As the United States develops a strategy to guide all military services on how to promote the participation of women in conflict prevention, management, and resolution, and to better protect women and girls in situations involving armed conflict, it could supplement the work already being done in the Department of Defense by studying the examples of other countries and international organizations. When shaping its framework, it should also consider the links between conflict, women, and climate change in developing best practices.

This strategy was due in October 2018, a year after the Women, Peace, and Security Act of 2017 passed with strong bipartisan support. Although President Trump signed it into law, his administration has not yet sent it to Congress. The strategy will shape how the law is carried out at the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and State, and USAID.

The Five Eyes Community and Gender in Operations

The United States has lagged behind its partners (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the U.K) in the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing and collaboration community in incorporating gender into its defense work. Australia has made the most progress, as shown by its deployment of trained gender advisors to missions in Afghanistan and Iraq and its insistence that gender concerns be included in the scenario for its large biennial contingency exercise with the United States. Further, the Australian Defence Force has undertaken a full-scale review of its operational doctrine to determine where gender considerations need to be added.

Especially in civilian-centric operations such as stability operations or humanitarian relief operations, how the United States decides to handle gender in its military activities and missions could affect how well it works with these close allies. Inconsistent approaches to working with gender among local populations could lead to frustration with international efforts and jeopardize the success of missions. For example, following its current civil-military operations doctrine, the United States does not collect local women’s perspectives on security threats. While allies might act on such information, the United States would not. As a result, the loss of equipment and lives in the U.S. sector could set back efforts to persuade the local population to support the multinational effort and reduce domestic U.S. support for the entire operation.

In Armed Conflict, Women and Climate Change, I argue that in these types of operations, gender is particularly important because the negative effects of armed conflict may compound the negative effects of climate change upon women and girls—a population already at risk. This in turn could create an operational risk for the mission.

War, Women, and Worsening Weather

UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (UNSCR 1325) recognizes that in general, armed conflict has different and more severe impacts on women and girls than it does on men and boys. For example, women and girls are more at risk of sexual and gender-based violence. And they are more likely to suffer long-term medical problems that result from rape, such as fistulas and difficulty bearing children.

As refugees, women suffer more from the loss of social support networks they enjoyed in their home communities. Yet they find themselves still responsible for domestic chores such as cooking and caregiving in austere situations. As combatants, particularly for insurgent groups, they may be forced to become concubines to male soldiers, and if they become pregnant, they may risk receiving inadequate medical care. When the conflict ends, they may struggle to fit back into communities that disapprove of them because they were fighters, particularly if their young children were fathered by their former comrades.

The international development community has also recognized that the negative impacts of climate change can vary, with more severe effects for people depending on their gender. For example, in many socially conservative communities, women might not be allowed to participate in decisions on how to allocate water, despite the fact they are likely the main water collectors in their households. Not being allowed to hold title to land means they may not be eligible to join extension programs to boost agricultural production. This could deprive them of capital needed to purchase drought-resistant seed-stocks or new equipment. As they range farther to collect biomass for cooking fuel and water during times of scarcity due to climate change, women and girls have less time available to learn new livelihoods or get educated.

The likelihood that the impacts of armed conflict and climate change will exert a compounding negative effect on women and girls in areas afflicted by these forces must be considered a threat to the operational success of civilian-centric military missions. If half a population is experiencing different and more severe effects than the other due to their gender, and these effects are ignored in military efforts to give relief and provide stability, it is difficult to see how these missions can succeed. How are military organizations approaching this particular threat?

Incorporating Gender and Climate Change in Military Activities and Operations

In many developed countries, awareness of climate change has taken the form of hardening military installations to withstand flooding and more intense storms. In terms of operations, the militaries of these countries recognize that climate change’s negative impacts will likely lead to more humanitarian relief and stability operations, so they emphasize training and collaboration with the militaries of developing countries to be able to respond to situations like this. This joint work, however, is based on the notion that climate change is just an operational fact that must be dealt with when necessary, rather than a process with which militaries could be meaningfully engaged to support national and international efforts to mitigate and to adapt to climate change’s negative effects.

Similarly, civilian and military organizations across the world have taken steps to reduce the suffering of women and girls in situations of armed conflict. Examples of this include primers for instructors who are teaching gender in military schools, standard procedures to conduct operational planning that factor gender into the process from the beginning, and the use of female engagement teams to interact with women from conservative or traditional societies. Although important, these efforts generally do not address the intersection of armed conflict, women, and climate change.

Yet certain military organizations have already done this: The Civil-Military Cooperation Centre of Excellence in the Netherlands is linking the three together in doctrine, local population surveys disaggregate data related to physical security and food security on the basis of gender, and Women’s Initiatives Training Teams are deployed by the United States as part of Agricultural Development Teams in Afghanistan. These practical examples show how military institutional and operational strengths could be leveraged affordably and effectively to deal with the risks posed by the relationships between armed conflict, women and climate change.

However, unless efforts like these are woven into doctrine, staffed with trained personnel, addressed in military education, tested in training, and then practiced in both planning and actual operations, they will likely remain isolated one-offs.  Our world is changing, and our approach to integrating gender into civilian-centric operations needs to change with it.