Women, Peace, and Security leaders discuss how to operationalize strategy

THE ARMY UNIVERSITY, FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kansas – The code to the perfect national security strategy for the United States and its allies and partners will continue to be a focus of research and analysis.

The Army University’s Command and General Staff College’s Women, Peace, and Security panel March 7 at Fort Leavenworth introduced and discussed the current impact one of the lesser known elements of that national security strategy.

Guests Brig. Gen. Marlena DeCelle, Deputy Commanding General – Support, Task Force Spartan; Brig Gen. Katherine Trombley, Deputy Commanding General – Army Reserve, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center; Maj. Danielle Coloma-Flores, Gender Focal Point and Judge Advocate, Task Force Spartan; Dr. Lisa Brooks Babin, Gender Advisor and Research Psychologist, The Army University, Institutional Research and Assessment Division; and Mr. Gregg Thompson, Deputy to the Commanding General, CAC, discussed their personal experiences with WPS.

The WPS legislation, signed into law in 2017, is critical to national security. This legislation recognizes the importance of women actively engaged in security operations and as a catalyst to further strengthen partnerships with U.S. allies.

DeCell explained her role in supporting WPS principles in U.S. Army Central area of operation was primarily using her presence and personal story to demonstrate the capability and interoperability of women in security cooperations.

“Even though many of our partner nations have women serving in their militaries, I have not seen many women in higher ranks or leadership positions in comparison to their male counterparts,” she said. “The WPS engagements I have participated in was the first time that many of them have ever met or even seen a female general officer.”

DeCelle’s Gender Focal Point Advisor, Coloma-Flores is the key planner of WPS programs within Task Force Spartan.

She explained her planning of WPS opportunities included a variety of events such as simple conversations between leaders, leadership seminars, and even competitions, with an emphasis on integrating WPS objectives into security cooperation activities.

“I learned that even a simple conversation regarding the roles of women in the armed forces was Women, Peace, and Security in itself,” Coloma-Flores said. “Remarks from Brig. Gen. DeCelle, a female general office, who a lot of soldiers aren’t accustomed to seeing was WPS.”

DeCelle explained the impact her team’s focused WPS engagements have started to have on this area.

Certain countries within U.S. Army Central Command have begun to increase visibility of women in the military in operational roles and overall awareness of capabilities of women in security cooperations.

“WPS is a platform that emphasizes and encourages the force multiplier that women in uniform bring to the fight,” DeCelle said.

Much like DeCelle and Coloma-Flores, Trombley has seen the impact of WPS within U.S. Army Africa Command

and at the strategic level in the Pentagon. She described the momentum and enthusiasm of support for continued integration of WPS as a critical piece of national security.

Moving forward, she explained that support from leadership down to gender focal points is a necessary momentum driver to continue to inform the force about how WPS is viewed and used as part of the U.S. National Security Strategy.

“We have to look at our partners and allies as a multi-gender force, not just an all male gendered force,” Trombley said.

Babin’s experience with WPS in an operational environment was while she was part of a team during Operation Allies Welcome.

She explained how the U.S. isn’t often thought of as an AO where WPS principles are critical.

During her time with Operation Allies Welcome she realized the absolute necessity to include WPS as part of a wholistic approach to national security right here at home.

Babin learned non-combatant evacuation planning needs to include gender elements; the military needs to build a more robust gender advisory board network; the need for continued training and continued training of gender focal points; improvement of communication and collaboration of WPS objectives across joint and interagency partners; and a need for trauma care at points of evacuation.

She mentioned NORTHCOM, like the other AO’s, is working diligently in providing solutions and improvements to each of these areas to better support national security in a variety of situations.

“All of the things that have been shared are exciting examples of what is being done, what more can be done,” Babin said. “The more we talk about this, I think, it encourage others to think about what they can do in implementing WPS in their own area of control.”

The full panel discussion can be found on the CGSC Facebook page under Videos or through this link: https://www.facebook.com/100064619865260/videos/25373562798

ABOUT WPS

Women, Peace, and Security Act of 2017 made the U.S. the first country to make a comprehensive law on WPS.

In 2019, the U.S. Strategy on Women, Peace, and Security was released, followed by the State Department Implementation plan in 2020.

According to the DoD, “The 2020 WPS SFIP is the first Department-wide strategy written to promote the meaningful inclusion of women across the spectrum of conflict to strengthen partnerships and increase effectiveness and national security capabilities.”

The DoD uses gender focal points and gender focal point advisors to continue to implement the principles into military operations and tasks.

According to Thompson, continued training of gender focal points, who are the “center mass” of the current momentum for WPS, should be a priority.

He said there are about 300 trained gender focal points, 29 of them acting as gender advisors.

Four centers of excellence across the Army currently have gender focal points within their AOs, with more than 20 in the Fort Leavenworth area.

For more information on WPS, visit: https://www.state.gov/women-peace-and-security/.