Women in Combat: CI/HUMINT Intelligence Collection Benefits

Introduction

The success of any counterinsurgency operation depends partly on the effectiveness of the human intelligence function driving the operation. Simply stated, intelligence is foreknowledge that assists military forces in organizing themselves for optimal employment (Giglio, 2013). Having accurate intelligence information increases the chances of combat success at all levels of operations — the strategic level, the tactical level, and the operational level. On the tactical front, intelligence can provide forces with crucial insight on the performance envelopes of missiles, thereby aiding them in planning how to refine fighter tactics to outmaneuver the same. At the operational level, intelligence could help forces understand and engage enemy command elements or other operationally significant targets, thereby incapacitating rebel forces (Goh, Hao & Tay, 2008). Moreover, intelligence could assist forces in making strategic deployment decisions, such as how to strike the enemy's center of gravity and weaken their will to fight back (Goh et al., 2008). Essentially, therefore, intelligence is integral to mission success, influencing forces' activities significantly — from operational planning and daily training to force restructuring (Giglio, 2013).

As the field of warfare has evolved, the human intelligence collection function has grown increasingly crucial for effective humanitarian assistance efforts and stable combat operations. That, however, seems to be more theoretical than practical, particularly in the context of the U.S. military — assignments are taking longer than usual, and the CI/HUMINT intelligence function seems far from perfect. This manifested clearly during the Iraq War, when the intelligence community found itself relying on old and outdated information, landing conclusions that were largely inaccurate and misleading (Kerr et al., 2008). Moreover, despite the fact that the intelligence community was able to gather accurate and crucial information on a range of issues — including how the Iraqi forces would fight, how the war would develop over time, how tribal and ethnic factions in Iraq would react, how the war would impact oil markets, and how Iraq was linked to Al-Qaeda — it lacked the means to explain how these issues were interconnected, and how each issue impacted the rest (Kerr et al., 2008). There was no comprehensive understanding of the Iraqi theater among camp members by the time of deployment.

An even greater problem was that once the war had begun, and with a male-saturated force, it was difficult to obtain accurate intelligence owing to cultural provisions that bar Islamic women from interacting physically with men unrelated to them. This left the Iraqi female population an underdeveloped and underutilized source of human intelligence.

The Iraqi situation was not even the first of its kind. Back in the 1990s, the intelligence community faced a number of tests including emerging threats from Iran and North Korea, the break-up of Yugoslavia, and the First Gulf War, yet its collection and analysis performance was far from perfect (Kerr et al., 2008). These instances imply that there is an urgent need to streamline the intelligence function both in pre-war situations and during active conflict. The Pentagon recently announced that the military needed to open all frontline ground roles that had previously been closed to women by January 1st, 2016. This announcement has been the subject of massive debate, with some arguing that the integration of women into combat roles would undermine unit cohesion and, consequently, military effectiveness. Based on this announcement, this thesis seeks to examine how the field of CI/HUMINT collection stands to benefit from such integration, and what needs to be done to ensure that the maximum benefits of integration are realized.

The research questions guiding the study are as follows:

RQ1: How does the CI/HUMINT function stand to benefit from the inclusion of women in ground combat roles?

RQ1A: What biological qualities make women more effective CI/HUMINT gatherers than men?

RQ1B: What qualities make it a challenge for male soldiers to collect CI/HUMINT from local populations?

RQ2: How could the military integrate women into its ground combat units without compromising overall effectiveness?

RQ2A: What issues have been raised about the integration of women into combat roles?

RQ2B: What steps need to be taken to address the identified issues and ensure that the full benefits of integration are realized?

The current study is based on the argument that having female soldiers in the field of war during combat operations would place the force in a better position to obtain human intelligence, particularly from the female faction of the population. Most prior studies have focused on the general harms or benefits that could accrue from including women in combat roles in the military. There remain significant knowledge gaps regarding how the CI/HUMINT collection field specifically stands to be affected by such inclusion, and even larger gaps concerning how such integration ought to be conducted in order for its full benefits to be realized. The few studies that have delved into this area have focused on the European context, leaving the American context largely understudied — most probably because women are still significantly underrepresented in combat roles in the U.S. military, making America a less viable area of study. The proposed study complements existing literature and provides crucial insight to combat leaders on how their CI/HUMINT fields, and the force in general, stand to benefit from the inclusion of women in the field of war.

The purpose of the study is to examine how the human intelligence function of the military stands to benefit from the inclusion of women in the field of war. Studies have shown that inaccuracies and flaws in intelligence collection and analysis are to blame for combat missions failing to meet expectations or taking longer than usual (Reese, 2008; Kerr et al., 2008). The primary reason behind the research is to document how women were used to gather human intelligence historically, and the potential benefits that the CI/HUMINT function could reap from the inclusion of women in the combat environment. Data will be gathered through qualitative techniques, particularly document review. Autobiographies of famous female agents who worked as spies during World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and most recently the Iraq War — as presented in military resources and peer-reviewed journals — will be reviewed to identify the specific qualities that made women effective at gathering human intelligence without arousing suspicion. Various military sources and government reports on the Iraq War will also be reviewed to help identify the specific challenges faced by male soldiers in HUMINT collection. Relevant peer-reviewed and military journals will additionally be reviewed to identify potential issues that could result from including female soldiers in the field of war, and how these could be addressed to ensure that the full benefits of integration are realized.

This research rests on two key assumptions. First, a military reflects the values of the greater society within which it is based, which means that the U.S. Armed Forces are not above American laws and the legal system; rather, they must incorporate these laws into both practice and policy. The second assumption is that sexual harassment is a negative force — a widely accepted fact in the military — and that all possible measures will be taken to prevent it and ensure that those found culpable are punished. Throughout this thesis, the terms military effectiveness and combat effectiveness are used interchangeably.

Background and Historical Context

There is no doubt that women have served in the American military since early in the nation's history, typically playing the role of spies, cooks, nurses, or support figures for male combatants (Zabecki, 2008). However, their role in professional marine or soldier operations has been severely limited. One of the primary reasons for this is the perception that women are biologically meek and too "soft" to handle the challenges of the battlefield — a perception that gives rise to the belief that women may not be able to handle the inherent difficulties of warfare to the same degree as men (Zabecki, 2008). Other concerns raised against the inclusion of women in traditional combat operations involve unit cohesion and esprit de corps.

The formal transition of women into the combat function of the U.S. Army began in 1948, when President Truman signed the Women's Armed Services Integration Act into law. The Act made it mandatory for women to constitute at least 2% of the total force. One controversial aspect of the Act, however, was that it excluded women from combat units. This spurred numerous amendments over the subsequent years, the most prominent being the authorization of female soldiers to serve as pilots for combat aircraft (McSally, 2007). The inclusion of women in more professional roles increased rapidly with the elimination of the Women's Army Corps in the 1970s and during Bill Clinton's presidency (McSally, 2007).

The passage of the National Defense Authorization Act of 1992 marked a crucial step in the participation of women in the U.S. military (McSally, 2007). The Act repealed rules that previously excluded women from taking part in combat operations, opening up opportunities for women to occupy a variety of specialties in the force, most of which could essentially be categorized as combat jobs. Although women still could not serve in the traditional combat-specific roles of artilleryman, tank operator, or infantryman, they could potentially work in combat aviation roles and a number of other dangerous occupations (McSally, 2007). Two decades have lapsed since the passage of the Defense Authorization Act, yet both the Marine Corps and the Army continued to exclude women from combat roles in their forces. History has shown that women engaged in combat successfully in many historic wars — including the Vietnam War, the Korean War, World War II, World War I, and the Civil War — and made immense contributions to the military's aerial operations during the Gulf War.

The researcher's focus is on determining how the CI/HUMINT function stands to benefit from the integration of women into ground combat roles — specifically, how the integration of women in the combat environment could facilitate the process of gathering intelligence from human subjects. In the researcher's view, the exclusion of female soldiers from the combat environment creates a gap in the Marine Corps' intelligence collection function and impacts the CI/HUMINT community's ability to support the Corps' counterinsurgency operations. The modern-day battlefield requires a stable and robust human intelligence collection function to aid counterinsurgency operations. The presence of female soldiers in combat could give CI/HUMINT collection operatives greater access to local populations and make information on insurgency operations more easily obtainable.

The Nature of War and Public Perceptions

Researchers contend that many people have commented on the question of whether women ought to be allowed to serve alongside their male counterparts as frontline soldiers, yet a majority may not fully understand the general nature and context of war. Understanding the nature of war is crucial to developing an effective answer to this question. Alderman (1992) provides a succinct analysis of the nature of war, positing that in order to fully understand it, one needs to break down the process of war into three dimensions: the biological element, the psychological element, and the algebraic element. The algebraic element covers the physical elements of war — the weather, the materials, the terrain, and so on. The biological element covers the human aspects of war, whereas the psychological element covers the conceptual framework that links the biological and algebraic elements (Alderman, 1992). These three elements have over the years been contemporized and reorganized into the physical domain of war, the cybernetic domain of war, and the moral domain of war (Alderman, 1992).

According to Dr. James Schneider, former Military Science professor, the physical domain encompasses the material forces present during war, including the logistical, geographic, and technological factors that shape the way war is fought (Alderman, 1992). The technological aspect describes weapon systems and equipment quantities and limitations. The methods and means of sustaining troops during war are covered under the logistical element, whereas weather and terrain describe the geographical or environmental element (Alderman, 1992). Together, these are described as the fixed, or physical, conditions of war.

The cybernetic domain covers the communication, control, command, and organizational systems within a unit during war. The organizational system provides the capability and functionality needed to realize specific tasks. The command function provides purpose to the unit by exercising leadership and giving directions. Communication systems provide conduits for feedback and information exchange, and control systems give feedback to the command function to ensure that operations do not deviate from command goals (Alderman, 1992). Technological systems support the cybernetic domain, which essentially means that the "cybernetic domain links the physical conditions with the human dimensions of war" (Alderman, 1992, p. 5).

Finally, there is the moral dimension of war — an integration of the social, psychological, and physiological factors that affect both units and individuals. The social forces include aspects like morale, group bonding, discipline, and commitment, whereas the psychological factors include attitude, values, fear, courage, leadership, and motivation (Alderman, 1992). Individual anatomical capabilities such as endurance and strength form part of the physiological domain. The combination of these three elements forms the human dimension, which remains the most dominant force during war.

Combat provides the arena for these three domains to interact. Its aim is to defeat and completely destroy the enemy. Destruction makes use of the physical aspects, whereas defeat makes use of the moral aspect — the fear that the force instills in the enemy (Alderman, 1992). This makes the combat process both physical and moral: the moral aspect eliminates the will to fight, and the physical aspect eliminates the ability to fight. The combat process begins in the physical domain with the destruction of materials and communication systems, leading to casualties. Physical destruction of cybernetic elements causes disorganization, which opens up opportunities for moral destruction. Moral destruction, coupled with physical destruction, causes uncertainty and fear, attacking individual soldiers' wills and destroying the bonds between them and other members of their crew (Alderman, 1992). These broken bonds in the end cause the force to disintegrate, unless individual members have the will, strength, and cohesion to resist the forces of destruction. This analysis suggests that the central question in the integration debate is whether women have the strength and capacity to navigate the complex nature of combat, and whether their integration in any way affects the military's ability to do so.

With the ongoing debate on whether women ought to be allowed in frontline combat roles, researchers have increasingly sought to study how American society perceives women's roles in the military. Brown (2012) was able to demonstrate that the way society perceives the role of women is a crucial determinant of how women will be perceived and treated in military service, particularly when serving in ground combat roles.

In a bid to determine how society understood the place and role of women in the military, Stachowitsch (2013) examined a range of relevant newspaper articles in the Washington Post and the New York Times written between 1990 and 2010. He categorized the opinions and perceptions therein into four distinct eras: (i) 1990–1994, the first significant military intervention since the all-volunteer force's inception; (ii) 1995–1999, when the military was downsizing but women's participation was increasing significantly; (iii) 2000–2005, characterized by the initiation of the war on terrorism; and (iv) 2005–2010, characterized by the reformation of military gender policies. The study established that positive statements about integration and women in combat among members of the general public exceeded negative ones by almost 69% (Stachowitsch, 2013). Negative references only outweighed positive ones during the period between 1995 and 1999, perhaps because the concepts of integration and women in service were still relatively new at that time.

These findings were supported by a study by Young and Nauta (2013), which sought to examine the attitudes that military-affiliated college students (those currently in Reserve Officers' Training Corps, ROTC) held towards women in combat, and how these differed from those held by civilian college students. 254 students from civilian colleges were recruited to participate compared to 62 military-affiliated students. The study established that military-affiliated students held more negative attitudes towards women in combat than their civilian counterparts, suggesting that whereas the general public finds little fault with women being integrated into combat roles, the military community seems more overtly opposed to the idea. This explains the high incidences of bullying and workplace harassment against women in military camps, particularly in combat units (Koeszegi et al., 2014). It also explains the low enlistment rates of female soldiers and the small number of women who wish to serve in combat roles — a study seeking to determine the propensity by gender to enlist in combat roles found that only 8.1% of the women interviewed would like to work in the military (Segal et al., 1998). Most women unwilling to work in combat roles cited limited opportunities, parental concerns, and the masculine norms of the military as the reasons for their negative attitudes towards the institution (Segal et al., 1998).