Women in Military Service & Combat (not just USA)

[AmericanPride]

That's one hell of an assertion. Would you like to back that up with evidence? I have not seen any significant moral or philosophical contributions to the debate, nor have I seen any serious sociological or anthropological studies of the wide-ranging implications of this move. This is bemusing as primarily this debate should not be about combat effectiveness, but about the wider ramifications of treating men and women as not just equal, but the same.

It's not only the change character of modern warfare, but also the ways in which society has changed the relationship between genders. The old views about genders are increasingly irrelevant - and, to some extent, destructive and obstructionist. The underlying structures of capitalism and democracy - as they exist today, and which, ultimately, inform the construction of the security apparatus around them - do not require any sort of differentiation. In fact, given the trends in finance, labor, public health, technology, and trade, they are positively harmed by any kind of exclusionary policies which reduce one segment's participation in this system. The last few decades have witnessed this dismantling with a few holdouts in the 'cultural wars'. Likewise, the all-volunteer military, with its high demands for an educated and moral work-force, is also harmed by policies of exclusion, given the ever-decreasing pool of viable candidates and the increasing per-servicemember cost of maintaining them.

So this isn't just about combat effectiveness, which really is only an indicator of the state of things underneath, or just equality, which is also important, but instead the continued evolution of our political-economic system which requires an all-volunteer service. With a country of 300+ million people, we could easily find enough men to fill our requirements - but only if we removed barriers like social stigma of the draft and physical/moral requirements. But we can't - and the national security cannot afford to exclude ~150+ million people from the potential labor pool because some men hold sexist views about women.

Never mind that the physical concerns with integration pale in comparison to those of cohesion, fraternization, pregnancy, and injury.

When faced with the common threat of death and serious injury, I'm confident that men and women will be just fine working together.

This revolt against reality will end about one week in to a real war.

The reality is that the only political correctness occurring here is futilely defending the last bastion of masochism in American society against its inevitable destruction in the face of a changing world. Here's a thought: if you were to replace all of the men in the armed forces with women, how would the outcomes of our wars be any different? Has the U.S. lost any conflict on the basis of the physical prowess or personal courage of its members?

But if the empirical data is unfavourable, what costs will have been incurred and how long will it take to save face and then revert to ‘all-male’ light infantry ?

This assumes that the 'unfavorable' data is because women's presence is detrimental to unit integrity rather than that male machisoism is detrimental to unit integrity in mixed units.