioning for pilots is emphasized by the surprisingly lax physical standards imposed on pilots -- at least veteran pilots -- in Naval aviation. You may not believe this, but you can be awfully out of shape and still fly in an F-18, with the Navy's blessing. I'm not naming names, but trust me -- there are some real fatties.
The joke about one A-6 pilot I knew was that if he ever ejected, he would keep flying straight and level, and the entire aircraft would plummet downward. He was big.
RE: A Bogus Argument....
"The common approach to the women in combat debate is to follow the "can" women fight versus "should" they fight format." -- Captain Rosemary
....in the first sentence, yet.
It is not, repeat NOT, either one or the other, Herren Captain. It is BOTH.
Once again, you're attempting to frame the argument in a bogus fashion. The first attempt, in your 'overview' was it wasn't 'feminization' but 'Americanization'.
I called you out on that.
I'm calling you out on this linguistic machination as well.
More to follow later. It's just that I was so 'struck' by this sophomoric debate trick that I had to say something right away.....while I'm waiting for the bleach to work on the stains in the sink....
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[It's a dirty job, but SOMEBODY has to do it. And bleach makes her lovely nails brittle.]
Ladies and gentlemen, we are in the presence of a bona fide tough guy - one who is not afraid to call out people via pseudonyms on the internets.
This is exactly the sort of strength we need in our infantryman (and infantrywomen!)
/sarcasm
This is highly, highly misleading.
Audie Murphy grew up dirt poor and was basically malnourished when he entered the army. Murphy was so poor that he had to place the three brothers and sisters he was caring for in an orphanage.
I am at work and don't have access to my books, but I am 99% sure that Murphy gained 30-40 pounds and grew in height from eating the "delicious" army chow once he enlisted. He did not win his Medal of Honor weighing 115 pounds.
Unless you are suggesting that women are merely malnourished men who will turn manly with chow hall army food, keep Audie Murphy out of this.
There are a few women who stick it out in the combat arms side of the Navy and Air Force. I think that those who stay on the point of the spear is very small. For those who do there isn't data on their quality compared to their male counterparts-there is no way to compare them-after ten years or so. The first few years of a pilot there might be the carrier landing scores, and a few other measures, but these become the base competency and more competencies are needed. The system is so glad to have them left that of course they are 'great.'
Lots of data on the experiment in the Navy and Air Force, and lots of stories and data of two separate systems and standards.
I think that the Navy and Air Force experience show that so few women are willing to stay in the same career path as the boys, that it wouldn't be worth the loss fighting effectiveness. The very few women who want to play and may actually be able to play isn't worth the effort and two-tracked standard that gets set up.
I don't think the Navy or Air Force experience has shown it, although the system s in each service has to admit that it is.
But whoever, reads the commie script can take a look if they want:
Click Here
1) Not 10 million dead. 25 million. As pointed out above, yeh... they were running out of men.
2) Pilots - most were night fighter pilots, very light very old planes. Not fighters. Light bombers. No dogfighting.
3) Your country is overrun. Your husband and possibly father are at the front.... or dead. Why not go? Nothing left to lose, unless you have kids.... live ones. Sure, Stalin will take you. Quantity over quality is the Soviet way.
4) There were many many 14-15 year old boys fighting too. Does that mean we should let 14-15 year olds join up with the US army and let them go into combat, since they have historically proven to be able to die just like a 20 year old male?
5)Yeh, there were 800k females in the SU army. And yes, some did fight at the front. Most however, were in supporting roles and many were also medics. Some were effective, no doubt. However, in an army that at the end of the war consisted of around 10 million people, that number is less than negligible.
6) What a Russian woman of that era could endure, an American woman of this era can NOT. Period.
Generally speaking, I find the example presented by the esteemed guest not just weak, but in the category of "grasping at straws". Disappointing.
p.s. Only someone who has never experienced real combat would be *demanding* to be allowed into it and complaining about it. It's not a freaking privilege, it's an obligation.
Hey! When the last F35B is flown to the boneyard by some Marine, he'll fly home in a C130...probably an H model.
:)
Of Russian boys born in 1923 (who were 18 years old in 1941), only 20% survived WW2.
As several posters have pointed out, they were literally running out of men.
It wasn't very mixed. 97% male, and most of the females were in non-combat / admin / support roles.
Waldensian--is the navy still flying A6s?
Only in EA-6B form.
A shot down pilot isn't suddenly an infantryman; he or she is a fugitive on the run. Women actually make surprisingly good runners.
You're missing the point. Downed pilots run, but they usually get caught quickly if they aren't picked up by CSAR. The real issue is how they will fare in prison camp.
RE: Tough Guy, Eh?
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are in the presence of a bona fide tough guy - one who is not afraid to call out people via pseudonyms on the internets." -- r78
So....
....tell me when you graduated from the US Army Ranger Course.
Me? 1979.
RE: Out-of-Touch-With-Reality
"This is exactly the sort of strength we need in our infantryman (and infantrywomen!)" -- r78
There are no such critters as 'infantrywomen'. And we are here to discuss that.
Bring forth your evidence supporting Captain Rosemary's premise or shut the flock up. This continual brain-drizzle of your ilk is a bore. Not to mention a waste of good bandwidth.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. Anytime....anywhere....
You can find me in the phone book, buckie. And I'm all over the web like a bad rash.
Ever meet Colonel 'No Slack' Stack?
RE: Detail....Detail....
"None of those posts to which you link offer the detail and substance of the guest blogger's post." -- r78
Actually, albeit I'm still preparing my fisking of the good Captain's latest, I'm finding little 'detail' and more 'broad-brush' in her latest article.
Some citations would be useful, but only here and there, e.g., Russian Civil War of the Reds and Whites in the early 20th Century.
The point is, the good Captain is long on broad-brush statements and short on 'detail'. But you go ahead and call for more details from the opposition. [Note: I sit as a high school debate judge of Cross-X. I LOVE details in deciding a round between such bright kids as I judge this time of year.]
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. I have serious doubts you'd fare well against the majority of these kids.
And therein lies some hope for the future.....
We can always get back to the topic at hand.....
Speaking as a guy who weighed 115 pounds when I went through Marine OCS, I can assure you that weight matters little. I finished 11th in my company at the basic school in physical fitness. I was tied for first, but the wall on the obstacle course made me lose a few seconds on the time.
Men are stronger than women. I was much stronger than any woman in the other companies (not integrated back then). And in my experience on the staff of OCS later is that any healthy male can be brought into the physical condition to succeed, whereas women cannot meet those standards no matter how much training is applied.
RE: Skyler's Report
"Speaking as a guy who weighed 115 pounds when I went through Marine OCS, I can assure you that weight matters little." -- Skyler
I can attest to that.
Part of the Ranger Course is a block of instruction in evacuating someone who is totally incapacitated; down a sheer cliff is one part of it.
They took the smallest—5'2" - 130 pounds—guy, who had survived so far, in the course and matched him against the biggest—6'5" - 230 pounds—guy. Sent the pair down a 100' cliff and across a largish open space.
It's all a matter of leverage.
Now, how does this apply to women?
I don't know if you missed this recent discovery by 'science', but women seem to have a 'slight' but 'significant' difference in bone structure in their vicinity of their hips. It allows them to walk upright during the latter part of a successfully progressing pregnancy.
Imagine that!
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Vive la 'differeance'! -- most REAL Men]
RE: What You Find on the Battlefield
"A shot down pilot isn't suddenly an infantryman; he or she is a fugitive on the run. Women actually make surprisingly good runners. -- someone Enoch cites
You're missing the point. Downed pilots run, but they usually get caught quickly if they aren't picked up by CSAR. The real issue is how they will fare in prison camp." -- Enoch, to that someone
I put it like this....
As for what happens IF you're captured, that's another story.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. If I were a woman captured by our current enemy......well.....you can guess......
Personally, I find the idea of sending 14 year old boys into combat a little bit LESS obscene than sending 18 year old girls (not that I'm in favor of either choice!)
Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it fairly commonplace in European countries as recently as 200 years ago for 14 year old boys to be combat soldiers? In particular, couldn't they become midshipmen in the British Navy, and actually command other men in battle?
The idea of regarding 14 year olds (of either sex) as 'children' rather than as young adults is a very recent one -- and stupid, I might add.
Regarding Audie Murphy - read his bio. The guy was constantly at the ragged edge of NOT making the relevant PT standards of the time. The only reason he saw combat was his determination to go. Nor did he grow in the service - after the war, Eisenhower, watching the movie, couldn't believe such a little guy did all that stuff.
There were roughly 60 Soviet aces.
Two were women.
With six and twelve kills, they were the bottom two on the list.
The median number of kills was 35.
P.S. Murphy had no birth certificate. He told the recruiter he was 18, but might have lied. Or he really might not have known exactly how old he was. He conceivably might have been 16 or 17. That is one alternative possible explanation for the growth spurt and weight gain after enlistment, or it really might have all been due to finally getting nutritious meals regularly.
That actually puts his BMI on the high end of the healthy range (18.5 to 24.9), his BMI would be 22.9
The studies and articles to which I referred do not have hyperlinks: you have to pay for the articles. They are as follows:
Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine, Vol 69 No 12 Dec 1998 "Male/Female SACM Endurance Comparison: Support for the Armstrong Laboratory Modifications to the CSU-13B/P Anti-G Suit" - this one supports equal G resistance (as you noted and as I stated in my post) between the sexes with properly fitting G suits.
Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine, Vol 72, No 8 Aug 2001 "Accomodation of Females in the High-G Environment: The USAF Female Acceleration Tolerance Enhancement (FATE) Project" - this also supports the equal G resistance with proper pressure suit argument. It acknowledges though that the issue of muscular strength contribution to anti-G resistance (through straining maneuvers) was not studied nor was it in any of the studies referenced in the article. It was also noted that several of the small number of female test subjects in this experiment were exceptional athletes and thus not necessarily representative.
Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine, Vol 69, No 9, Sept 1998 "Female Exposure to High G: Performance of Simulated Flight aft 24 Hours of Sleep Deprivation. This study found overall performance was not reduced despite 24 hours of sleep deprivation, but it noted that "when G forces were added, the women did not maintain the tracking range as closely as the men. Call reaction time (i.e. noting threats like missiles) nearly doubled, the percent of altitude breaks was down by 20% and missile survival was reduced by 8%." The women required more time at high G to achieve their scores, typically 15 seconds versus 10 seconds (a 50% difference and meaningful given the time of an air combat environment, also costly in fuel and air speed in a turning fight). "The poorer tracking by the females resulted in their trying harder to catch up with the target...when the G loads were real (the test was also conducted at 1 G), women pulled the same loads as men - at the expense of the tracking score." Other points regard the difference in the genders' ability to use oxygen. "During indoctrination training, women's bodies did not provide adaptation to G while men's bodies did provide adaptation. During G exposure, women displayed less loss of oxygen content inthe arterial-venous mix of blood within the cerebrum. Overall, women did not perform the air-to-air combat task as well as teh men, even though they pulled just as much G. We believe these results to be consistent under the following model. The lack of physiological adaptation to G (no increase in cardiac contractility or baroreceptor sensitivity) meant that women had to strain harder to pull the same G and experienced more transient visual symptoms. Both of these requirements would lead to less congnitive capacity to perform the combat task. The women apparently did not extract oxygen from the cerebrum in the same proportions as the men; this may contribute to the lower tracking scores achieved by the women as ag roup. The men were capable of more cognitive workload, since they were getting more reflexive help from their bodies." That said, the study still concluded the women should fly combat and commended them for enduring the high G's. I'm not sure I'd reach the same conclusion.
Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine, Vol 69, September 1998. "Female Exposure to High G: Chronic Adaptations of Cardiovascular Functions." This study basically continued the work of the previous study (both were published in the same issue). It concluded that adaptations to G-training were limited in females, a finding that may provide a physiological basis for their lower simulated combat tracking performance during simulated aerial combat maneuverss compared with men.
A recent US Naval Institute Proceedings article noted that Navy pilots now average about 10 practice dogfights per year and that combat skills are less than optimal. I can't comment on those aviators who told you that some women were first rate, but since neither the men nor the women seem to have much actual experience, judgements need to be considered in that context. Recent exercises against the Indian Air Force showed USN and USAF pilots to be a bit less impressive than our PR would lead one to believe.
Also, one aspect of the "Manchurian Candidate" type responses (party line if you perfer) of the official military on this subject is that it is extremely difficult to evaluate the credibility and honesty of those making the statements. This is because PC has infected every institution in our society (ask Larry Summers about his experience at Harvard in this context). Genuine debate about any issue related to race or sex is virtually impossible. In the context of women in the military, military women and their feminist supporters have only themselves to blame if the views of serving personnel are therefore regarded with suspicion. Moreover, as some ex-military personnel on this blog have made clear, as other mil-bloggers have made clear on other sites, and as other studies have indicated, there appears to be a number of people who hold different views from those officially touted.
You can argue that it's a done deal, but that's just a way to avoid the issue. Change in one direction, one time is silly. Policies need to be evaluated on their merits. If they're not good, then there is a moral obligation to those who serve (both sexes) to correct them. Only a very small percentage of women pilots fly jets.
For US Navy shipboard task performance comparisons by gender, consult "Documentation of Muscularly Demanding Job Tasks and Validation of an Occupational Strength Test Battery (STB)" by David Robertson and Thomas Trent, Nov 1985, available through the National Technical Information Service.
There are a number of other articles that address these points. I can cite them if requested. During the 1990s there were some efforts to look at these issues. Most of the studies tended to conclude in favor of the women even where this seemed somewhat at odds with the results of the research. One should also note that the researchers tended to approach the subject without always considering the full context within which combat occurs. The air combat tracking results cited previously are an example. In a real air battle, pilots won't have as much time as needed to complete the task, something that they do have in a centrifuge test. Differences of 5-10 seconds reaction in a modern, very intense, high-tech environment may be considerably more critical to pilot survival than in earlier ages. Small things tend to add up. It's also worth noting that even a centrifuge test won't expose the pilot to the full range of motion and demands that would be experienced in real combat. This is true even though modern aircraft use fly-by-wire controls with most weapons controlled through buttons on the stick and are not of themselves particularly muscularly demanding.
For the purposes of "ticket punching" for women officers, suppose we restrict them to the sort of "combat" that men in combat units perform in peacetime? So, for example, they command "combat units" in Germany, Korea, Japan. Then, with their "tickets punched" they are just as qualified as lots of our current officers whose only "combat" duty was after 1992 and before 2003.
If we are talking about service in "combat units" that does not involve any actual combat, then doesn't that change the whole dynamic of lowering the physical requirements? Especially if you allow men who can't meet the physical requirements for real combat into the "special ed" version of combat, so that they, too, can get their tickets punched and move on to important command of support services back at headquarters? As Minard showed us, the more mundane issues of supply, preparation, and meteorological competence are pretty darn important, too -- perhaps it is good to ensure that skills other than direct combat are represented in the senior officer corps?
For the purposes of "ticket punching" for women officers, suppose we restrict them to the sort of "combat" that men in combat units perform in peacetime? So, for example, they command "combat units" in Germany, Korea, Japan. Then, with their "tickets punched" they are just as qualified as lots of our current officers whose only "combat" duty was after 1992 and before 2003.
The "ticket punching" you refer to you misunderstand. Officers process through commanding units of increasing responsibilty and serving on the staffs of commanders with more responsibility in order to gain experience to move to the next level. A similar process happens in corporate America. So an officer "punches his ticket" as a young platoon leader, then as a company executive officer, then as a company commander, then as a battalion staff officer, then as a battalion exec, then as a battalion commander. Most will never go any farther that this and at each stage the pool of positions is smaller and smaller and the competition is fierce. This is education and experience and it is a good thing.
Actual ticket punching usually refers to things that will make you more competitive. Things like airborne school and ranger school for officers that will not actually serve in those units.
Your suggestion that women serve in combat units away from the combat zone supports the idea that women in combat units is a bad idea. What happens to the cohesive unit when it is deployed to combat and has to change leadership. What happens to the officer that has to walk into an unknown unit and take it into combat? What happens to the soldiers in a unit when a female officer who is just "punching a ticket" to get promoted fails to prepare them properly for combat because she will not have to suffer the effects of poor training.
And, as I pointed out above, there is a shrinking number of slots as the officer progresses. What happens to those officers who may have to lead troops in combat but lack the training and experience because a female was "punching her ticket" to get promoted and there was no place for him.
Additionally, and I don't intend to be mean, but you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the military. The senior officer corps doesn't need more guys who understand meteorology because that skill is not needed to train a unit for combat and then plan, coordinate and implement combat operations at the major unit level. Combat branched officers don't "punch their tickets" in some combat unit slot and then go on to some air conditioned easy job somewhere until the "glory" time happens. The serve in combat units their entire career with some exceptions.
By the way what do the "Ticket Punching" females, commanding combat units, in your scenario do when some enemy attacks without properly notifying our military to transfer all the females out of their pretend combat units?
The military is meant to defend this country. It's not a jobs program or some social experiment. This is a deady serious business. Your life and liberty depend on the military doing its mission successfully. You would risk that so that a handfull of females won't have hurt feelings?
It is not widely understood how extreme the effects of small systematic differences among populations are at the extreme
ends of the bell curve. In the middle, you will find the various populations reasonably evenly represented. But at the extremes, you will find the disadvantaged population completely absent. You won't find a few outliers, you will find none at all. Not a little absent, completely missing.
The most obvious and least debatable examples of this effect is in professional sports. The top 200 100 meter sprint times, and the top 494 of 500, have been run by men whose ancestors came from four countries in west africa. Forty percent of