Women in Combat: The Effect of Integration on CI/HUMINT Collection The Effect of Integration on CI/HUMINT Collection: Women in Combat

Key Words: #Combat # Integration # CI/HUMINT

The success of any counterinsurgency operation depends largely on the effectiveness and appropriateness of intelligence gathered. Human subjects are a crucial source of intelligence for counterinsurgency operations. Recently, the Pentagon announced its plan to open up all ground combat roles that had previously been closed to women by January 1st, 2016. Based on this announcement, this thesis seeks to establish how one specific area of counterinsurgency operations -- CI/HUMINT collection -- stands to benefit from the integration of women into the combat environment.

Women in Combat: The Effect of Integration on CI/HUMINT Collection

Introduction

The success of any counterinsurgency operation depends partly on the effectiveness of the intelligence function driving the operation (Goh, Hao & Tay, 2008). Simply stated, intelligence is foreknowledge that assists military forces in organizing themselves for optimal employment (Goh et al., 2008). As Goh and his colleagues (2008) point out, 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 out-maneuver the same (Goh et al., 2008). At the operational level, intelligence could help forces understand and engage enemy command elements or other operationally significant targets, thereby incapacitating rebel forces (Goh, et al., 2008). Moreover, intelligence could assist forces make strategic deployment decisions such as how to hit the enemy's center of gravity, thereby weakening their will to fight back (Goh et al., 2008). Basically, therefore, intelligence is integral to mission success, influencing forces' activities significantly, right from operational planning and daily training to force restructuring (Goh et al., 2008).

As the field of warfare has evolved, the human intelligence collection function has also grown to be more and more 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 -- our assignments are taking longer than usual, and our CI/HUMINT intelligence function seems far from perfect. This manifested clearly during the Iraqi war, when the intelligence community found itself relying on old and outdated information, and thereby 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 linked, particularly how each issue impacted the rest (Kerr et al., 2008). Towards this end, there was no comprehensive sense of understanding of the Iraqi target among camp members by the time of deployment (Kerr et al., 2008).

An even greater problem was that once the war had begun, and with a male-saturated force, it was difficult to obtain more accurate intelligence owing to cultural provisions that bar Islamic women from interacting physically with men unrelated to them (Kerr et al., 2008). 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 for intelligence including emerging threats from Iran and North Korea, the Yugoslavia break-up, and the First Gulf War, and still, its collection and analysis performance was far from perfect (Kerr et al., 2008). These instances only imply that there is need to urgently streamline the military's intelligence function both in the pre-war situation and during the war. There is need to improve the military's intelligence gathering and analysis techniques on the ground so that the force is able to put up effective combat operations and to avoid placing an unnecessary burden on the taxpayer. The Pentagon recently announced that the military needed to open up all roles in frontline ground that were previously closed to women by January 1st, 2016. This announcement has been a subject of massive debate, with some arguing that the integration of women into combat...

Based on this announcement, this thesis seeks to examine how the field of CI/HUMINT collection is deemed to benefit from such integration, and what needs to be done to ensure that the maximum benefits of integration are realized.
Background to the Study

There is no doubt that women have served in the American military for a long time, typically playing the role of spies, cooks, and nurses (McSally, 2007). However, their role in professional marine or soldier operations has been severely limited (Obradovic, 2014). 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 (Frum, 2013; McSally, 2007; Alderman, 1992). This perception gives rise to the belief that women may not be able to handle the challenges inherent in the field of war to the same degree as men (Frum, 2013). Other concerns raised against the inclusion of women in traditional combat operations have to do with issues of unit cohesion and esprit-de-corps. These are all valid concerns discussed in the 'literature review' section of this thesis.

The 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 (McSally, 2007). The Act made it mandatory for women to constitute at least 2% of the total force (McSally, 2007). One controversial issue with the Act, however, is the fact that it excluded women from combat units (McSally, 2007). This spurred numerous amendments over the subsequent years, the most prominent being the authorization of female soldiers to act as pilots for combat aircrafts (McSally, 2007). The inclusion of women in more professional roles in the military increased rapidly with the Women Army Corps' elimination in the 1970s, and during Bill Clinton's reign as president (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 the 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 (McSally, 2007). Although women could still 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). This was because of the same ideology that their female biological constructs make them unable to deal effectively with the primary challenges in the field of war (Frum, 2013; McSally, 2007; Alderman, 1992). Two decades have lapsed since the passage of the Defense Authorization Act, yet both the Marine Corps and the Army still 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, WW2, WW1, and the Civil War; and made immense contributions to the military's aerial operations during the Gulf War (McSally, 2007). The question of whether this is enough to have them included in frontline combat operations in the military continues to draw a lot of controversy, and is beyond the scope of this text.

This thesis seeks to determine how the CI/HUMINT function stands to benefit from the integration of women into frontline combat roles. In other words, it is intent on determining how the integration of women in the combat environment could facilitate the process of gathering intelligence from human subjects. The modern-day battlefield requires a stable and robust human intelligence collection function to aid counterinsurgency operations (Kerr et al., 2008). 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 (Kerr et al., 2008). Most contemporary studies have focused on explaining why the integration of men and women in the combat environment is, or is not a good idea. Very little literature exists on how specific areas of the military and its operations, such as the CI/HUMINT field, stand to benefit from such integration. Moreover, studies on how such integration ought to be executed so that military effectiveness is not compromised, and maximum benefits are realized are almost non-existent. These are the issues that the current study seeks to address. It comprises of two parts -- the first part seeks to determine how the CI/HUMINT field of the military stands to benefit from the inclusion of women in the combat environment, whereas the second part seeks to…