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OK. I've chewed through enough of the #FortHood report to have Thoughts, but don't have enough time to write them up properly. Only thing to do is a thread rant.
This is going to veer very quickly into a USMC perspective, because seeing both progress and failures in a USMC context informs my thoughts on this very much DOD-wide problem.
We, as a military, got here, here being sustained and repeated failures to take care of the women who volunteer to serve the country with us, by adopting incremental changes that are good, but insufficient.
There are a variety of reasons why this is all we did, but those aren't terribly important now. Some incremental changes were mandated from outside, others were made voluntarily by the institution well before that.
I'm halfway through my twentieth year in Marine Corps combat arms units. I was in when it was illegal for women to be in those units. I was in when they needed waivers to be in them. I'm still in now that it's not illegal. I've seen successes and failures.
Some of the Marines who were the very women at certain units absolutely crushed it, and changed the command climate for the better. Others, not so much. These are tough jobs for anyone, male or female.
But who thrives and who doesn't in that situation shouldn't matter. The problem with this method is that it puts the onus for change on the INDIVIDUAL, vice the INSTITUTION. And that's why, not matter how good an individual Marine is, the institution still fails.
This is the same with SHARP-like programs across the Department. There are resources, but it's the onus is on the individual to take advantage and change the system because the system is still run by people with no interest or incentive to change it.
The Fort Hood report recommends more of the same, incremental change that may provide more resources to the individual, but doesn't remove the onus, no matter how many people got fired.
So what would structural, sustained change look like? I'm going to tell you, because the units I've seen get this right do so as units (mini-institutions) with women in high-level, influential billets. And that's the short answer. Just do that.
This means moving senior women into senior billets rather than waiting for them to move up. This means promoting women ahead of peers. It means giving women command ahead of peers. It means waiving or removing physical fitness standards that hold this back.
It means giving women the keys to the institution. It's not that men can't do it, it's just that we're not the best at it. We don't think about these issues a lot because we don't have to. We've never had to. But women do.
My wife and I both like to run. She has to carefully think about where and when she runs to be safe. I never give a second thought to when or where I run because I literally don't have to. She's better at choosing safe routes and times than me. She just is.
Every good commander has delegated something important to "the right man." Well, there's just no right man for this job. It's not a knock on men, it's just that the mental muscles required here are ones we've never had to work.
But, you might say, doesn't this individually benefit womens' careers and individually harm mens' careers for the sake of an institutional imperative? And I would definitely say: YES!
But the point of the promotion system isn't careers. Command is a privilege, not a right. The point of the promotion system is "THE NEEDS OF THE CORPS." (Or insert whatever dehumanizing phrase your service uses here.) And the Corps absolutely needs this change right damn now.
Don't like taking a career faceshot for the sake of the Corps? Sorry, hotshot. You're in the wrong profession.
You also might say, but the point of the institution is combat, tHiS dOeSn'T hAvE aNyThInG tO dO wItH cOmbAt EfFeCtiVeNesS. And I would definitely so, Oh but it does. It has everything to do with combat effectiveness.
If you had read my book, you'd know the centerpiece of the whole theory is moral cohesion chapter (which covers both unit and institutional cohesion) and the centerpiece of that chapter is Joan of Arc. This was not an accident.
The moral cohesion of the French forces during the Hundred Years War, provided by Joan's inspirational leadership, allowed the French to turn the tide in a war where, up to that point, they had been getting their ass kicked.
When the institution fails the individual, both unit and institutional cohesion is harmed and bad moral cohesion has a direct, if unquantifiable, effect on combat effectiveness.
The Fort Hood report and its tired, incremental recommendations are why many people think, rightly, that at this very moment it is imperative that Biden pick a woman for SECDEF.
Now, you all know I think the Department of Defense is an unaccountable Frankenstein's Monster of fraud, waste, and abuse that Should Not Exist, but this is a time and an issue that it could be used for systemic benefit.
But that doesn't mean that General Austin can't take the lead on this. He absolutely can. And since the heat is on the (very large) Army right now, and he is rightly respected in the Army, he has an opportunity here to have a huge beneficial impact.
General Austin should go to his hearings with a slate of areas where he's going to hand the reigns of the institution to women, and women who he intends to hand the reigns to, and he should tie this effort directly to increasing the combat effectiveness of the Department.
IT STILL WON'T FIX EVERYTHING. But the only way to get the onus for change off the individual and on the institution is put the right people at the controls of the institution. That's really it. Simple, but difficult, like a dead Prussian once said.
/thread
Already have men crying "But it won't be fair to give someone special privileges." The point of the institution isn't to be fair, it's combat. If you think this is unfair, wait until you find out what losing, really losing, feels like.
Anyway, if ya'll don't like that I propose to "prop up" women leaders, then don't complain about mediocre and toxic male leaders, because that's who's being propped up right now.
