ARMS AND THE WOMAN:Would a Sexually Mixed U.S. Army Lose Its Wars?Lou MaranoIn the weeks since American women soldiers fought alongside men in Panama, a consensushas begun to emerge that women should be allowed to serve in combat units if they want to. Arecent New York Times/CBS News poll says that seven out of 10 Americans now hold this view.I respect and admire women who want to serve, but I believe anthat I expanded role for womenin the U.S. armed forces is a demonstrably still a bad idea. Mine is an unusual perspective. I ama Vietnam veteran, a social scientist and a journalist who has done some reporting on themilitary. In 1967 and 1968 I was a junior officer in a Seabee battalion that provided constructionsupport to the 3rd Marine Division near the demilitarized zone separating the two Vietnams. Until1984, I was an anthropology professor who tried to teach his students to understand whycultures develop the way they do, and that history is not just the story of one damn thing afteranother.The simple truth is this: However well one woman (or 1,000 women) may have performed in afirefight in Panama, it does not change the fact that men—as a group—fight better than women.This fact is unremarkable (and as unsexist) as saying that young men usually make b e t t e rsoldiers than do men who are no longer young. All other things being equal, an army whoseaverage age is 26 will beat an army whose average age is 46. All other things being equal, anarmy of men will beat of an army of women. All other things being equal, a society thatputs women in the field at the expense of fielding a like number of menwill lose its wars.Of course, all other things are never equal. This is why the United States can probably get awayfor a long time with its policy of using and increasing number of women volunteers to make upfor the men who fail to enlist or for Congress's failure to conscriptthem. Diminishing East-Westtensions make a major war seem less likely. Defense cuts, including cuts in personnel, appearinevitable. Since our forces will be smaller anyway, why not let motivated women do as much ofthe job as they can handle? Isn't it unfair to exclude military women from the most careerenhancingassignments?Different things are at stake in the short and long terms. I taught my anthropology students thattaboos (such as the incest taboo) evolve when the benefits of a contemplated action areimmediate and obvious but the costs are veiled and postponed. For untold millennia, everysociety of which I am aware has had a taboo against sending women tofight while able-bodiedmen were still available.Now we are on the verge of violating this taboo. Before we embrace the violation as our nationalpolicy, we should try to consider the consequences. The short-term benefits are clear.Americans prize autonomy of the individual. That's what we fought for in past wars, isn't it?Women now make up almost 11 percent of the armed forces. Why exclude them from combatonly to replace them with men less eager? The United States maybe entering an era of brushfirewars and relatively small regional conflicts that present no immediate threat to the survival of thenation. America is still a vast, rich country that will continue to hold a huge advantage inresources, population and technology over any probable combination of enemies. Under thesecircumstances an expanded military role for women could cause serious problems, perhapseven defeat, but would not result in the conquest of the United States by foreign powers.The long-term costs are hidden but deadly. One way to think about these costs is to consider the"law of the minimum," propounded by Justus von Libel, a 19th-century German chemist and apioneer in agricultural research. He discovered that plant growth is limited if one necessaryfactor is unavailable—even if all the other factors are availableI in abundance. Applied to humansocieties, Libel’s "law of the minimum" suggests that survival is notgeared to coping with goodconditions, or even to average conditions, but to an ability to get through the worst crises.Militarily, that worst crisis is total war, which has come to the world twice in this century. Bothtimes America got off easy in the expenditures of one necessary factor—manpower. UnlikeEurope, the United States never fully mobilized its population for military service. Even duringWorld War II, we didn't push up against Libel’s law of the minimum. On Sept. 20, 1943, Gen.George Marshall testified before the Senate against a bill that would have deferred from the draftmen who were fathers before Pearl Harbor. Similar bills would have been laughed out of thelegislatures of the European powers. Take a look at photographs of soldiers in the Europeanarmies of both world wars. You will see faces of many older men, many of them fathers. Still,they did not draft women. And with the exception of the Soviet Union, which ran out of men inWorld War II, they didn't push women toward combat. There are two good reasons for this: Mengenerally fight better than women, and men generally fight better when women aren't around.A misunderstanding of the Israeli example clouds the issue. Contrary topopular belief, Israeldoes not conscript women to fight—and certainly not so that able-bodied men can be excusedfrom military seervice—but to free men to fight in combat units. IsraelisI've talked to think thatthe U.S. trend of pushing women toward combat to take the place of men who stay home is folly.It is often said that modern technology has erased the physical advantage men have brought towar. This is fantasy. It is not even true in support units. I recall several occasions in Vietnamwhen I grew faint after manhandling (good word, that) ammunition crates or sandbags for hoursin the blinding heat. The point is not that some women could have done better; it is that mostwomen could not have done as well. It is also said that sexual distraction in military life is anissue only for relics like me, and that today's more enlightened generation of young men developnothing but brotherly affection for their female "buddies." Not onlydoes this go against allexperience and common sense, but I found it to be false when reporting on U.S. forces deployedto the mountains of Honduras in 1988. While frustration, heartbreak and jealousy did not seem tobe problems for the Army reservists and National Guard members who came into the camp andreturned to the United States after a few weeks, they
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