2024 WPS Symposium: Elective Panel 2A - WPS in an Era of Strategic Competition

ELECTIVE PANEL 2A: WPS IN AN ERA OF STRATEGIC COMPETITION
Great Power Competition and WPS in the Western Hemisphere
Ms. Duilia Turner, LeadIn Consulting and Jack Gordon Institute
The Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Framework plays a key role in navigating geopolitical challenges and fortifying regional partnerships in the Western Hemisphere. Integrating servicewomen into defense and security roles allows nations to leverage diverse perspectives, enhance operational effectiveness, and promote trust. The strategic, moral, and human dimensions of WPS align with democratic principles and create enduring relationships based on shared values. Bilateral and multilateral engagements, training initiatives, and multinational exercises illustrate the concrete impact of WPS on military efforts and regional stability. As global competition intensifies, embracing WPS principles becomes a strategic necessity and a competitive advantage against U.S. military competitors. Sustained efforts to prioritize gender integration and the exchange of successful WPS initiatives among partner nations are crucial to enhancing bonds in the human domain. The WPS Framework provides a robust approach for addressing multidimensional threats, encouraging collaboration, and unlocking the full potential of human talent in defense institutions. It is not just a global call to action but a relevant security and defense approach for the Western Hemisphere, where women are frequently peacemakers and defenders.
Strategic Empathy: New Reality of Russia’s ‘Woman Question’
Ms. Anna B. Davis, U.S. Naval War College
A nation’s demographics and, within it, the quality of human capital are revealing indicators of state power. Russia, like many other nations, faces aging population issues, high mortality, and low birth rates. Moreover, since the mid-twentieth century, demographically, women have been in the majority in Russian society due to World War II, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, Russia’s two wars in Chechnya, military hostilities in Georgia, and, currently, in Ukraine. The Russian government, facing the reality, identified state policy trends and measures to advance women’s interests, resulting in new opportunities for girls and women to excel in education, business, politics, and the military. Women have become major stakeholders in the security of the state. Russian women’s increased representation in the federal and regional governments allowed women to establish domestic and international fora and working groups focused on cooperation, engagement, and empowerment of women in every sphere of society. Women addressing global challenges of our time, once again, say - If not Me, then Who?
WPS, an Essential Component of Strategic Competition Ambassador
Eric Nelson, George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies
The inclusion, protection and empowerment of women is critical for achieving peace and security and succeeding in our strategic competition with autocratic foes.
The 2022 National Security Strategy outlines two key principles to guide our national security priorities: strategic competition and global challenges.
We are in a strategic competition of values. As authoritarian regimes seek to erode the rules-based international order, the U.S. government must set itself apart as a credible model of inclusion and equality. Through the adoption and implementation of inclusive policies, the U.S. government is better positioned to promote U.S. values that make us stronger, safer, more prosperous, and more democratic.
The competition of values is stark. It is a choice between the subjugation of women or the empowerment of women. Colleagues find it is getting harder to have honest conversations about gender. This has included resistance to even the most basic language recognizing the full and equal participation of women.
The NSS lays out the range of shared challenges that threaten global security. Beyond old debates about what roles women play in traditional combat - women are essential across the spectrum of competition and conflict.
A Human Security framework -- where all persons need to be included and protected - contrasts the competition as between security built on the whole of society or security based on the will and power of the autocrat.
You may win a battle without women, but you’ll never win a war or sustain peace without them.
The U.S. Naval War College (NWC) hosted the 10th iteration of its Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Symposium onboard Naval Station Newport, May 2-3.
The symposium, themed “Advancing Gendered Security in a Complex World: Hard Power, Smart Power, Soft Power,” aimed to foster a shared understanding of the complex and dynamic global security environment through examination of women’s influence and experience as stakeholders and catalysts of change alongside men.