The Secretary of Defense today announced that women will now have a front-line role in combat.
Here’s why this is such a bad idea that virtually every society everywhere in the world throughout history has used only males as warriors:
– War is an existential conflict. Nations that lose wars stand to lose everything.
– In war, therefore, a society’s highest priority is to protect that which is essential to its continued existence as a distinct nation or people.
– If a people loses the ability to renew itself by having children, all is lost.
– The limiting factor that determines any population’s fertility is the number of women of childbearing age. This does not apply to men. In principle, you could kill off all but a handful of a nation’s males, and in a generation or two you could still be back where you started.
– Therefore, in just about every society, throughout history and everywhere on Earth, male warriors have fought to protect their most precious resource, the one resource above all that is absolutely essential to the survival of their people: their women. (They will continue to do this, of course; now, though, they’ll busy protecting what should instead have been other men fighting next to them.)
It’s that simple. I don’t even need to bring up women’s disadvantage in hand-to-hand combat, the certainty that they will be raped if captured, their lack of physical strength, the sexual tension that exists in mixed units, the high incidence of pregnancy among females in the military, the erosion of traditional male cohesion among warriors, the distractions created by the need to “clean up” military life to make it a suitable “workplace” for women, the cost of providing separate accommodations, the fact that what is now being instituted as an accommodation for those few women who want to fight in combat will be forced on all women in the event of a draft, and so on.
But this is America 2.0. The military, like every other government agency, now is first and foremost a jobs, Diversity, and self-actualization program, in which everyone has a “right” to participate. What was once the military’s only reason for existing at all — to fight and kill our enemies as effectively as possible — is now way, way down the list. To acknowledge that there are fundamental, natural differences between men and women, and that these differences matter, would be to discriminate — and therefore would violate liberalism’s Prime Directive.
And so we have today’s announcement. It should surprise nobody.
22 Comments
Saw this abit ago. Caused me to go through my 30-pack faster than normally.
I’ve got friends in theater – I know patrols now aren’t manned up enough now. (I know but “personnelled up” just doesn’t have that ring).
Nice way you’ve put that “distractions” – so far we’ve been pretty lucky were POWs are concerned.
So far.
Perhaps. But I am not entirely sure that it is.
I have no quarrel with the specifics of your argument, Malcolm. But I question whether or not the case you present is comprehensive.
It is clear that every front-line warrior risks the so-called ultimate sacrifice — his or her life. It is also clear that, in addition, virtually all women but not all men risk sexual assault by enemy captors. And, as you point out, the large scale loss of a nation’s female population presents a more devastating loss to that nation’s survival as a people.
All that being granted, is it not the case that such personal and national risks for each gender differ in degree rather than in kind? And, ultimately, when a nation’s conflict is existential, as is, indeed, the case for every war that the State of Israel fights, is it appropriate to withhold any resource available to that nation?
Consider the importance to 15th Century France of Jeanne d’Arc. And in the 20th Century, after the bloodiest battle in history, the Russian people chose to memorialize Stalingrad with the gigantic statue of Mother Russia, depicted as a sword-wielding warrior (wait for it) with tits.
[img]https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTtphEToXXwYp1YayJ7lx0wCM04zz5O_SZgq3_RnKEQp3O_IjsfIg[/img]
Yes, Henry — when the men on the front lines are no longer sufficient to keep the enemy at bay, when all other hope is lost, when utter extinction is the alternative, of course women must fight. And that is what happened in Stalingrad.
But to put women on the front lines simply as an act of social engineering, motivated by a delusional fetish that imagines absolute non-discrimination as the soteriological endpoint of a liberal Utopia — well, that is something else altogether.
What a magnificent statue that is, by the way.
Sure. I’m not, by any means, supporting equal treatment of men and women in battle just for the sake of the ERA movement, and certainly not if the military draft is re-instated. But I’m not sure about forbidding women from participating in any capacity where they can make a positive contribution, on a voluntary basis and as long as they understand the risks.
Moreover, the concern about losing the ability to reconstitute the national genome, it occurs to me that Nazi Germany lost that ability even though their women did not battle alongside their men. After their defeat by the Red Armies on the Eastern Front, I would wager that their national genome became more Slavic than Aryan (if you catch my drift).
As for The Motherland statue at Stalingrad, it is truly a magnificent memorial to the incredible effort by the Russian people to turn the tide against the German invaders. Interestingly, it is almost the same height as the Statue of Liberty (including Liberty’s pedestal).
Hi Henry,
Yes, rape and sexual enslavement have been weapons of war, and part of the spoils of war, since time immemorial. As far as the conquered population is concerned, they are the genetic equivalent of sowing the ground with salt. Kill the males, then take the females and use them to increase your population, instead of the conquered foe’s.
But a people doesn’t protect its women (and thereby its gene-pool) by putting them at the front lines of battle, where they are even more likely to be captured, raped, or killed.
Here’s something that should give a good idea of the cognitive incoherence of the Left on this principle: on the same day that Leon Panetta announced that we would be sending women to the front lines of battle, Mr. Obama’s Rasputin, Valerie Jarrett, tweeted:
But perhaps I shouldn’t have said “it’s that simple”. There are many other good reasons why this is a bad idea.
I accept your gracious concession that it is not necessarily “that simple”.
Not at all, Henry. You’re right. What I should probably have said instead was that I thought a society’s interest in protecting its women was sufficient to show that this was a mistake.
So; it’s sufficient. But is it necessary?
:)
Do women really need protecting? Perhaps in today’s societal structure.
On the other hand….
http://listverse.com/2008/03/17/top-10-badass-female-warriors/
Another site with various links including 13th thru 20th centuries.
http://www.lothene.org/others/women.html
Well, if Valerie Jarrett says so…
Also, let’s keep in mind that there’s a mighty big difference between historically exceptional women commanding an army now and then, and a general policy that makes no distinction between men and women serving as front-line infantry.
“a general policy that makes no distinction between men and women serving as front-line infantry.”
More to do with politics.
Excerpt from 20th century:
Israeli Army included 12,000 women were combatants in the 1948 War of Independence, Initially women were fully integrated into the Israeli army, they trained, fought and were billeted with men. Eventually political pressure led to the creation of segregated male and female units with the women’s units assigned primarily to support functions. Those women who were already assigned to mixed-gender combat units remained with their units and continued to fight on the front lines. Although women were ordered out of the front lines by David Ben Gurion in 1950 there were numerous reports of Israeli women fighting in both 1956 and 1960 and reports of female commandos, including Lt. Yael Dayan, daughter of Moshe Dayan, fighting as late as 1966.
The Israeli Army did research into women’s effectiveness as front line troops, and discovered that childless women were just as good or better than men, but that women who had children were significantly less effective because they were much more reluctant to kill people.
Thanx for the information, Up2L8. I suspected all along that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but I was not aware that it was not hyperbole!
Malcolm, we are in agreement about Valerie Jarrett. In the immortal words of Paulie Walnuts, “She’s a malignant c*nt.”
One of my daily “milblog” reads, ROK Drop, says, “Relax. Women won’t be signing up in droves.” See here. Pardon the run-ons and other errors.
And what happens in the event of a draft?
Not sure, but how likely is a draft?
Can’t say. We’ve had them before.
And as for “not sure”, I think it almost certain that there could be no principled exception made regarding drafting women for front-line combat. Certainly it would go to the courts, and it’s hard to see on what basis women would be exempt.
I’ve been taking a ‘look-see’ at the female Tamil Tigers. From what I’ve looked at, I see women can be highly capable.
On the other hand – there’s Derb:
http://johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2013-01-26.html
(h/t – hbd chick).