Hegseth’s Closure of the Pentagon’s Women, Peace and Security Program Will Make Peace in the Middle East Harder Than Ever
This week, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth posted on X that he plans to eliminate the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) programs at the Department of Defense. He claimed that WPS is a “woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative that overburdens our commanders and troops.”
The Women, Peace, and Security Act, which is based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, was signed into law in 2017 during President Donald Trump’s first term in office. Put simply, it acknowledged that women and girls were underrepresented in conflict resolution, prevention, and post-conflict rebuilding and sought to integrate the meaningful participation of women leaders in these programs.
Reducing it to its statutory minimum and subsequently eliminating it from the budget makes the United States and the world less safe. At a time when the Middle East and North Africa are experiencing yet another year of conflict and instability, and the United States is intensifying its engagement in the region through targeted negotiations and bilateral initiatives, maintaining WPS as a feature of U.S. foreign policy is essential—and lifesaving.
WPS under Trump
During Trump's first term as president, his administration made WPS a feature of their defense policy, signed the WPS Act into law, and released a strategy report that highlighted the fact that “this [was] the first legislation of its kind globally, which [made] the United States the first country in the world with a comprehensive law on WPS.” The report also cited powerful data showing that women’s leadership strengthens, not weakens, the U.S. security sector.
It was also featured in their Middle East policy, notably in the Abraham Accords, the bilateral normalization agreements between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain. After the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020, Ivanka Trump—then a senior advisor to Trump—tweeted a reference to United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 in connection with the agreement. She cited an article featuring statements from Lana Nusseibeh, the UAE Minister, who was serving as the UAE’s representative to the UN at the time. Nusseibeh remarked that the peace agreement was already fostering partnerships that could create significant opportunities for women in the region. Israeli UN Envoy Gilad Erdan echoed the sentiment, emphasizing that “it is essential that women are included on every level of decision-making because a world with gender equality is a better world for all its inhabitants.”
On April 1, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who championed the WPS Act when he was in the U.S. Senate, hosted the 19th Annual International Women of Courage (IWOC) Awards Ceremony, where Amit Soussana, an Israeli woman held hostage by Hamas after October 7th, was honored. In a speech at the event, he claimed that the protection of women and girls from violence is part of the president’s “America First” foreign policy, alongside advancing women’s meaningful participation in political, peace, and security processes and supporting women’s economic empowerment. He made vague reference to the war in the Middle East, “that [isn’t] just costing the lives of soldiers and civilians, but where women in these wars … are kidnapped, and they’re assaulted, they’re displaced, they’re killed, their families are in danger.”
It will not be known whether Rubio was referencing the civilians taken hostage by Hamas, the tens of thousands women and children in Gaza who have died as a result of this war, or both. While is notable that WPS had continued to operate in the U.S. Department of State (the proposed reorganization of the Department of State appears to eliminate the Office of Global Women’s Issues), eliminating or siloing women’s issues to spheres that are seen as “soft” or “feminine” as opposed to the more “serious” or “masculine” spheres of the military, defense, or security is dangerous when we know for a fact that they are intertwined. Rubio’s speech is evidence of that.
By ignoring the disproportionate impact on and unique challenges that women face in wars and conflicts, the United States’ security apparatus will be ill-equipped to face any on-the-ground reality. It is no wonder that research has found that WPS-linked operations produce “greater advantages to the joint force in strategic competition.” The elimination of WPS adds only further uncertainty to the looming question of what kind of role the U.S. will play in the future of the Middle East.
The State of Affairs Today
This administration has made resolving the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza one of its top foreign policy priorities. On the campaign trail, Trump branded himself a “man of peace” and floated that he wanted to win the Nobel Peace Prize for resolving conflict in the Middle East. Meanwhile, one of his most recent plans included the suggestion of U.S. control over Gaza and the forcible transfer of up to two million Palestinians into Egypt and Jordan—a plan that is not only unethical and unpopular in the region but also has significant consequences for regional stability. While a temporary ceasefire was achieved earlier this year, a long-lasting peace and post-conflict plan for rebuilding Gaza is not on the horizon. Yet, a viable pathway to a two-state solution is exactly what is needed to bring about an immediate ceasefire.
If this administration wants to usher in peace to the Middle East, it might do well to heed the facts that it has itself referenced: Women’s participation in peacebuilding processes increases the probability of peace lasting two years by 20 percent and lasting 15 years by 35 percent. Moreover, the participation of civil society organizations, including women’s organizations, makes peace agreements 64 percent less likely to fail.
To date, women have been sidelined from such peace negotiations. Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun, two organizations working across the Israeli-Palestinian divide, have called for their inclusion. Women-led humanitarian organizations that have been supported by UN Women and UNFPA, among others, continue to struggle as aid workers become targets of violence. Other organizations like the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling are collecting evidence and testimony from women who have been subject to sexual and gender-based violence. None of these organizations has had a formal role in negotiations, unlike civil society organizations in other global peace negotiations.
Some women, however, have been consulted in minor capacities. On a Wilson Center panel in January, Huda Abuarqoob, Palestine Country Director at Search for Common Ground, mentioned that women had been asked to consult the U.S. government and some European governments: “After the war on Gaza, we, as practitioners, have witnessed a huge demand for women’s perspective in policy circles.” She added that “one of the challenges is that we rarely find women who can come forward and do these recommendations. They have the skills and have been part of negotiation processes in the past, but do not have enough protection to come forward.” She continued to explain that UNSCR 1325 includes an article on protection and that its full implementation means that “women feel secure enough to come forward.”
Any post-conflict plan will need the input of women for several reasons: First, because women and children have borne the brunt of the violence; second, because women are already leading their households and communities as female-headed households have increased; and third, because women can provide essential insights into governance and security from a human-centered perspective, generating a safer environment for all. As Abuarqoob said, “women are the ones who know what it means to live in a war zone and are the ones who know what it means to live in a non-war zone.”
In many ways, the U.S. has been impeded from upholding WPS by their own policies in the region. It has blinded them from not only acknowledging the gendered reality on the ground but from taking any action to remedy it. It is high time that the United States not ignore reality, but take up the full mantle of Women, Peace, and Security, fully integrating it into its foreign policy and practice. Perhaps then they will succeed in achieving their goal of peace.