Why the Women, Peace, and Security Act Strengthens U.S. Defense Strategy

Enacted by President Trump during his first administration, the Women, Peace, and Security Act (P.L. 115-68) promotes the meaningful participation of women in all aspects of the conflict continuum, including warfare and stabilization. The Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Act states that the Department of Defense (DOD) is a federal agency with implementation responsibilities, which the department fulfills through a variety of activities that, at their foundation, recognize the differences between women and men and leverages those differences to promote the effectiveness of the joint force. Over time, WPS efforts created a “toolkit” for components to utilize in advancing strategic, operational, and tactical security objectives.

Within the DOD, officials have long lamented the framework’s title, as it is often confused with efforts to increase women in the U.S. military. Further, the title implies that it is neither relevant for military operations nor for military cooperation with allies and partners. In reality, applying the principles codified within the WPS Act to DOD operations, activities, and investments not only affords the joint force tactical advantages but also creates new pathways to counter authoritarian rivals such as China, Russia, and Iran, including through bolstering deterrent postures.

Q1: How does the DOD view the strategic landscape?

A1: The Trump administration will soon be conducting its own reviews of the global geopolitical environment and building the U.S. strategy to contend with current emerging challenges in the form of the National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy. As it does so, a couple of key trends will likely inform their thinking. First, the United States’ authoritarian adversaries—Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea—are cooperating and learning from each other, making them more formidable adversaries. Second, polycrises—a term describing multiple, simultaneous crises that require significant governmental responses—are likely to continue to require responses involving the joint force. Combined with recruitment and readiness shortfalls in recent years, the DOD may be facing what the 2018 National Defense Strategy Commission described as “strategic insolvency,” or an inability to meet the nation’s demands due to inherent overstretch. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s focus on lethality and combat readiness is arguably one way to answer the challenge of strategic insolvency. The DOD must also find innovative ways to counter adversaries and bolster deterrent postures—and exploit every advantage it can create.

The United States’ authoritarian adversaries do not have robust WPS programs, which, in practical terms, means that they have ceded nearly 50 percent of the global human terrain to the United States and other democracies. This creates an enormous opportunity for the joint force to utilize WPS to advance U.S. objectives. Equally, eliminating these programs could allow adversaries like China to reinforce their global support networks and turn this human terrain advantage against the United States.

Q2: How has WPS evolved within the Department of Defense?

A2: The Big Picture—The WPS agenda gained formal recognition in 2000 with the adoption of the UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325. The resolution acknowledges that lasting peace and stability are more achievable when women play an equal role in preventing violent conflict, leading relief and recovery initiatives, and forging sustainable peacebuilding agreements. The United States published the first U.S. National Action Plan on WPS in 2011 (updated in 2016), which was followed by the Trump administration’s passage of the  WPS Act in 2017. This law codifies the pillars of UNSCR 1325 for the U.S. government and advances women’s meaningful participation in peace and security decisionmaking by incorporating gender analysis into U.S. conflict prevention, management, and resolution strategy. The bill attracted wide bipartisan support, with Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, serving as a cosponsor. Mike Waltz, the current U.S. national security advisor, was a founding member of the WPS congressional caucus. The current leadership remains bipartisan. The release of the U.S. strategy on WPS in 2019 (updated in 2023) made the United States the first country to have both a law and a whole-of-government approach to undertaking the WPS agenda.

Operational Utility—Against this backdrop, myriad DOD components discovered the utility of WPS for complex contingencies and military operations. In Afghanistan, for example, U.S. Female Engagement Teams helped tactical and operational level commanders better understand the human terrain of battle spaces, therefore improving kinetic and non-kinetic targeting. Simultaneously, partner forces also became aware that the intentional presence of women in kinetic fights could have a strategic impact. Kurdish women’s units were fierce fighters against the Islamic State in part due to their combat effectiveness but also because of the reputational damage to Islamic State fighters being forced to fight—and lose—to women. In Ukraine, upwards of 60,000 women are serving in the military, including on the front lines, and women’s networks are critical components of anti-Russian resistance networks.

Today, WPS comprises a series of engagement activities, trainings, partnerships, workshops, information injects, and planning factors that intentionally incorporate a whole-of-population approach to their implementation. The DOD is currently building on the body of work generated by allies in their own conflicts and incorporating such insights into deterrence, competition, and operations planning. Indeed, CSIS tabletop exercises found that WPS-linked operations, activities, and investments (OAI) produced greater advantages to the joint force in strategic competition. As one participant in a CSIS tabletop exercise noted, “if you have one country or society that is willing to mobilize 100 percent of its people and one that is only willing to mobilize 49 percent of its people, one’s got a big advantage over the other.” In the words of another player, “the quantity that our adversaries have when it comes to an actual contingency . . . given their numerical superiority, just the mass they can throw at these problems . . . ensuring that all of society and our allies and partners [are] able to mobilize, to resist and to deter, [to] defend all these things is going to be essential.”

Q3: How can WPS contribute to accomplishing U.S. strategic objectives?

A3: Recent CSIS research identified several ways that WPS can help the DOD build strategic advantage relative to authoritarian adversaries. These include:

• WPS as a flanking maneuver. China and Russia have both ceded this space by having lackluster WPS initiatives. As a result, this gives the United States, and the DOD specifically, opportunities to outflank Chinese and Russian activities in the Eurasian and Indo-Pacific theaters, if not globally.
• WPS as a mechanism to expand the competitive space. WPS represents unique opportunities to interact and engage with partner and allied nations in a theater that is mostly absent China’s participation. For instance, WPS opens pathways for enhanced dialogue between the United States and, say, Japan via Track 1.5 dialogues that have positive externalities that span beyond the WPS mission. To that end, WPS represents a key vector for shaping allied and partner perceptions that are presently underutilized.
• WPS as a mechanism for crisis assurance and communication on other non-WPS national security matters. Among democratic states, WPS creates positive spaces that are often viewed as not politically controversial. Accordingly, the DOD ought to consider how WPS spaces might create vectors for communicating other defense messages to key allies and partners in the theater.
• WPS a strategic offset vis-à-vis Russia’s numerical superiority in a warfighting context. European states are likely to face significant challenges conducting large-scale combat missions, particularly in such areas as heavy maneuver forces, naval combatants, and support capabilities such as logistics and fire support. Much like during the Cold War, Russia has a vast supply of man power that it is willing to expend on the front lines in Ukraine (and elsewhere). During the Cold War, that numerical advantage was offset by U.S. and NATO nuclear weapons. As it is unlikely that the United States will want to utilize nuclear weapons in a contemporary contingency unless absolutely necessary, U.S. allies and partners in the U.S. European Command area of responsibility must be able to call upon their entire populations to resist and deter Russian aggression. In other words, WPS provides opportunities to build allied and partner forces in key theaters, better positioning the joint force for crisis response in key theaters.

Q4: Does WPS Act implementation comport with recent Trump Administration executive orders?

A4: Yes. Although concerns exist that WPS Act implementation is not compatible with recently issued executive orders, the reality is that WPS programs implemented by the DOD already comport with Trump administration policy. First, the Department has never considered its implementation of the WPS Act as a DEIA initiative, which primarily focuses on DOD workforce policy and programming. The WPS Act establishes no requirements, quotas, or goals for the organizational composition, academic admission, or career fields in the DOD.

Second, WPS efforts in support of DOD objectives already acknowledge the biological differences between men and women and, when working with international partners, do not promulgate gender ideology. DOD WPS efforts with international partners are partner-led and in alignment with mutually agreed upon defense and security objectives. Confusion about noncompliance may stem from a key implementing arm of the WPS Act across the department, dubbed the “gender advisory workforce,” a term the DOD borrowed to remain interoperable with NATO allies. Yet the tasks assigned to those personnel are focused on advising military commanders on the WPS toolkit and its application to DOD operations, activities, and investments in order to improve joint force effectiveness.

Q5: How is WPS implemented in the DOD?

A5: The DOD was identified as a relevant department in the first U.S. National Action Plan on WPS in 2011 and began its implementation in 2013. After being identified as a relent federal department in the 2017 WPS Act, the department published its first Strategic Framework and Implementation Plan in 2020. This plan was updated in 2024 and outlines the DOD’s three primary WPS defense objectives:

1. Building enduring advantage by preparing the total force as well as organizing, training, and equipping DOD personnel to implement the WPS Act, where relevant, in support of national security objectives at the tactical, operational, and strategic level.
2. Reinforcing a more stable global security environment by integrating the WPS toolkit objectives into the DOD’s OAIs in both peacetime, competition, and crisis contexts.
3. Advancing shared security objectives by cooperating with allies and partners on WPS.

The updated implementation plan focuses on institutionalizing and operationalizing the DOD’s WPS Act requirements while also scoping the department’s cooperation with allies and partners on WPS to align in support of U.S. national security priorities. Each of the three objectives has its respective metrics that allow for DOD organizations to methodologically report on their progress fulfilling requirements in the WPS Act.

Q6: What is the way forward for WPS?

A6: Some observers suggest that the present moment is a ripe opportunity to ensure that WPS aligns with Secretary Hegseth’s priorities. Given that such alignment already exists, the DOD could undertake the following actions to enhance WPS implementation to the benefit of the joint force:

• Double down on training. The WPS Act requires the department to train its personnel, which it is already doing. The department should also sustain its training courses for WPS advisors and WPS focal points across DOD components.
• Continue cooperation with allies and partners. As resources are diverted to Secretary Hegseth’s priorities, WPS security cooperation with allies and partners is a low-cost approach to managing relationships internationally for advancing the United States’ interests. Since FY 2021, the DOD has spent around $3 million annually on engaging partner nations on WPS in its six geographic theaters; by contrast, the department’s overall budget for FY 2024 was $824.3 billion.
• Ensure DOD implementation of the WPS Act remains operationally focused. DOD implementation of the WPS Act should demonstrate value to the warfighter and build pathways for effective battle and war termination through engagement with all of society, including women and girls.
• Leverage WPS implementation to build competitive advantage vis-à-vis U.S. adversaries. The WPS Act represents a critical pathway through which all of society can be mobilized for deterrence purposes—and through which networks can be established that can counter, for example, Chinese Belt and Road Initiative elite capture strategies. Considerably more work can be done to illuminate such pathways and integrate attendant insights into plans, operations, activities, and investments.

Kathleen J. McInnis is a senior fellow and director of the Smart Women, Smart Power Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.