Allowing women into the infantry is a mistake

Female cadets at Sandhurst

Helena Bonham Carter famously said David Cameron would be a Democrat if he was American. When he is called to account by the great RSM in the sky, his government’s foolish push to admit women to the combat arms will surely be exhibit A.

First, of course, the necessary caveats:

• The British Army would fall over if it didn’t have women; they represent 11.3% of officers and 7.3% of other ranks
• Iraq and Afghanistan have clearly revealed some staggeringly courageous women in uniform (e.g. Private Michelle Norris, Medical Assistant Kate Nesbitt, Lance Corporal Sally Clarke and Corporal Sarah Bushbye)
• There are a handful of women who are physically capable of serving in the infantry
• To the extent possible the Army should reflect the society from which it recruits

With the never-ending and imprudent cuts to military manpower there is an interesting — though clearly theoretical — question of whether we should revert to an all-male force. Let us park that for now and more narrowly consider the costs of accepting women into the infantry.

Without question, it will undermine unit cohesion. Cohesion matters in all parts of the military, but it is especially important where the bayonet meets the flesh, as it were. It is often repeated but nonetheless true that soldiers go to war for their country but fight for each other. The British Army has a good history of cohesion, anchored in tradition, regimental identity and the power of the senior NCO, but armies are living creatures. There is tremendous turnover in units, and their quality rises and falls with time. It cannot be assumed that esprit de corps can withstand any change.

The question of cohesion is often drowned out by calls for diversity, which has become a progressive obsession. There is a debate to be had about the benefits of diversity, but let us assume that it brings some intellectual benefit. The work of the combat arms, though, is not rocket science. There is a reason we don’t combine scientists, poets and academics and send them into close combat; there is a reason the infantry has the lowest intellectual standards of any part of the military. By contrast, the underbelly of diversity is often not addressed, but it is significant. Diverse communities have weaker social capital. They have fewer shared values. They are simply less cohesive. The military is no different. Ask any infantry officer and he will tell you his unit has racial cliques. Ask any combat support officer and she will tell you her unit has cliques based on race, gender and sexual orientation. Strong units have weaker cliques, and vice versa. But cliques are unequivocally not good for war-fighting.

And then we get to the impact of putting young men and women together. As Anna Simmons writes (link):

[E]very sentient adult knows what happens when you mix healthy young men and women together in small groups for extended periods of time. Just look at any workplace. Couples form. At some point, how couples interact — sexually, emotionally, happily and/or unhappily — makes life uncomfortable for those around them. Factor in intense, intimate conditions and you can forget about adults being able to stay professional 24/7. Object lesson for anyone who disagrees: General Petraeus. … Spend time around soldiers when they are coming down from adrenaline highs, or are depressed or upset; they are prone to all sorts of temptations.

Coupling, like cliques, are antithetical to cohesion.

Female officer in the Int Corps

The inclusion of women in the infantry will also without question lower standards, and it will damage integrity, and that is profoundly serious as well. This is because what politicians want, politicians get. The system may be able to delay the inevitable — for instance, when the military held on to its Harriers for as long as it could in the face of Liam Fox’s ludicrous decision to sell them — but politicians will eventually bring the bureaucracy to heel.

Consider the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which — literally all on its own — decided one day to persecute conservative political groups that were opposing President Obama, and provide politicians with confidential tax information on the Administration’s opponents. There were no instructions from the White House; IRS leaders just read the tea leaves (which is actually much more disturbing than garden-variety corruption).

What the Westminster elite want is progressive outcomes. First there will be targets, which will be attacked with vigour (see e.g. here); targets will then become de facto quotas. And because women cannot physically pass the tests, this will mean Army officers will be forced to sacrifice their integrity to make sure they do.

This is how it will happen. On paper, Army fitness tests do not appear that challenging — but the guidelines miss some important factors. First, soldiers are often exhausted and hungry when they do fitness tests. Second, the warm-ups provided by PTIs are usually excessive. Third, minimum standards are not acceptable. Fourth, the tests are completed in rapid succession. Fifth, if you can’t achieve a reasonable level you’ll get picked on. In contrast, when a special case turns up — someone the powers that be want to pass — these factors are reversed (see e.g. here). The individual is tested alone. The warm-up is appropriate. The PTIs are supportive. Tests are completed a la carte, with multiple tries as required. No one picks on the individual when they fail. In other words, standards drop in invisible ways (and if they don’t, there will be lawsuits — see e.g. here, here and here). Ultimately, if that’s not enough, the individual will be “paper passed”. It already happens all the time, and this will make it much worse. Undermining standards is devastating for an institution like the Army — and even when the standards are not reduced, people assume they are, which is almost as damaging (see e.g. here).

Beyond the direct impact of the inclusion of women in the infantry on cohesion and standards, there are other higher level impacts.

First, it will reinforce the belief that the military is a democracy. In addition to the ideal of gender interchangeability we have human rights and coroners’ inquests intruding onto the battlefield. Of course the military should treat people as fairly as possible, and of course we take perverse glee in the Oxford coroner tearing strips off the MOD. But while the military exists to defend our democracy, it is most assuredly not itself a democracy. An analogy perhaps is Churchill’s line that “truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies”. Democracy is so precious that it should be protected by a distinctly undemocratic institution — the British Army. The Army’s job is too important for there to be any fundamental right to serve in any particular capacity.

Junior soldiers at AFC Harrogate

Second, it will contribute to a further shrinking of the realm of acceptable debate. You can easily find plenty of articles in reputable magazines celebrating women’s leadership style; how easy is it to find any that argue the reverse? Is anything in life an unadulterated Good Thing? Can it possibly be that female leadership is perfect? In fact, the discussion has become completely asymmetric: when we talk about jobs and salaries, gender differences are an artificial construct of the patriarchy; when we talk about leadership and social contribution, women are superior. It is simply not possible to argue that men are superior. The progressives have — as is their objective — narrowed the range of acceptable debate so far that it is impossible to oppose their agenda. This is problematic when we are trying to determine what roles women should play in combat, a sphere with a uniquely unsympathetic standard for performance.

Having women in the infantry won’t cause the Army to suddenly fall apart, but it adds to an already long list of factors that are preventing it from performing properly: insufficient numbers; insufficient funding; insufficient training; human rights law; risk aversion; paperwork; poor recruit quality. We have just lost two wars. We lost because we didn’t have enough troops. Because it took too long to get the right kit. Because our leaders were risk averse and uncreative. Because the voters lost faith. These “small” things matter; they add up. There are now so many challenges facing the Army that we need to start addressing them, not adding to them. And unfortunately it’s only going to get worse if we continue rolling over in the face of the progressives’ agenda — just wait until we allow all 56 genders into the infantry.

The world is not getting any safer, and it’s time this government started taking its primary purpose — defence of the realm — a lot more seriously.

Update 1: It’s curious that as soon as the issue of women in the infantry is discussed, the topic of gays comes to dominate the discussion. I’ll leave it to others to parse that one out.

In the article above I make the argument that women should not serve in the infantry due to the impact on standards and cohesion (in addition to a couple of higher order drawbacks). Note that I’m not making the argument that women shouldn’t serve on the front line (a conflation many commentators make), but more narrowly that they shouldn’t serve in the job that exists to close with the enemy and stick a bayonet in his chest.

We could backwards deduce what this means for gays, and then (probably) have a huge flame war over it. But gays serve honourably in the infantry (and always have, of course), and there’s no point in having that argument. Further, the dual issues of standards and cohesion only apply to women.

The question at hand is whether women should serve in the infantry, and as I lay out above, I think it’s a bad idea.

Update 2: In response to particular challenges:

The article makes women in the military seem to be hired help. There are three levels to that answer. First, at a certain level all soldiers know they are just hired help. Anyone who has tried to steer their greviously wounded soldiers through the NHS, where they had been dumped by the Army, can attest to this. Beyond that, I make clear above that the Army would fall over without women; if you’re critical to the mission, then you’re not peripheral. Finally, in the context of the infantry, women are by definition a support element. If that weren’t true we wouldn’t be having this debate.

Women are dissuaded from joining the Army by the ban on serving in a combat arm (related to the above point). It is clearly true that women’s interest in the infantry is constrained by the ban. I am sure that when the first women join the infantry there will be a surge in interest and acceptances (the Roger Bannister / four-minute mile argument). But there are plenty of combat opportunities and role models for women already (I’ve added a photo of the indomitable Kate Philp to photos of the some of the women listed above). It seems unlikely that the opportunity to be an Apache pilot, FAC or member of the SRR is insufficient to tempt women into the Army under current arrangements

Simmons piece is dubious. The passage quoted above says people couple, and that this will be exacerbated by war. Dr Roy Baumeister argues (citing meta analysis) that excessive ego depletion is highly conducive to infidelity. There cannot be any doubt the soldiers in a war zone suffer virtually the highest ego depletion of any profession, and it therefore stands to reason this will exacerbate the natural human instinct to pair off.

Cohesion is unproven. Challenging conventional wisdom is fun, but when that wisdom comes from thousands of years of military experience the burden of proof is clearly on the challenger.

Cohesion is not a good thing. No one would argue that cohesion is anything other than a necessary but insufficient factor for the combat effectiveness of a Western army. One could say that an organisation’s cohesion magnifies that organisation’s impact (it is perhaps the financial leverage of the military world). Plenty of evil organisations have high cohesion, but that does not undermine the concept of cohesion, though, any more than ISIS using AKs undermines the concept of using firearms.

Diversity does not damage cohesion. Without tumbling too far down the rabbit hole of politics, the impact of diversity on societal cohesion is hotly debated because it cuts to the core of the progressive argument. Diversity is the ultimate justification for social engineering. For this reason opinions on diversity differ widely. This article bases its appraisal of the impact of diversity on cohesion on Robert Putnam’s seminal article, “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century”, which has the following abstract:

Ethnic diversity is increasing in most advanced countries, driven mostly by sharp increases in immigration. In the long run immigration and diversity are likely to have important cultural, economic, fiscal, and developmental benefits. In the short run, however, immigration and ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital. New evidence from the US suggests that in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’. Trust (even of one’s own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer. In the long run, however, successful immigrant societies have overcome such fragmentation by creating new, cross-cutting forms of social solidarity and more encompassing identities. Illustrations of becoming comfortable with diversity are drawn from the US military, religious institutions, and earlier waves of American immigration.

Putnam celebrates the US Army for transcending race. The military is clearly one of the most powerful assimilation machines ever created, but even it has its limits. As described in the article above, cliques form all the time. In well-led units, commanders are able to overcome this problem by enforcing a higher-order conformity. In other words, the military experience shows that cohesion can be maintained by overcoming diversity (although unfortunately not all units are well led, and you go to war with the leaders you have and not the ones you’d like to have). But Putnam’s fundamental point remains that diversity undermines cohesion. The question then becomes whether you believe gender differences are skin deep, like racial differences, or more fundamental. Suffice it to say that there is evidence on both sides of the argument.

Update 3: Something else to watch out for is progressives making the argument that basic fitness standards are sexist, and that they are no longer suitable for modern war. This is ludicrous, of course. The weight an infantryman carries into battle has remained quite stable over time. Ammo and water have fixed mass. Helmets and body armour has actually gotten heavier as its quality has increased. Electronics and batteries are only increasing. Whatever the changing nature of war, dismounted infantry still exists to carry excruciatingly heady loads across rough terrain in poor weather.

Update 4: This story reinforces my point that standards will fall with women in the infantry. There is not enough integrity in the Army to withstand the tidal wave of bullshit coming down from on high:

A study released Tuesday by two Army War College professors explains how some officers maintain compliance with ever-increasing training requirements, requests for information and reams of mandatory paperwork. They lie about it.

Update 5: Retiring USMC general John Kelly:

My greatest fear — and we see this happen a lot over the 45 years I’ve been in the Armed Forces is, right now they’re saying we are not going to change any standards. So I think it will be the pressure for not probably the generals that are here now, but for the generals to come, and admirals, to lower standards because that’s the only way it’ll work in the way that I hear some people, particularly, the agenda-driven people here in Washington … they want it to work.

Update 6: When standards and targets conflict, the targets always win. Just ask the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) (and the stories below describe different women, so this is not an isolated event):

• “FDNY ‘babying’ [female] cadet who can’t pass fitness tests” (link)
• “FDNY’s new entrance exam will lower physical standards” (link)
• “Woman who failed FDNY physical test six times given another chance” (and a female FDNY officer who objected to her treatment was punished) (link)
• “Woman to become NY firefighter despite failing crucial fitness test” (link)