NWC's Accidental Oversight, or Something Else?

shame ... is it still a thing?

What would you think if the Marine Corps War College held a conference on recent developments in drone warfare without mentioning the Russo-Ukrainian War?

What if, this week of all weeks, the State Department held a symposium on crimes against civilians in the 20th Century, and didn’t mention the Nazi death camps in Europe, or Nazis at all?

Well, keep that theme in your nogg’n, and let’s start out the week with an unpleasant task, just to get it out of the way.

Hopefully, this won’t be a yearly exercise, but on May 2nd, my antennae were twitching when there was no easily available Program of Events in open source ahead of last week’s 10th Annual Woman, Peace, and Security (WPS) symposium.

If you’re unfamiliar with WPS or the annual symposium, I’ve tried to ignore this thing since 2017, but for the 9th symposium, I finally realized it needed a bit of attention. If you think this year’s fried air is an exception, well, please read both links above then come back. I won’t plow those fields again.

If you are not up to speed why we even have a dedicated “Women, Peace, and Security” Program at the Naval War College, I’d ask you to read my post on that from this January.

In summary, this socio-political, critical-studies imbued concept started at the UN, became a pet project of Hillary Clinton, morphed into a priority of Obama Administration nomenklatura, and finally made its way into law in 2017, signed by President Trump. Details, if you need them, are at the above links.

Shoehorning it in the Naval War College after that? Well, that was “operationalizing” the 2017 law.

Today I thought I’d do like I did last year, and review the top-5 events of the last year that I wish the world’s second-largest navy’s war college would invest time and effort in - but I’ll let y’all hash that out in the comments.

What I would like to do instead, is carve out a large sign of SHAME to hang around the neck of those who finalized the program.

Note this bit from the “Call for Papers,”

See the first bullet under the first subject area?

If we must have this symposium, this year, then this would be a commendable subject area as most of us who have deployed ashore this century have had the ugly reality of what happens to women in war either briefed to us without filter, or have seen it in person.

On top of that, being that we have in the last six months seen the most nightmarishly documented and validated campaign of using systemic rape as a weapon of war in the invasion of Israel from Gaza on October 7th, 2023 - it would make sense that at the top of the list.

Now is the time to raise the profile of this horrific aspect of war that has been with us from the dawn of time and always will be.

Now, look at the actual Program of Events and tell me what you see, or don’t see? We’ll pick up the conversation below;

Nowhere. It is nowhere to be found.

Nothing. Zilch. Nil. Zed. Zero.

Why did this not make its way into the agenda?

If you remember my post from November of last year, just weeks after the attacks of October 7th, you might have a hint.

A decision was made at the Naval War College to ignore the opening - and correct instinct - of the Call for Papers to discuss the topic of “Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) - Rape as a strategic weapon of war - … Sexual slavery … Non-state actors“

What organization - a non-state actor at that (checking another subject area) - in recent memory would unquestionably be brought up in such a discussion as the instigator, the “oppressor?” In that discussion, what ethno-religious group would be seen as the victim, the “oppressed?” In the Marxism offshoot known as critical studies, what would require the focus to be in this oppressor/oppressed dynamic?

Even if the almost exclusively left-wing political slant of WPS studies’ cadre refused to answer the call to papers, that would not have stopped the organizers from at least holding a panel discussion on the topic.

Why?

What a disgrace.

What did we get instead?

• “Allyship and Masculinity”

• “Inclusion Without Representation: How Can Men Promote WPS in Male-Dominated Environments?”

• “Strategic Empathy: New Reality of Russia’s ‘Woman Question.‘

• “Iran: Gender Inequality, Climate Change, and Environmental Security.”

• “Mainstreaming WPS Principals into Professional Military Education and DOD School House Curricula”

• “Advancing Women’s Leadership in Maritime Competencies: Policies and Practices.”

• “Art, Peace, and Security.”

• “Gender Analysis Exercise: Arctic Security Scenario”.

As with most socio-political movements that positioned themselves to be spot-welded onto the military, this dissolves a millimeter under the surface into self-referential empire building, job preservation, and self-esteem building flavored with a sprinkling of grievance.

That’s the easy part to deal with.

What is not forgivable is that in May of 2024, completely ignoring the use of rape as a weapon by Hamas in an event just over a half-year old - and with the hostages still being held - probably ongoing in all its horror, leadership at NWC allowed, supported, and promoted this tragedy.

There is a story to be told between what opened the call for papers to what actually took place last week that took CRSV off the agenda, I’d love to hear it. The taxpayer funding this boondoggle, we should all hear it.

Could there be an innocent explanation? Sure. Could I be completely off base and missing something? Of course, but I don’t see where. If so, let me know in comments. For the sake of our Navy and its war college, I would hope I’m wrong.

If I’m correct, WPS is validating its critics by its very actions, but not unexpected given its pedigree and history.

As such, and this was true before the 10th symposium, but it is even more true now; anyone or any organization who tries to weave “WPS concepts” into other military educational programs … well … they need to seriously self-assess what they are doing and why.

For the people who are subjected to being socio-political guinea pigs and have no choice but endure this, study Irish Democracy.