Yeah, because before we started letting women in we were simply getting our ass handed to us left and right. I'm surprised we're not speaking German right now we were so terrible.
And women still do not engage in active combat.
So I guess our military victories for the past 20 years were just dumb luck.
While conservatives may have an issue with women in the military it doesn't help your cause by over-inflating their contribution. The vast majority of the work is still done by men and they've been getting it done long before women showed up.
I am all for women (and even teh gays) in the military. That said, I don't think your logic stands up.
In 1940 the German military was the most effective force on the planet. That isn't particularly good evidence that keeping Jews in their place was the right thing to do. I would argue that a German military that used the talents of Jews would have been even more effective.
In the same vein, one could argue that just because we are the best now, doesn't mean we are perfect. I happen to agree that having women helps us, but it is possible to imagine that the U.S. military would be even more effective if women were not involved. Just as I don't take our military being the best in the world as evidence that 'don't ask, don't tell' is the best choice, I don't take our military being the best in the world as evidence that integrating women, or the particular ways in which we have integrated women, are the best choice.
It is pretty obvious that a huge amount of our military power comes from the simple fact that we spend about as much as the rest of the world combined on our military. You would have to be pretty lame to spend that much and not dominate. This isn't intended to take away anything from our soldiers, men and women, who are I think the best one their own merits as well.
One interesting aspect of this whole thing though is thinking about the future nature of 'warriors.' I expect that in the not too distant future (one could argue it is already here) the most fearsome soldier won't be the muscle bound Rambo type, who can kill you 50 ways with his bare hands but the skinny, pimply computer geek who can effectively cordinate and control a horde of semi-autonomous robots. It will be interesting to see how that changes the military culture.
In 1940 the German military was the most effective force on the planet.
I don't believe that's technically accurate. Hitler certainly believed it to be so. He believed that an all volunteer military simply couldn't stand up against his own. It was an ideological thing mostly.
It's also key to recall that most of Germany's victories where easily won encounters. No one really opposed them in force. After the Normandy invasion, when real force was being applied, Germany was fighting a war of attrition. If was fighting to keep what it had gained and little else.
The problem with women in the military is that they are not full and equal members. This leads to many problems, mostly in promotion and retention.
Women either need to be fully intergrated or removed. Either of these would 'fix' the problem. But this half-assed yes they are soldiers, but they aren't supposed to fight in most instances just irritates everyone.
I think the point is that to the level women are now integrated into the military the dire predictioons of decreased combat effectiveness, etc, turned out to be wrong. At the very least I think we can agree that the increased role of female soldiers has had no demonstrable negative affect.
I expect that in the not too distant future (one could argue it is already here) the most fearsome soldier won't be the muscle bound Rambo type, who can kill you 50 ways with his bare hands but the skinny, pimply computer geek who can effectively cordinate and control a horde of semi-autonomous robots.
In the present, the most fearsome soldier is the sniper, or the one in the burka who can gather enough intelligence, slap a transponder on the right terrorist and give the signal to the bombers to blow up a couple hundred breakfasting mujahideen along with their weaponry.
In short, we need people with a good eye for detail and a talent for subterfuge, qualities women have been honing since childhood. You need us more than ever, guys.
Here's something you have to consider though, everyone:
The American public is not ready -- nor probably ever will be -- for the woman soldier. For better or worse, we place more value on the lives of women then on men. Especially when it comes to grisly deaths. With the media counting every casualty, see how quickly public opinion would turn against a war if the headlines read, "3 Female Soldiers Killed Yesterday in Iraq."
It won't be pretty.
Women casualties in combat is a moral breaker for both the civilian population and the troops. Plus, I shudder to think about what would happen to a female soldier if she were captured.
Here is a list of all the battles the US Military has lost in the last 25 years that can be attributed to the distracting nuisance of the presence of females:
Mary brings up an excellent point. Dean states that there are some things that men can do that women just cannot. But the reverse is also true. Women just are better at certain things than men, and can do things or go places that men cannot. There is an intersection there between things women are statistically better at and certain types of military activity.
I completely reject Jesse's assumption that suddenly it will all become about female soldiers dying. Guess what? Female soldiers ARE dying, NOW. the headlines aren't there, and I don't see them showing up anytime soon. Regardless of whether you believe the public is ready for the "woman soldier," there have been women soldiers in the army for years and so far the public's been fine with it.
Quite a few women have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Quite a few other women haven't been killed there, but have received medals like the purple heart (for being wounded in combat) or the bronze star (for valour in combat).
I have yet to see the outpouring of public horror and rage.
Jesse
The American public is not ready -- nor probably ever will be -- for the woman soldier. For better or worse, we place more value on the lives of women then on men. Especially when it comes to grisly deaths. With the media counting every casualty, see how quickly public opinion would turn against a war if the headlines read, "3 Female Soldiers Killed Yesterday in Iraq."
Women are being killed in Iraq, and are integrated into the TO of all units where they are legally allowed to be. It's been that way for at least 20 years.
The American public is us and they don't seem to have much of a problem with it.
So, can you assert with complete confidence that precisely the same number of soldiers would have been killed and injured if women hadn't been serving?
I don't understand why you're being so belligerent about this, Dean, when:
(1) You've written posts yourself pointing out that the issues about integrating women into the military aren't all silly.
(2) You've never served in the military nor, so far as you've ever said, done extensive work interviewing members of the military at all levels to find out the ins and outs of all aspects of military life.
You're making astoundingly confident proclamations, Dean, for someone who's just making inferences from a general outline of history.
Besides, you really don't want to go about the line of reasoning that the best does X, therefore X is the best. Not unless you want to defend the American military as perfect.
And it really opens you up to the converse: the worst militaries in the world, or at least the ones who've most consistently gotten their asses kicked lately, have mostly been composed of Arabs. Let us, therefore, get all of the Arabs out of our military because look at how badly having Arabs has worked out for Arab armies. That's obviously a load of crap, but it does follow the same basic reasoning you're using. (Correlation implies causation.)
Anyhow, I think that there's a good argument to be made that integrating women into our armed forces will be a net benefit, assuming that you don't try to pretend that they're men while you're doing it. But please, Dean, don't be belligerent about it. It's entirely possible that we're wrong, and it's not like you can set up scientific experiments complete with control groups to get any real answers. It's a matter of judgment.
And frankly, on matters of judgment where you can't run scientific experiments to find out, I'd trust the people with experience in running successful militaries a lot more than I'd trust you or me guessing from out living rooms.
So, please, drop the self-righteous indignation. It's unbecoming when you haven't done anything to earn it.
The list of battles lost because of women is zero for one simply reason: there are no women in combat roles. But that is not the only measure of readiness. Another measure is utilization of resouces, one being money spent for training. For example, if a woman is fully trained and becomes pregnant, she may leave the service. Money down the tubes.
Now will that matter for the best fighting force in the history of the world? Perhaps not. But why do it anyway? A better question, does that matter to the tax payers?
BTW, was someone saying that women were destroying combat effectiveness or merely hindering the optimization of that effectiveness?
As you might recall, I served as an aircraft armament systems specialist early in my Air Force career and at that time physical standards were lowered so that little skinny women like I was then could be forced into those job slots.
That was in 1981. If such practices persist into 2006, then, yes, fighting effectiveness is hindered. Any hyperbole is yours.
Chris: I'll keep the indignation, thank you, and I don't care how unbecoming you find it. I find gross, silly generalizations with no apparent basis in fact most unbecoming myself.
It is, for example, ridiculous to assert that the American public just won't put up with seeing women killed in wars. That's just flat-out false (see the list above).
It is also ridiculous to listen to conservatives bitch and moan that women are degrading our military when during the same period where we began integrating women into our military we also become the undisputed top military machine on the planet. It is therefore incumbent upon those who say our fighting effectiveness has been hampered to show how exactly that is so, and if they can't then they deserve the scorn they get.
Juliette: And yet, you served. So, what, you figure they shouldn't have let you in? You figure you weren't any good at your job? They should have kicked you out? What's your point exactly?
Give it up you conservatives. Integrating them has NOT weakened our military forces at all. If it did, then how did America become the most fearsome military machine in world history? Luck?
Non sequitor. That's like saying that because I can still make my rent, taxation doesn't effect my finances at all. It's like saying that because Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France that cancer is a great training plan.
Phelps: Correlation certainly does not equal causation. But I never said that integrating women made our fighting forces superior, did I?
What I said was that we've had a quarter-century of women integrated into our armed forces and many of them have clearly served with honor and distinction, and our military has become the undisputed world leading military. Therefore, if you want me to believe there's been some gross harm done to our military here, you're going to have to come up with some evidence.
Above someone made mention about the horror of what could happen to a woman who is captured. I've always wondered...what CAN happen to a woman that can't happen to a man? Men can and have been raped. So what else is there?
I find gross, silly generalizations with no apparent basis in fact most unbecoming myself.
Like this:
And by the way: women generally make better snipers than men do. They're often scary-good shots. My wife can give excellent testimony to that. So did my grandma, who was an incredible shot with a rifle.
What a random, pulled-from-your-ass observation.
The rest of your post is a heap of logical fallacies. (like saying that because America's military is superior, integration has necessarily not hindered the process)
Then you say this:
Yes yes, the boys are bigger and have better upper-arm strength and can maybe run a little faster and do more pushups.
... whereas four posts below, you talk about masculinity and the value of recognizing intrinsic behavioral differences between men and women.
Yes, women can (and do) serve well in our modern military, but there are certain activities - notably infantry exercises, that, on average and at extreme ends of statistical distribution, men bring a superior skill set to the table.
So given that, and given the fact that women already DO serve as pilots, etc., what exactly are you righteously arguing against?
"It is therefore incumbent upon those who say our fighting effectiveness has been hampered to show how exactly that is so, and if they can't then they deserve the scorn they get."
What evidence will you accept? It's clearly impossible to produce scientific evidence. Please give a concrete example of what evidence someone who thinks that women in the military hamper its effectiveness can provide, given that our military is the most effective one on earth by a long shot.
If integrating women into the services didn't make the military better, how do we know "the conservatives" aren't right, and that the military would be even better without them?
I don't believe that's true, mind you - but it's not a very strong argument against "women degrade effectiveness" to state that effectiveness went up over time.
"The conservatives" aren't claiming that the military is less effective than it was 20 years ago (at least, I've never seen that claim made); they, to the extent they actually make a claim about this at all, only claim that it's less effective than it otherwise would be.
(For that matter, I only really recall hearing arguments against letting women serve in certain areas, like as general crew on ships, or in infantry combat.
I don't recall - though my memory or sample might be faulty - an argument against women in any part of the military. This is not surprising, given the sterling efforts of the WAACs and such in WW2.
Do you have any examples to point us to of "the conservatives" you speak of?)
Bill: I pulled no observations, random or otherwise, out of my ass. If there's some assertion you want me to back up, feel free to name it. But try asking first, before accusing me of making stuff up.
The rest of your objections amount to nothing but an incoherent rant. For example, I've said from the beginning--including in the very article that started this discussion--that there are inherent differences between the sexes and that it would be stupid to deny that. I even said that we probably do want to keep women out of certain military roles. So, given that I've said that clearly and repeatedly, what in blazes are you babbling about?
Also, I didn't ask this, but, I do find myself wondering: how many believe women could handle guerilla conflict in a jungle environment, ala Vietnam? This is no joke: what would the results be to the average female if she were stuck in 100+ degree, wet weather with no clean water, no soap, and no change of clothing or underwear for three or four months at a time? There is an infection issue here that does not generally affect men. (Before someone snaps at me, this is a very serious question. If you don't think so, then you haven't thought hard enough about it.)
And from the second:
What I found most fascinating is that half the women gave a firm "yes," half were unsure or said no---but the majority of those who said "yes" also said firmly that it should be allowed only if the women could meet the same physical requirements.
But it is a matter of cold, hard reality that the overwhelming majority of women cannot meet those requirements. There's also a natural urge for men to protect women. Indeed, I suggest that this urge is biological and cannot be changed absent some fairly brutal and probably dangerous psychological methods.
Which is why I've long believed that if we're going to have women in direct combat roles, they should probably have all-female units. This way operations can be structured to play to compensate for female weaknesses and also play to female strengths.
Chris: It is entirely possible to provide scientific or other objective evidence, at least if an argument has any merit. For example:
1) A frequent assertion, one I've been hearing for literally decades now, is that the American Public won't be able to handle seeing women injured or killed. It is a common argument. If this argument were true it would be extremely easy to provide evidence for it.
But since it turns out not to be true, then guess what? Finding evidence to support it's going to be pretty tough.
2) A frequent assertion, one I've also been hearing for decades now, is that male troops won't be able to handle having women around, and will spend too much time protecting those women instead of doing their jobs.
If that were reality, then it would be quite easy to come up with firm evidence of it. But guess what? It's not reality. So finding evidence for it is going to be pretty challenging.
You could give me all sorts of theoretical objections to allowing blacks to serve in the military and suggesting that having them there hurts military effectiveness. But if you came to me with such arguments, I'd laugh in your face. Why? No evidence to support such a preposterous claim, that's why. It wouldn't be incumbent upon me to prove you wrong, it would be incumbent upon you to prove your arguments correct.
Same thing here. It's not incumbent upon me to prove a negative in a case like this.
an aside ... as a peace corps volunteer, not military, i can attest that it costs a lot more to put a woman in the third world than a man.
we liked having the women around, but there was no question they were much higher maintenance. frankly, it wasn't even close. the medical staff spent far more time on the women.
Well the women are better snipers assertion, obviously. I googled it and found one anecdotal observation from a person who trained a woman sniper. Otherwise, sow me the data, Dean.
The rest of your objections amount to nothing but an incoherent rant.
Pot, meet kettle:
Yes yes, the boys are bigger and have better upper-arm strength and can maybe run a little faster and do more pushups. But the whole idea that the presence of women in our armed forces has degraded our armed forces? You're nuts.
Yes women add complications and difficulties, but other than that, what? The American military of today is the scariest, most lethal fighting force in the history of the world. And you think that GIRLS are screwing it up? What do you base that on besides theoretical concerns?
You are arguing against ... who ... what? Except the general caricature of arguments that you've "heard" before.
Men are better and more inclined towards combat than women. All roles except for certain combat roles are open to women. So what is your point, exactly?
Women may indeed be higher maintenance in some areas like medical problems. Yet I'll bet they're lower maintenance in other areas. So the real question would be: even if they are extra trouble in some areas, are they on balance a net positive?
Again, three decades of experience now shows that they can serve extremely useful roles, and have often served with valor and distinction. So it is incumbent at this point on those who say we'd be better off without them to demonstrate this.
"Of course not, because no one has ever made such a preposterous claim. So what's your point?"
Stop arguing that us winning disproves someone else's claim. If you can't find someone's claim that we were going to lose, saying that we've won doesn't disprove them.
I think you are missing the point. The point is is that argument is flawed.
Breaking down your arguement:
Conservatives say women in the military make the military less effective
Our military is the best in the world.
Our military has women in it
Therefore, our military must not be less effective and the concervatives above are wrong.
Simply put, your arguement contains flawed logic. Our military being the best in the world does not in fact prove that our military, everything else being equal, would not be 'better' without women in it.
I also think that there is some weakness in the premise that 'conservatives say this.' Clearly you can find some conservative who say just about anything, and some are oppossed to any women in the military. Others are oppossed to how the military has handled the integration of women. Using the generic 'conservatives' probably doesn't help you case here.
Also, as a counter to your arguments against American's can't handle women's casualty point, the Jessica Lynch story at least shows that we pay more attention to women in harms way. If Jessica Lunch had been a man, the 'story' would have been different.
What is most interesting, is that you seem to hold the position about women in combat that most conservatives I know hold. That women should be allowed to do any job that they can qualify for, but that special exemptions shouldn't be extended to them. If this means all women in the military can make it into combat then fine, if it means none can then fine, but don't change to rules to allow an artificial target number of females to get in. That you would seemingly hold this 'conservative' position while bashing conservatives is difficult to explain.
"Yet I'll bet they're lower maintenance in other areas."
They're smaller, so they should eat less food. Anything else you can think of?
"So it is incumbent at this point on those who say we'd be better off without them to demonstrate this."
I don't say that we'd be better off without them, but off the top of my head I can think of one thing: it's expensive to retrofit naval ships to have separate areas for women. That money might have been better spent on pay raises for the troops, or more body armor, or whatever.
It's now incumbent upon you to prove that that money might not have been better spent.
When you're having a discussion about whether we're in the best of all possible worlds, neither the pro nor the con side is right by default.
Chris: Once again, it is not incumbent upon me to prove the negative. It is incumbent upon those who say women degrade our fighting forces to prove that this is so.
If someone said "people with red hair degrade our fighting forces," it would not be incumbent upon me to prove them wrong. It would be incumbent upon them to provide the evidence for their claim. Otherwise, I would be completely within reason to say, "We clearly have very effective fighting force, clearly top notch in the world. So what is your evidence that these redheads are hurting their effectiveness?"
Well this may or may not be relevant but hey, slap me if I'm being silly...
I have a best friend who was a gang member (Solomon Mason for those that remember his blog). He told me very graphic stories of how vicious female gang members were. Gangs frequently brought the ladies as stone cold killers since they could blend in better. A female gang member trained Solomon in fine art of knife fighting. He showed me the scars that she inflicted while "practicing". He was in awe at how efficiently brutal female gang members were. Solomon believes that their many current and former female gang members who have killed and/or severely injured other folks while their crimes been "shifted" to the men.
I firmly believe that a female American soldier can walk into a hostile, fluid situation and emerge victorious. I believe she can mow down incoming enemies, snipe them from afar, toss a grenade into a bunker, and get a slap of the ass for a job well done and a freakin' medal to boot.
Another possible advantage occurred to me, one that's not immediately obvious:
Much is made at times of the fact that there's sex in the ranks between men and women. The suggestion is often that, right on its face that's a bad thing. But is it?
Some branches of the service, particularly the Navy, were once notorious for the problem of male-on-male rape. They aren't famous for it now, but they used to be.
(Now someone's going to come along and say I'm suggesting women are there to be men's sexual play toys. No, that's a bunch of crap. The point is that presence of people of the opposite sex may make for a more healthy psychological environment in general. Since we're talking hypothetical benefits, there's another one I can think of.)
"Once again, it is not incumbent upon me to prove the negative. It is incumbent upon those who say women degrade our fighting forces to prove that this is so."
Money spent on accommodating women being better spent on armored humvees (before it was needed) isn't a negative. It's one side.
You're saying that money that might have been spent on armored humvees was better spent on having women.
Neither side is a negative of the other; both sides are a positive statement. They're just two alternatives. It's incumbent upon both of you to prove your side.
He told me very graphic stories of how vicious female gang members were. Gangs frequently brought the ladies as stone cold killers since they could blend in better.
We're learning from Iraq and Afghanistan that asymetric warfare is best fought asymetrically. In this, and probably in all future wars, people with these skills are going to be essential. Here, women do have an advantage.
In WWII, Vietnam, Korea women in combat might have been a liability but warfare is changing.
Women in combat:
I think the best reason for not putting young women into combat is: they're worth way too much, biologically speaking, to be wasted that way.
Young men are very cheap compared to young women. It is only in the last hundred years that we've advanced far enough technologically and socially to be able to ignore the basic facts of reproduction to the extent that we would even consider sending women of childbearing age into combat.
I realize that "women in the military" is not the same as "women in combat," and if I object to the latter, it's not because I object to the former.
Tyrone:
I'd never heard that about gangster girls, but it squares with what I know about the history of the Indian Wars on the American frontier.
We're learning from Iraq and Afghanistan that asymetric warfare is best fought asymetrically.
I agree with that 100%. When it comes to being a soldier, I just feel that a well-trained woman is as effective as a well-trained man. I just don't see the problems. I used to work with an Army Ranger (Rangers are never former) and he told me on many occasions that he would feel completely confident in a female Army Ranger if she passed the same training that he passed. And he had to admit that there are some "bad ass, hardcore chicks" that could do the job well. Now that's just one Ranger speaking...
I'm with you on this, Dean - the "women in the military/combat" debate somehow seems to bring out a lot of silliness in some of my fellow conservative types. (As an aside, I think a lot of this touches on something I heard Tommy Franks say once after his retirement, declining to comment much about our current military situation. Something like "Every retired soldier is a military expert... about the military as it was when he was active-duty." And it changes a lot.)
And most of the more plausible objections seem to be working themselves out. For instance (IIRC I read about this on StrategyPage), the numbers of women sailors in the Navy becoming pregnant just before deployments - too high for mere chance, too easy to get away with, a major discipline problem, etc.
But... what solves most military discipline problems? Strong NCOs. And as time went on, the strong female NCOs emerged, and presumably laid down the "none of this bullshit on *my* ship" law (which presumably would be fraught with all kinds of problems if it's a male NCO dealing with pregnancy issues) and I believe it's no longer considered a major problem. (Though I haven't seen stats on that or anything.)
Incidentally, the cost of retrofitting is not only a one-time cost, it's a moot point for future vessels as they are built with those modifications in the first place.
I second the idea of all-female units. Play to the strengths.
And not quite offtopic: Did you know that different martial arts styles take advantage of different body proportions? Some forms of unarmed combat will be better designed for your body type than others, and some are better designed for women than for men. I think the armed forces would do well to look into this when training unarmed combat specialists.
I had posted a couple of times about SGT Hester and her patrol, Raven 42, but the original after-action report settles this debate so I pulled the link from there and followed that to the others.
The elephant in the room which Dean has yet to even acknowlege, much less address (and which several commenters have already mentioned) is that OVER 90% OF COMBAT-RELATED MOSs ARE CLOSED TO WOMEN. Period. End of fracking story.
No one can effect a women/no women comparison because women haven't been allowed in the combat arms yet. Not enough to make a significant difference, anyway.
Dean also introduces some smoke and mirrors when he lists women killed in the Middle East. How many held a combat-related MOS, and how many not? Is he going to count logistics troops killed with an IED as an element of combat effectiveness?
The question about battles or wars in the last 25 years is a magnificent red herring, as the only real battles or wars fought in the past 25 years were Desert Storm (hardly a real war for the infantry) and the current Iraq war. Period. Dean literally has no baseline to begin with.
BTW, last I heard, women don't have to run the same PE/obstacle courses the men do; they get to perform "equivalent" exercises.
First obstacle, Dean: everyone should meet the same physical requirements, not one set for men, and another for women.
After that, allow women 100% access to all combat MOSs for which they qualify. No NOW or ACLU lawyers suing the country into some idiotic "seperate but equal" standard, either.
Then, 20 years after that, you'd have real data to work with.
Oh, Tyrone: some of your lady friends may very well be someone I would never want to meet in a dark alley, but there's this old saying about bringing knives to a gunfight... :)
That activist organization and its members that have been working for elimanating women from the military HAVE WASTED THE PAST 20 YEARS ARGUING A LOST CAUSE!! As is anyone now arguing that women do not belong in the Armed Services because it ain't gonna change. Not today, not tomorrow. I've been in the Army the past 16 years and NEVER had a situation where we couldn't accomplish any mission because we had women in our unit. I've never experienced a situation where our operation was even DEGRADED because we had women deployed in the field with us, even during their periods.
I seriously suspect that women who oppose other women serving feel personally threatened by those strong assertive military women. Those who oppose women serving in the military are afraid that those women may just be better Soldiers and better citizens than they...and you know what? They are better than you.
Phelps: Correlation certainly does not equal causation. But I never said that integrating women made our fighting forces superior, did I?
Yes. You did. In the part that I quoted when I disputed it.
Integrating them has NOT weakened our military forces at all.
Therefore, if it has NOT (your caps) weakened our military, it must have made our military as strong or stronger. If it was "as strong" then this whole discussion would be moot, so you must be saying that it has made them stronger.
Tim: I'm not disagreeing with you (or with Dean) per se, but I have to repeat my previous observation: right now women are still barred from something like 90% of all combat-related MOSs, unless you know of recent updates to the contrary.
In other words: the vast majority of women in the military aren't currently serving in combat-MOSs, hence there is insufficient data upon which one may rest a conclusion.
Yes, many wimmin MPs have performed admirably in Iraq, but let's recall that MPs qualify as light infantry. That's a bit different from regular 11-bush ground-pounding infantry.
Also -as the photo Dean presents magnificently illustrates- women are more than qualified to fly as combat aviators. It's been a long, long time since aviators needed brute strength to muscle their planes around. Even some WW2 fighters had hydraulically-assisted controls, including the P-38. Not to mention the average woman masses quite a bit less than the average man, and that's more mass for fuel, ammo, or electronics.
Pity the UAVs will be taking over from everyone, no?
If anyone is unsure by now, I am neither arguing against "women in the military," nor am I saying we should keep them out of the combat-related MOSs. What I am saying is that we don't have any reliable data yet. Big difference.
This stands in contrast to the previous two commenters, Phelps and Dave Justus.
Phelps: you (apparently) not yet grasped the difference between an opposite and a negative.
The set NOT WEAKENED is the union of the sets STRENGTHENED and STATUS QUO (or "stayed the same"). Your claim is that Dean is claiming STRENGTHENED, when in fact his actual implies (either) STATUS QUO (or) STRENGTHENED.
You seem to have fallen into the error of the excluded middle; you seem to assume a XOR b; apparently it never occured to you to consider c. {g}
As for Dave Justus' analogy: one should not compare Dean "no sack" to Jordan "with sack"; one should compare Michael "with sack" to another qualified NBA starter "no sack." I'll bet whoever you pick will smoke MJ up and down the court.
Apples and oranges, my friend; apples and oranges.
And women still do not engage in active combat.
So I guess our military victories for the past 20 years were just dumb luck.
While conservatives may have an issue with women in the military it doesn't help your cause by over-inflating their contribution. The vast majority of the work is still done by men and they've been getting it done long before women showed up.
In 1940 the German military was the most effective force on the planet. That isn't particularly good evidence that keeping Jews in their place was the right thing to do. I would argue that a German military that used the talents of Jews would have been even more effective.
In the same vein, one could argue that just because we are the best now, doesn't mean we are perfect. I happen to agree that having women helps us, but it is possible to imagine that the U.S. military would be even more effective if women were not involved. Just as I don't take our military being the best in the world as evidence that 'don't ask, don't tell' is the best choice, I don't take our military being the best in the world as evidence that integrating women, or the particular ways in which we have integrated women, are the best choice.
It is pretty obvious that a huge amount of our military power comes from the simple fact that we spend about as much as the rest of the world combined on our military. You would have to be pretty lame to spend that much and not dominate. This isn't intended to take away anything from our soldiers, men and women, who are I think the best one their own merits as well.
One interesting aspect of this whole thing though is thinking about the future nature of 'warriors.' I expect that in the not too distant future (one could argue it is already here) the most fearsome soldier won't be the muscle bound Rambo type, who can kill you 50 ways with his bare hands but the skinny, pimply computer geek who can effectively cordinate and control a horde of semi-autonomous robots. It will be interesting to see how that changes the military culture.
I don't believe that's technically accurate. Hitler certainly believed it to be so. He believed that an all volunteer military simply couldn't stand up against his own. It was an ideological thing mostly.
It's also key to recall that most of Germany's victories where easily won encounters. No one really opposed them in force. After the Normandy invasion, when real force was being applied, Germany was fighting a war of attrition. If was fighting to keep what it had gained and little else.
Women either need to be fully intergrated or removed. Either of these would 'fix' the problem. But this half-assed yes they are soldiers, but they aren't supposed to fight in most instances just irritates everyone.
I think the point is that to the level women are now integrated into the military the dire predictioons of decreased combat effectiveness, etc, turned out to be wrong. At the very least I think we can agree that the increased role of female soldiers has had no demonstrable negative affect.
In the present, the most fearsome soldier is the sniper, or the one in the burka who can gather enough intelligence, slap a transponder on the right terrorist and give the signal to the bombers to blow up a couple hundred breakfasting mujahideen along with their weaponry.
In short, we need people with a good eye for detail and a talent for subterfuge, qualities women have been honing since childhood. You need us more than ever, guys.
The American public is not ready -- nor probably ever will be -- for the woman soldier. For better or worse, we place more value on the lives of women then on men. Especially when it comes to grisly deaths. With the media counting every casualty, see how quickly public opinion would turn against a war if the headlines read, "3 Female Soldiers Killed Yesterday in Iraq."
It won't be pretty.
Women casualties in combat is a moral breaker for both the civilian population and the troops. Plus, I shudder to think about what would happen to a female soldier if she were captured.
Wow. Quite a list, huh?
I completely reject Jesse's assumption that suddenly it will all become about female soldiers dying. Guess what? Female soldiers ARE dying, NOW. the headlines aren't there, and I don't see them showing up anytime soon. Regardless of whether you believe the public is ready for the "woman soldier," there have been women soldiers in the army for years and so far the public's been fine with it.
I have yet to see the outpouring of public horror and rage.
The American public is not ready -- nor probably ever will be -- for the woman soldier. For better or worse, we place more value on the lives of women then on men. Especially when it comes to grisly deaths. With the media counting every casualty, see how quickly public opinion would turn against a war if the headlines read, "3 Female Soldiers Killed Yesterday in Iraq."
Women are being killed in Iraq, and are integrated into the TO of all units where they are legally allowed to be. It's been that way for at least 20 years.
The American public is us and they don't seem to have much of a problem with it.
So, can you assert with complete confidence that precisely the same number of soldiers would have been killed and injured if women hadn't been serving?
I don't understand why you're being so belligerent about this, Dean, when:
(1) You've written posts yourself pointing out that the issues about integrating women into the military aren't all silly.
(2) You've never served in the military nor, so far as you've ever said, done extensive work interviewing members of the military at all levels to find out the ins and outs of all aspects of military life.
You're making astoundingly confident proclamations, Dean, for someone who's just making inferences from a general outline of history.
Besides, you really don't want to go about the line of reasoning that the best does X, therefore X is the best. Not unless you want to defend the American military as perfect.
And it really opens you up to the converse: the worst militaries in the world, or at least the ones who've most consistently gotten their asses kicked lately, have mostly been composed of Arabs. Let us, therefore, get all of the Arabs out of our military because look at how badly having Arabs has worked out for Arab armies. That's obviously a load of crap, but it does follow the same basic reasoning you're using. (Correlation implies causation.)
Anyhow, I think that there's a good argument to be made that integrating women into our armed forces will be a net benefit, assuming that you don't try to pretend that they're men while you're doing it. But please, Dean, don't be belligerent about it. It's entirely possible that we're wrong, and it's not like you can set up scientific experiments complete with control groups to get any real answers. It's a matter of judgment.
And frankly, on matters of judgment where you can't run scientific experiments to find out, I'd trust the people with experience in running successful militaries a lot more than I'd trust you or me guessing from out living rooms.
So, please, drop the self-righteous indignation. It's unbecoming when you haven't done anything to earn it.
The list of battles lost because of women is zero for one simply reason: there are no women in combat roles. But that is not the only measure of readiness. Another measure is utilization of resouces, one being money spent for training. For example, if a woman is fully trained and becomes pregnant, she may leave the service. Money down the tubes.
Now will that matter for the best fighting force in the history of the world? Perhaps not. But why do it anyway? A better question, does that matter to the tax payers?
BTW, was someone saying that women were destroying combat effectiveness or merely hindering the optimization of that effectiveness?
As you might recall, I served as an aircraft armament systems specialist early in my Air Force career and at that time physical standards were lowered so that little skinny women like I was then could be forced into those job slots.
That was in 1981. If such practices persist into 2006, then, yes, fighting effectiveness is hindered. Any hyperbole is yours.
Army PFC Lori Piestewa, 23
Sgt. Melissa Valles, 26
Staff Sgt. Kimberly A. Voelz, 27
Pfc. Analaura Esparza Gutierrez, 21
Pfc. Rachel Bosveld, 19
Pfc. Karina S. Lau, 20
Spc. Frances M. Vega, 20
Chief Warrant Officer (CW5) Sharon T. Swartworth, 43
Capt. Kimberly N. Hampton, 27
Sgt. Keicia M. Hines, 27
SPC Rachel Lacy, 22
Helicopter crew chief instructor Staff Sgt. Lori Anne Privette, 27
Army Pfc. Holly J. McGeogh, 19
Pfc. Nichole M. Frye, 19
Capt. Gussie M. Jones, 41
Spc. Tyanna S. Felder, 22
Pvt. Michelle Witmer, 20
Spc. Isela Rubalcava, 25
Pfc. Leslie D. Jackson, 18
Pfc. Melissa J. Hobart, 22
Sgt. 1st Class Linda Ann Tarango-Griess, 33
Sgt. Tatjana Reed, 34
Sgt. Shawna M. Morrison, 26
Sgt. Pamela G. Osbourne, 38
Spc. Jessica L. Cawvey, 21
Sgt. Cari A. Gasiewicz, 28
Sgt. Tina S. Time, 22
Sgt. Jessica M. Housby, 23
Spc. Katrina L. Bell-Johnson, 32
Spc. Lizbeth Robles, 31
Spc. Adriana N. Salem, 21
Spc. Chrystal G. Stout, 23
Sgt. Maj. Barbaralien Banks, 41
Pfc. Sam W. Huff, 18
Spc. Aleina Ramirez-Gonzalez, 33
Spc. Carrie L.French, 19
Lance Cpl. Holly A. Charette, 21
Cpl. Ramona M. Valdez, 20
Petty Officer 1st Class Regina R. Clark, 43
Staff Sgt. Tricia L. Jameson, 34
Pvt. Lavena L. Johnson
1st Lt. Laura M. Walker, 24
Airman 1st Class Elizabeth N. Jacobson, 21
Spc. Toccara R. Green, 23
Sgt. Julia V. Atkins, 22
Sgt. Regina C. Reali 25
Sgt. Myla L. Maravillosa , 24
Air Force Senior Airman Alecia S. Good, 23
First Lt. Jaime L. Campbell, 25
Pfc. Tina M. Priest, 20
Sgt. Amanda N. Pinson, 21
Pfc. Amy A. Duerksen, 19
Lance Cpl. Juana NavarroArellano, 24
Petty Officer 2nd Class Jaime S. Jaenke, 29
Army Sgt. Wakkuna A. Jackson, 21
Sgt. Jennifer M. Hartman, 21
Army Pfc. Hannah Leah McKinney, 20
2nd Lt. Emily J.T. Perez, 23
Sgt. 1st Class Merideth L. Howard, 52
1st Lt. Ashley L. (Henderson) Huff, 23
Army Sgt. Denise A. Lannaman, 46
I am humbled by their sacrifice and I honor their service.
It is, for example, ridiculous to assert that the American public just won't put up with seeing women killed in wars. That's just flat-out false (see the list above).
It is also ridiculous to listen to conservatives bitch and moan that women are degrading our military when during the same period where we began integrating women into our military we also become the undisputed top military machine on the planet. It is therefore incumbent upon those who say our fighting effectiveness has been hampered to show how exactly that is so, and if they can't then they deserve the scorn they get.
Juliette: And yet, you served. So, what, you figure they shouldn't have let you in? You figure you weren't any good at your job? They should have kicked you out? What's your point exactly?
Non sequitor. That's like saying that because I can still make my rent, taxation doesn't effect my finances at all. It's like saying that because Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France that cancer is a great training plan.
Correlation does not always equal causation.
What I said was that we've had a quarter-century of women integrated into our armed forces and many of them have clearly served with honor and distinction, and our military has become the undisputed world leading military. Therefore, if you want me to believe there's been some gross harm done to our military here, you're going to have to come up with some evidence.
You said:
Like this:
What a random, pulled-from-your-ass observation.
The rest of your post is a heap of logical fallacies. (like saying that because America's military is superior, integration has necessarily not hindered the process)
Then you say this:
... whereas four posts below, you talk about masculinity and the value of recognizing intrinsic behavioral differences between men and women.
Yes, women can (and do) serve well in our modern military, but there are certain activities - notably infantry exercises, that, on average and at extreme ends of statistical distribution, men bring a superior skill set to the table.
So given that, and given the fact that women already DO serve as pilots, etc., what exactly are you righteously arguing against?
What evidence will you accept? It's clearly impossible to produce scientific evidence. Please give a concrete example of what evidence someone who thinks that women in the military hamper its effectiveness can provide, given that our military is the most effective one on earth by a long shot.
I don't believe that's true, mind you - but it's not a very strong argument against "women degrade effectiveness" to state that effectiveness went up over time.
"The conservatives" aren't claiming that the military is less effective than it was 20 years ago (at least, I've never seen that claim made); they, to the extent they actually make a claim about this at all, only claim that it's less effective than it otherwise would be.
(For that matter, I only really recall hearing arguments against letting women serve in certain areas, like as general crew on ships, or in infantry combat.
I don't recall - though my memory or sample might be faulty - an argument against women in any part of the military. This is not surprising, given the sterling efforts of the WAACs and such in WW2.
Do you have any examples to point us to of "the conservatives" you speak of?)
The rest of your objections amount to nothing but an incoherent rant. For example, I've said from the beginning--including in the very article that started this discussion--that there are inherent differences between the sexes and that it would be stupid to deny that. I even said that we probably do want to keep women out of certain military roles. So, given that I've said that clearly and repeatedly, what in blazes are you babbling about?
Women in Combat
Women in Combat, Part III
Quoting from the first:
And from the second:
Can you cite anyone who claimed that women as pilots would make us lose every war we were ever in?
It looks a bit like your sword is hitting a lot of straw.
1) A frequent assertion, one I've been hearing for literally decades now, is that the American Public won't be able to handle seeing women injured or killed. It is a common argument. If this argument were true it would be extremely easy to provide evidence for it.
But since it turns out not to be true, then guess what? Finding evidence to support it's going to be pretty tough.
2) A frequent assertion, one I've also been hearing for decades now, is that male troops won't be able to handle having women around, and will spend too much time protecting those women instead of doing their jobs.
If that were reality, then it would be quite easy to come up with firm evidence of it. But guess what? It's not reality. So finding evidence for it is going to be pretty challenging.
You could give me all sorts of theoretical objections to allowing blacks to serve in the military and suggesting that having them there hurts military effectiveness. But if you came to me with such arguments, I'd laugh in your face. Why? No evidence to support such a preposterous claim, that's why. It wouldn't be incumbent upon me to prove you wrong, it would be incumbent upon you to prove your arguments correct.
Same thing here. It's not incumbent upon me to prove a negative in a case like this.
Of course not, because no one has ever made such a preposterous claim. So what's your point?
we liked having the women around, but there was no question they were much higher maintenance. frankly, it wasn't even close. the medical staff spent far more time on the women.
Pot, meet kettle:
You are arguing against ... who ... what? Except the general caricature of arguments that you've "heard" before.
Men are better and more inclined towards combat than women. All roles except for certain combat roles are open to women. So what is your point, exactly?
Again, three decades of experience now shows that they can serve extremely useful roles, and have often served with valor and distinction. So it is incumbent at this point on those who say we'd be better off without them to demonstrate this.
"It is entirely possible to provide scientific or other objective evidence, at least if an argument has any merit."
How, precisely, do you plan to run the same war 10 times using two armies, 1 that's mixed male/female and the other that's pure male?
Because to be scientific you need to (1) be able to isolate the variable in question and (2) be able to repeat the experiment.
If you actually know how to design and run such a series of experiments (especially on a reasonable budget), please explain.
Stop arguing that us winning disproves someone else's claim. If you can't find someone's claim that we were going to lose, saying that we've won doesn't disprove them.
And I've already given specific examples of specific arguments that are common but clearly without merit. Were you not paying attention?
I think you are missing the point. The point is is that argument is flawed.
Breaking down your arguement:
Conservatives say women in the military make the military less effective
Our military is the best in the world.
Our military has women in it
Therefore, our military must not be less effective and the concervatives above are wrong.
Simply put, your arguement contains flawed logic. Our military being the best in the world does not in fact prove that our military, everything else being equal, would not be 'better' without women in it.
I also think that there is some weakness in the premise that 'conservatives say this.' Clearly you can find some conservative who say just about anything, and some are oppossed to any women in the military. Others are oppossed to how the military has handled the integration of women. Using the generic 'conservatives' probably doesn't help you case here.
Also, as a counter to your arguments against American's can't handle women's casualty point, the Jessica Lynch story at least shows that we pay more attention to women in harms way. If Jessica Lunch had been a man, the 'story' would have been different.
What is most interesting, is that you seem to hold the position about women in combat that most conservatives I know hold. That women should be allowed to do any job that they can qualify for, but that special exemptions shouldn't be extended to them. If this means all women in the military can make it into combat then fine, if it means none can then fine, but don't change to rules to allow an artificial target number of females to get in. That you would seemingly hold this 'conservative' position while bashing conservatives is difficult to explain.
They're smaller, so they should eat less food. Anything else you can think of?
"So it is incumbent at this point on those who say we'd be better off without them to demonstrate this."
I don't say that we'd be better off without them, but off the top of my head I can think of one thing: it's expensive to retrofit naval ships to have separate areas for women. That money might have been better spent on pay raises for the troops, or more body armor, or whatever.
It's now incumbent upon you to prove that that money might not have been better spent.
When you're having a discussion about whether we're in the best of all possible worlds, neither the pro nor the con side is right by default.
If someone said "people with red hair degrade our fighting forces," it would not be incumbent upon me to prove them wrong. It would be incumbent upon them to provide the evidence for their claim. Otherwise, I would be completely within reason to say, "We clearly have very effective fighting force, clearly top notch in the world. So what is your evidence that these redheads are hurting their effectiveness?"
They generally have fewer problems with alcoholism and substance abuse, which is a significant problem for the military.
They generally don't get arrested for violent crimes anywhere near as often as male service members do.
I have a best friend who was a gang member (Solomon Mason for those that remember his blog). He told me very graphic stories of how vicious female gang members were. Gangs frequently brought the ladies as stone cold killers since they could blend in better. A female gang member trained Solomon in fine art of knife fighting. He showed me the scars that she inflicted while "practicing". He was in awe at how efficiently brutal female gang members were. Solomon believes that their many current and former female gang members who have killed and/or severely injured other folks while their crimes been "shifted" to the men.
I firmly believe that a female American soldier can walk into a hostile, fluid situation and emerge victorious. I believe she can mow down incoming enemies, snipe them from afar, toss a grenade into a bunker, and get a slap of the ass for a job well done and a freakin' medal to boot.
That's all folks!
Much is made at times of the fact that there's sex in the ranks between men and women. The suggestion is often that, right on its face that's a bad thing. But is it?
Some branches of the service, particularly the Navy, were once notorious for the problem of male-on-male rape. They aren't famous for it now, but they used to be.
(Now someone's going to come along and say I'm suggesting women are there to be men's sexual play toys. No, that's a bunch of crap. The point is that presence of people of the opposite sex may make for a more healthy psychological environment in general. Since we're talking hypothetical benefits, there's another one I can think of.)
Money spent on accommodating women being better spent on armored humvees (before it was needed) isn't a negative. It's one side.
You're saying that money that might have been spent on armored humvees was better spent on having women.
Neither side is a negative of the other; both sides are a positive statement. They're just two alternatives. It's incumbent upon both of you to prove your side.
We're learning from Iraq and Afghanistan that asymetric warfare is best fought asymetrically. In this, and probably in all future wars, people with these skills are going to be essential. Here, women do have an advantage.
In WWII, Vietnam, Korea women in combat might have been a liability but warfare is changing.
I think the best reason for not putting young women into combat is: they're worth way too much, biologically speaking, to be wasted that way.
Young men are very cheap compared to young women. It is only in the last hundred years that we've advanced far enough technologically and socially to be able to ignore the basic facts of reproduction to the extent that we would even consider sending women of childbearing age into combat.
I realize that "women in the military" is not the same as "women in combat," and if I object to the latter, it's not because I object to the former.
Tyrone:
I'd never heard that about gangster girls, but it squares with what I know about the history of the Indian Wars on the American frontier.
Best,
Lee
I agree with that 100%. When it comes to being a soldier, I just feel that a well-trained woman is as effective as a well-trained man. I just don't see the problems. I used to work with an Army Ranger (Rangers are never former) and he told me on many occasions that he would feel completely confident in a female Army Ranger if she passed the same training that he passed. And he had to admit that there are some "bad ass, hardcore chicks" that could do the job well. Now that's just one Ranger speaking...
And most of the more plausible objections seem to be working themselves out. For instance (IIRC I read about this on StrategyPage), the numbers of women sailors in the Navy becoming pregnant just before deployments - too high for mere chance, too easy to get away with, a major discipline problem, etc.
But... what solves most military discipline problems? Strong NCOs. And as time went on, the strong female NCOs emerged, and presumably laid down the "none of this bullshit on *my* ship" law (which presumably would be fraught with all kinds of problems if it's a male NCO dealing with pregnancy issues) and I believe it's no longer considered a major problem. (Though I haven't seen stats on that or anything.)
I second the idea of all-female units. Play to the strengths.
And not quite offtopic: Did you know that different martial arts styles take advantage of different body proportions? Some forms of unarmed combat will be better designed for your body type than others, and some are better designed for women than for men. I think the armed forces would do well to look into this when training unarmed combat specialists.
PFC Jessica Nicholson, in action.
MP SGTS Kareena Lechner, back in action.
I had posted a couple of times about SGT Hester and her patrol, Raven 42, but the original after-action report settles this debate so I pulled the link from there and followed that to the others.
No one can effect a women/no women comparison because women haven't been allowed in the combat arms yet. Not enough to make a significant difference, anyway.
Dean also introduces some smoke and mirrors when he lists women killed in the Middle East. How many held a combat-related MOS, and how many not? Is he going to count logistics troops killed with an IED as an element of combat effectiveness?
The question about battles or wars in the last 25 years is a magnificent red herring, as the only real battles or wars fought in the past 25 years were Desert Storm (hardly a real war for the infantry) and the current Iraq war. Period. Dean literally has no baseline to begin with.
BTW, last I heard, women don't have to run the same PE/obstacle courses the men do; they get to perform "equivalent" exercises.
First obstacle, Dean: everyone should meet the same physical requirements, not one set for men, and another for women.
After that, allow women 100% access to all combat MOSs for which they qualify. No NOW or ACLU lawyers suing the country into some idiotic "seperate but equal" standard, either.
Then, 20 years after that, you'd have real data to work with.
Oh, Tyrone: some of your lady friends may very well be someone I would never want to meet in a dark alley, but there's this old saying about bringing knives to a gunfight... :)
I seriously suspect that women who oppose other women serving feel personally threatened by those strong assertive military women. Those who oppose women serving in the military are afraid that those women may just be better Soldiers and better citizens than they...and you know what? They are better than you.
Yes. You did. In the part that I quoted when I disputed it.
Therefore, if it has NOT (your caps) weakened our military, it must have made our military as strong or stronger. If it was "as strong" then this whole discussion would be moot, so you must be saying that it has made them stronger.
Some people 'claim' that carrying a 50 pound bag of sand will make you a worse basketball player.
Michael Jordan can whup me at basketball while carrying a 50 pound bag of sand.
Therefore carrying 50 pounds of sand doesn't make anyone a worse basketball player.
See the flaw now?
I happen to agree that women in combat is a fine thing. But the U.S. military being the best in the world provides no evidence for that.
In other words: the vast majority of women in the military aren't currently serving in combat-MOSs, hence there is insufficient data upon which one may rest a conclusion.
Yes, many wimmin MPs have performed admirably in Iraq, but let's recall that MPs qualify as light infantry. That's a bit different from regular 11-bush ground-pounding infantry.
Also -as the photo Dean presents magnificently illustrates- women are more than qualified to fly as combat aviators. It's been a long, long time since aviators needed brute strength to muscle their planes around. Even some WW2 fighters had hydraulically-assisted controls, including the P-38. Not to mention the average woman masses quite a bit less than the average man, and that's more mass for fuel, ammo, or electronics.
Pity the UAVs will be taking over from everyone, no?
If anyone is unsure by now, I am neither arguing against "women in the military," nor am I saying we should keep them out of the combat-related MOSs. What I am saying is that we don't have any reliable data yet. Big difference.
This stands in contrast to the previous two commenters, Phelps and Dave Justus.
Phelps: you (apparently) not yet grasped the difference between an opposite and a negative.
The set NOT WEAKENED is the union of the sets STRENGTHENED and STATUS QUO (or "stayed the same"). Your claim is that Dean is claiming STRENGTHENED, when in fact his actual implies (either) STATUS QUO (or) STRENGTHENED.
You seem to have fallen into the error of the excluded middle; you seem to assume a XOR b; apparently it never occured to you to consider c. {g}
As for Dave Justus' analogy: one should not compare Dean "no sack" to Jordan "with sack"; one should compare Michael "with sack" to another qualified NBA starter "no sack." I'll bet whoever you pick will smoke MJ up and down the court.
Apples and oranges, my friend; apples and oranges.