Female Integration into Combat Roles Could Harm National Security

Submitted by Mastodon on Wed, 2013-12-25 03:35

Article here. Excerpt:

'However, critics of the initiative say it comes with social and health costs that are counterproductive. And they say they are deeply skeptical of claims by military leaders that standards will not be altered.

“The Pentagon and the White House see this as being about equal opportunity—it’s not about that,” said retired Army Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis, author of the book Deadly Consequences: How Cowards Are Pushing Women into Combat, in an interview. “What kind of nation pushes its young women into direct ground combat? A nation that is willing to compromise security even more and a nation that will not survive in the long term.”
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“If we do decide that a particular standard is so high that a woman couldn’t make it, the burden is now on the service to come back and explain to the secretary, why is it that high?” Dempsey said in January. “Does it really have to be that high?”
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“The use of the term ‘gender-neutral physical standards’ raises questions depending on how it is defined,” the memo said. “A plain reading of the term suggests that men and women would be required to meet the same physical standards in order to be similarly assigned.”

“However, in the past, the services have used this and similar terms to suggest that men and women must exert the same amount of energy in a particular task, regardless of the work that is actually accomplished by either.”

A report released last month by the Center for Military Readiness (CMR) notes that the Marine Corps’ implementation plan for women in combat includes similar criteria. Scores for men and women on the Physical Fitness Test (PFT) and Combat Fitness Test (CFT) were “gender-normed” in 2009 in order to “account for physiological differences between genders,” according to footnotes in the plan.

For example, women receive higher scores on the CFT “Maneuver Under Fire” event—previously pass-fail—for completing it in the same time as men. A male trainee would earn the minimum of 60 points for completing it in 3 minutes and 58 seconds, while a female would earn 88 points for completing it in the same time.

As a result, a male would fail the CFT by accruing 189 points or less on three “gender-normed” exercises, while a woman with the same performances would earn a total of 247 points and qualify for the second-highest rating class.

“It is a way—whether deliberate or not—it is a way to give credit to women at a different rate than men,” said Elaine Donnelly, CMR president and former member of the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces, in an interview. “The problem is there is no ‘gender-norming’ on the battlefield. There is no ‘gender-norming’ when someone is in a burning vehicle.”
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Maginnis added that female soldiers typically get promoted at equal or faster rates than men and are proficient in many positions. He is concerned about the small percentage in actual combat scenarios, he said.

“I’m only talking about the ‘tip of the spear,’ the people that are actually doing the killing,” he said. “If you are going to compromise those who are actually doing the jobs for political correctness, you could care less about the security of this country.”'

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OK, as I have posted previously: This is about ticket-punching. Getting female officers into combat MOSs and then into a CZ for just enough time to get the CIB or equivalent for their branch. Then, back to get a desk job and promotion.

The future military structure of the US and indeed the entire western world looks like this: men in combat positions as rank-and-file and serving as front-line or in-field military commanders. Most will not get above the rank of major (or equivalent), however. Most officers of higher rank than that will be females who served in combat roles a brief period of time and possibly haven't seen combat in decades except through a (male) soldier's helmet-cam.

But to be fair, how much different will that be from what we are seeing now at the top of our military command -- the very top? When was the last POTUS the country had who saw combat? Have you ever noticed that the presidents most ready to send in the troops are the ones who never were one of those troops? I have.

A lot of things can make for disastrous military outcomes. Few are worse than having senior officers make decisions who have no significant combat experience. And training? It's useful, but hardly replaces The Real Thing. We've had a string of presidents who have never seen combat now for how many years, and how much more are we spending today on the military? How many places are we now deployed in without clear goals, at least not that I can see? Playing a game of harass-and-keep-off-kilter indefinitely is not going to work. First, eventually, we'll have to stop. All the enemy need do is wait. And he can -- he has to -- what choice does he have? He can put up with it forever because to get him to stop putting up with it, you either need to completely wipe him off the face of the Earth (not likely), get him to stop fighting you (yeah, get jihadists to stop doing that), or capitulate and surrender -- which is an absurd idea. [I hate to fall back on tired Vietnam analogies, but this facet of US military involvement in Vietnam '60s-'70s has this in common with the west's fight vs. Islamism: while the west needs to win, Islamists need merely not lose. The first is harder than the second. As the late Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap once said in an interview after the Vietnam war, possibly quoting Sun Tzu's "The Art of War", the one thing he'd say to the US is: "In war, you must win." Bingo.] I am not saying the world is an easy place to live in allowing for simplistic solutions to complex problems. With or without a policy of "constant engagement at all costs", which isn't much of a policy, there will be times these jihadists get a punch in on the western chin, though their chin has taken plenty more blows from our fists than they've landed. And I am not saying it's the western world's fault that there are enough people in the world who subscribe to Sayyid Qutb's teachings or of those like him such that it makes life real hard for anyone who doesn't see things their way. But we are dealing with people who do not listen to reason. It's their way or the highway, and the highway means death or abject subjugation under Sharia. Not an option.

So where dos that leave us? Hard to say, really. Guess the western world has to keep fighting, like an amoeba in a polluted pond. The pollution comes in, filter it, kick it out, and keep doing it, because you can't stop or else you'll die. But in any case, the "bailing" mechanism in the cell has to be strong. Sorry, my analogy here is getting weird. How can I compare a strong bailing mechanism in a single-celled organism to competent, combat-experienced military leadership? But I think you get the idea.

If the nation's leadership is hell-bent on creating a ticket-punching turnstile for female officers to get them fast-tracked to Pentagon desk jobs, then all I can say is, I hope they change their minds sooner rather than later. I am fine with female enlisted personnel and officers being in combat roles -- provided they are actually there.

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Submitted by Matt on Wed, 2013-12-25 05:07

National Security? Are the Canadians going to be swarming over the border anytime soon? Are the Mexicans going to be sending in the army? Conversely, if the Chinese or the Russians got serious, you think grunts with guns are the means by which you'd do something serious in return?

No? Then "National Security" is bullshit. The United States of America faces no military threats. None. Fill the army with ompaloompas, it wouldn't make a lick of difference.

Oh, it might affect empire-building and military adventurism in Other People's Countries, but national security?

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Submitted by MrWombat on Wed, 2013-12-25 12:08