Long before writing Deploying Feminism, I was studying NATO deterrence and military cooperation. And then in 2007, something new came along with the first NATO Policy on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS). I found this particularly intriguing because it seemed at odds with how I understood NATO to be working. The WPS agenda was inspired by feminist principles of gender equality; NATO was a predominantly male and militaristic organization. To investigate this normative shift, I thought, one would need a deep dive into NATO’s inner workings. Indeed, introducing new ideas can be more complex than introducing new weapons, especially when those ideas run against the grain of a deeply entrenched military organizational culture. And so, tasking NATO militaries to take gender considerations into account when they plan operations was never going to be easy.
In reading Katharine Millar’s review, I see that the most important contributions she identifies were at the heart of my project: writing an accessible text for academics, policymakers, and servicemembers alike that would still offer analytical and empirical depth for those familiar with the topic. She is right that I have opted for a “light touch” when introducing the concepts, theories, and literature that anchor my argument on norm distortion; it was not only my preferred writing style but it was also compatible with my objective of reaching a broader audience, with clear takeaways for civilian and military practitioners. I acknowledge that there are trade-offs and limitations to doing that and I’ll focus on three in particular.
First, choosing a principal-agent framework takes some attention away from the subtle and subversive actions of military actors, as documented in the work of Aiko Holvikivi and Matthew Hurley. Instead, I propose a detailed record of processes, procedures, and military practices that accompany the implementation of WPS policies and directives, from the strategic to the tactical level. Then, while I draw from feminist contributions, I adopt an institutionalist lens which means that I, myself, remain quite agnostic about the project of closing the gender gap in military operations. Instead, the book points out that the representation and participation of women is explicitly articulated as a NATO objective, that the Alliance is not really interested in pressing its own member states to achieve it, and this despite having established mechanisms in place to do so. And finally, when I note that NATO is deploying a particular kind of feminism—liberal feminism—I’m setting the analytical baseline early in the book. Millar notes that this construct has contributed to increased insecurity along gender and racial lines in Afghanistan and elsewhere, another topic that is documented in the literature, but is not systematically embedded in my analysis. Relatedly, what seems most urgent to address this, but perhaps comes too late as part of my concluding recommendations, is to shift the conversation from one that focuses on WPS as an instrument of operational effectiveness, to one where gender equality is recognized as essential to improving security outcomes.
