Special Publication Series - NATO's 70th Anniversary

Do the Ends Justify the Means? Understanding Women’s Deployment on

NATO-led Operations

By Meaghan Shoemaker PhD Candidate, Department of Political Studies, Queen’s University

t is often the go-to line for increasing women’s representation in security

forces: “It makes us makes us more operationally effective.” Let’s be clear: there are still ongoing debates about women’s role in the military. Are we suggesting women have “particular skills” because of the fact that they are women, and subsequently increase operational effectiveness through access to local populations? Do “feminine skills” like consultation improve unit and group cohesion?

Perhaps the focus should be on barrier reduction, instead of pushing increased representation based on “being a woman.” Let’s start there. In the international arena, NATO has formalized the United Nations Women, Peace, and Security Agenda, both with an Action Plan (revamped in 2018) and NATO/Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council Policy on Women, Peace and Security. Despite these policy commitments, there remains a gap in women’s representation in military forces and their propensity to deploy.

A common phrase we hear is, “in order to increase the number of women on deployment, there needs to be an increase in the number of women in national militaries themselves.” This makes sense. But this leads to an important problem: research conducted by Louise Olsson, Anita Schjolset, and

Frida Moller using NATO derived data has shown that in a NATO context, an increase in women’s representation in national militaries does not always coincide with an increase in deployment. And research by Sabrina Karim and Kyle Beardsley (2015) has found that the connection between representation and deployment is not statistically significant, with “a 5% increase in women in the national armed forces only translating into a 1-2% increase in the deployment of women.”

What could explain this discrepancy between expectations and outcomes? Considering deployment motivations and deterrents may be a start. We know from the Elsie Baseline Study some reasons why women may have a lower participation in peacekeeping operations, including a lack of understanding of deployment opportunities, and corruption in deployment selections. In comparison, there are few considerations of NATO-specific reasons why deployment numbers may be so low, which is interesting in light of public and policy recognition regarding the importance of women’s representation. As can be expected, some of the research that has considered deployment motivations, only interviewed men.

I

Special Publication Series - NATO's 70th Anniversary

Are these deployment motivations and deterrents different for women and men? The implications of the response to this question would ultimately unearth barriers to participation for military personnel, and potentially lead to greater consideration with regard to deployment support.

The challenge goes beyond individual motivators and deterrents, though. From an organizational context, deployment discrimination is more insidious than we think. In my doctoral research, from men and women-identified force generators, there are consistent concerns regarding reverse discrimination and “taking roles away from men,” qualifiers that we need to make sure women can “do the job,” and making sure they are effective on operations. There continues to be misunderstanding at the commander level, where there is the political interest to have more women in deployments, but the caveat that always follows is that women must be able to do what men do. “Women make us more operationally effective, but I hate the idea that we are saying women make us operationally effective;” “We don't choose based on sex or gender or race or ethnicity,” but “we want a more diverse force, but people need to be right for the job." I ask: why are we assuming women-identified applicants may be unable to “do the job?” I see room for ideological tensions.

Defence expert Dr. Stefanie von Hlatky, for example, highlights the importance of military recognition of diversity, rather than the gender-blind approach that has often been observed in Canada and beyond. One of the challenges with this narrative with regard to women in UN Peacekeeping missions

and the Canada-led Elsie Initiative is further challenged by Dr. von Hlatky: instead of saying women transform peacekeeping, there must be a shift in the focus towards a “common professional culture and training.” As Dr. Alan Okros has also argued, the potential is observed by diverse groups working together, rather than adding women and hoping they change the operational effectiveness of a mission. The complexity of these calls for diversity within large military organizations cannot be understated. This is why arguments of operational effectiveness must be revisited. In order to maintain sustainable foundation and push for progress and women’s agency to participate in security forces, the argument cannot rest on the "operational effectiveness" of women.

This may be one of the stalling points for the NATO response to the UN’s 15% troop contribution quota. Perhaps the process through which NATO wishes to support women in nations participating in NATO-led operations is more important than the check-the-box woman deployed. Perhaps the institution’s understanding of women’s participation is more nuanced than we thought. But there is also evidence that NATO-led missions are more dangerous and prestigious, which often translates high risk into high reward. Depending on the soldier, this increased risk may be either a motivator or deterrent. The attitudes of force generators and their perception of women and men deploying on missions is another potential factor. Personal safety and experiences of harassment during deployments on particular missions may inhibit propensity to redeploy. The next study for my

Special Publication Series - NATO's 70th Anniversary

dissertation seeks to determine to what extent there are differences in men and women’s deployment decisions and experiences: what factors influence women's deployments on NATO-led operations? And more importantly, how

do we address these barriers? The good news is that there is a growing body of research that can inform the answers to those questions, both in academia and in defence circles.