← Smart Women, Smart Power
Smart Women, Smart Power
A Fresh Perspective on National Security Policy
00:24:14
Dr. Kathleen McInnis joins Nina Easton to discuss leading SWSP and shaping research on U.S. security challenges.
Loading summary
Transcript25 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign hello everyone and thank you for joining us for this. For me, very special episode of Smart Women Smart Power. Today I'm joined by Nina Easton. More than 10 years ago, Nina founded what was then a one of a kind initiative, which has since grown into the CSIS Smart Women Smart Power platform. Nina is a longtime media figure, most recently as the Washington editor and award winning columnist for Fortune magazine. She was also chair of Fortune's Most Powerful Women International, where she staged leadership events in Asia, North America and in Europe. For Smart Room Smart Power watchers and listeners, you would know that Nina was also awarded our inaugural Nina Easton Inspiring Impact Award for her many contributions to the field and the women within it. Today, among many other things, she runs Journey to Lead, where she can take us to change the lives of women who are literally changing the world. So we're incredibly lucky to have her back with us today. This episode is both a look back at the remarkable work Smart Women Smart Power has done on gender and national security and a moment to reflect on the importance of this mission as I personally stepped down from this role to pursue other exciting new projects. And I'm especially grateful that Nina has agreed to flip the script today and interview me. So Nina, thank you so much for being here and I'll go ahead and hand over the mic to you.
- [01:31]
B
Well, I'm absolutely delighted, Kathleen. So thank you so much for asking me to do this. Smart Women Smart Power has been such a tremendous run of 10 years and continues. I do want to give a nod to more than a nod, but a thank you to Andrew Schwartz. Andrew and I basically came up with this together the idea for Smart Women Smart Power. And Andrew was chief communications for at CSIS for a very long time. He passed away unexpectedly and at a really young age of 56 about a month ago. And we've all been devastated by that loss. Andrew was the one, by the way, who understood the power of podcasts before anybody. So Smart Women Smart Power was a podcast as well as live events. And yes, he was very, very keen on podcasts. We were the number two iTunes university download on our second year of smart Women Smart Power. So he was technologically forward looking, which really helped the Smart Women Smart Power platform. And if I could just give one shout out to Journey. Journey is about advancing and equipping women to the top of the private sector. It's a one year fellowship program, very intense, where we also have what we call champions. These are women already at the top who provide coaching and guidance as well as the journey team. We are Looking for nominations, we look for women who are highly achieved in the private sector. They have to be mission driven. And a lot of our women, that mission is national security. A lot of them are military veterans, as well as working on things like climate change and health care and so on. Just something, a cause bigger than themselves. And finally, they have to be women leaders who have overcome a personal obstacle in their lives. They weren't born on third base, so to speak, and they've really shown the grit and resilience to. To move forward. We're excited to be going into our fifth class and welcome any nominations or applications. Finally, let me turn to Kathleen. Kathleen has been such an extraordinary leader of Smart Women, Smart Power. You know, we started Smart Women, Smart Power as a storytelling vehicle. Really it was to amplify the voices of women in national security on stage. And through the podcast, we became very inspirational, I think, to a lot of women on the rise in national security circles, particularly in Washington, who came to our events or listened to our podcasts. But what Kathleen has done is bring much needed data and analysis to all of this. You need to know, does it really matter if women leaders are at the table? And Kathleen has taken on that task, and that's what we're going to discuss quite a bit today. But, Kathleen, congratulations on the enormous success of Smart Women, Smart Power under your leadership.
- [04:26]
A
Oh, thank you so much. That is really gratifying to hear. And, you know, stepping into the role a couple years ago, I had such huge shoes to fill, so, wow, it's quite an honor to hear that coming from you. Thank you so much.
- [04:38]
B
You're welcome. And so following on that, Kathleen, when you first stepped into this role in 2022, how did you see the landscape of gender and national security? And were there any assumptions you brought with you that were quickly challenged?
- [04:52]
A
You know, my going in position was that as a national security community of which I had, you know, based my entire career, I'd done all sorts of things, from, you know, NATO ops in Afghanistan to nuclear weapons policy to, you know, advising Congress on international security matters. None of it, none of the work I'd done until I got to CSIS had anything to do with women, peace and security or gender. But it was at a conference, a strategy conference in Ottawa in, I think, 2019, where I was briefed on the conference was about, you know, looking at the, the year ahead. What are the threats, what are the challenges, that sort of thing. I was the keynote speaker at that event, which was really cool. But there was a presentation in that Morning about radicalized online violence. And I remember sitting down thinking, yeah, it's going to be like sort of same old briefing that I've heard about, you know, online jihadist movements and how, you know, different corners of the dark web work with those places. But instead I listened to a briefing by this woman, Ashley, who introduced me to the world of the manosphere and incels and what that group was doing in terms of online radicalization. And there's been so much more work done since, since then and even since I took up the role at Smart Women's More Power. But I just remember thinking, nobody in my world or the nobody with whom I interact on Capitol Hill and senior leadership at the Pentagon, nobody's tracking this, Nobody, like. And it just occurred to me, hang on a second. Gender really is a blind spot when it comes to national security policy analysis. And that's understandable. You know, when we think about national security, we tend to think about bombs and tanks and widgets and, you know, orders of battle and military strategy and, you know, where does concepts like feminism fit into that? There's, there's lots of arguments out there that it doesn't. But when you think what war, what strategy is actually about, it's about advancing national objectives. And the national objective that we have had is advancing democracy relative to authoritarian regimes. And when I started to take a look at gender, which is not necessarily about the sex of people, but it's more about how people identify themselves and situate themselves within groups and within bureaucracies within different power structures, it became clear, like, hang on a second, to be honest with ourselves about building better strategy, to be honest with ourselves about national security policy, it is incumbent upon us to slam every possible lens we can against this problem set. And boy howdy, gender is a really valid toolkit through which we could do so. So that started the work. And then from there I started getting annoyed at a lot the claims out there about, you know, have, how adding women to different decision making spaces leads to better outcomes. It is intuitively true, but I was getting frustrated at the lack of data on that point. And so, you know, we decided as this whole thing of, you know, we've got a gender is a blind spot when it comes to national security and foreign policy in the hardcore strategy making circles. And when we think about some of the assumptions that have been thrown around out there about women in leadership that haven't been sufficiently validated, I, that's where I started with the program, like, let's build the data set. I intuitively knew it to be true. But I wanted to build a rich case library where people could start to understand. Actually. No, no kidding. Where having women at the table really did make a difference.
- [08:38]
B
So tell us about some of that. What did you find?
- [08:40]
A
Well, I found that in particular, the funny thing that really stood out to me is that. Well, let me actually take it a step back. Turns out men and women are different, especially in organizational cultures and structures. Right. And so having women in your organizations and in leadership positions of organizations often creates avenues for better intelligence sharing, intelligence gathering about an organization's environment than they would have had otherwise. It was our first interview with Elizabeth Shackelford and she was talking about how in her experience, shutting down, which were essentially rape camps outside of UN refugee camps in Darfur. And one of the things that she noted was that the local women only raised the issue that it was a serious, serious problem. They only felt comfortable raising the issue to a US Person because Elizabeth was a woman. They didn't feel comfortable talking to men. And I've heard that in other organizations as well. You know, you've got women. I think it was the woman who heads the International Organization for Migration now, Amy Pope. She went through the, the system there and found as she was working through the different parts of the bureaucracy that more and more women were reaching out to her and sharing what the ground truth was within the organization. What were the real issues deep within these structures that could be a change that could be positively managed. But there were issues that women only felt comfortable sharing with women. Frankly, men also only felt comfortable sharing with a woman. There's something powerful to that that I think is underappreciated because of course organizations with better intelligence and better knowledge, of course they make better decisions.
- [10:31]
B
That's a very good point. And you know, you recently. Let's draw on an article you recently wrote. Why is a military with female leaders essential? What's the importance of having women in the military?
- [10:45]
A
Well beyond the basic brass tacks of we can't meet our recruitment and retention goals for our military forces without having women at the table. We just can't. Women are almost 20% of the force. That's a huge chunk of change. And one of the reasons that the army was able to meet its recruitment shortfalls in recent, I think it was last year, was because women stepped up. If we're going to continue to have an all volunteer force, women are going to increasingly be part of the pipeline. We just can't get around that. I think the question has been whether or not there has been some sort of odd privilege associated with being a woman in these spaces. It's a very difficult and thorny set of questions to get into because, you know, there's so much criticism about diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Were women unfairly promoted, so on and so forth. I would just say there's so many talented people. And at the root of all of this, the root of all of this is about creating climates, creating leadership cultures of respect for one another. That's what matters. And are we able to get there with the current personnel systems and structures we have in place or they continue to be toxic and in some cases toxic. I don't want to be a blanket or too general in my assumptions, but are we making the choices needed to create the positive command climates needed for a force that can really meet the needs of the future?
- [12:14]
B
Well, there's also the question you mentioned the force of the future. I mean, we are living in exceedingly uncertain, turbulent times, particularly with AI, but not just AI, with geopolitics disrupted the global economy. It's, you know, it's not an easy navigation out there. So why would you shut out half your talent pipeline to the leadership? Shouldn't you, you know, don't you want a range of voices at the decision making table?
- [12:45]
A
Well, that's exactly right. And the thing is, in the national security world, our job ultimately is providing leaders with the best possible options. That's it. Right, but how do you get to the best possible options if you don't have the best possible talent around the table that is capable of expressing their minds without fear of retribution or targeting or harassment? You can't. So that's what we need to build. And women are a key part of that.
- [13:14]
B
Yeah. Another article that you recently wrote, Kathleen Love this, why Dictators are Afraid of Girls.
- [13:23]
A
Well, it's true. And this was the application of the gender lens that, that I found most profound and most most interesting. And it basically looking around the world we could see, you know, at the time of initiating that study and, and that article, the Iranian protests, the anti gender apartheid protests were really getting going. We're seeing Putin justify his invasion of Ukraine in rape language. He was, you know, obviously overtly, manifestly propagating a version of masculinity that is toxic to dudes too. And then we look at, looking to China, we started to see how women were getting shut out of decision making systems that she was also beginning to articulate a vision of having women back at the home, taking care of the family. So we started, hang on a second. We were like, we're seeing this playbook over and over again, what is happening here? And it turns out after doing a fair amount of research over about a year and a half comparing different authoritarian regimes over time and their use of gender to strengthen their regimes, it turns out that, yeah, these, these authoritarian regimes, one of the key tools that they use is they create this idea of a golden age history that we need to go back to. And part of that golden age is almost always, almost always this notion of, you know, men need to be hyper masculine, macho, military, you know, guns blazing men, manly men, and women need to be demure, no power back in, at home, in the kitchen, that, you know, making babies. Again, from a strategy perspective, if our adversaries are using that toolkit against their populations, and frankly using those toolkits as part of their information warfare campaigns against US Democracies, it behooves us to understand that a lot more carefully than we do already and to sort of see if there's any ways that we can flip the script, if we can use their doubling down on regressive gender norms to our advantage. Is it the only way to look at a national security problem? No, of course, there's plenty of other lenses, but we're a big community. We should be taking all of these different perspectives on board as we think about the right way forward and what makes sense for our nation.
- [16:04]
B
And how does a backward regime like the Taliban fit into your thinking about this?
- [16:10]
A
Oh, it's, I mean, it's classic, right? You know, one of the ways that they have come to and consolidated power is through its own gender apartheid program by isolating women. When you have women at the bottom, you create people who can have power on top of them. And that creates buy in and that creates power structures that are mutually reinforcing. So of course the Taliban decided to go after them. Of course the ayatollahs in Iran go after women because it's the foundation upon which they're frankly quite brittle power structures rest. Because the other part of this is that dudes have dog daughters and who wants to see their daughter go through this? So while it's probably a short term, you know, effective strategy, longer term, like we saw in Iran, men were part of the protests too. But whether or not it can be decisive, what we've seen in other cases like the post Soviet Russia, the Committee on Soldiers, Mothers, what we saw is that these groups can be catalysts for change. They can be, you know, women's groups, women's advocacy groups can be Powerful cracks at the edifice and authoritarian regimes they exist by being so monolithic and brittle. When the Madras de Dios in Argentina against the junta ask, where are my sons? Where are my disappeared sons? It's hard to challenge that as the junta. It's hard to have a rejoinder when that crack is created. That creates a space for a lot more, a lot of other societal actors to exploit and eventually take down these regimes.
- [17:59]
B
Fascinating. So, Kathleen, let's turn to the podcast and take a little look back, looking back at your time as a host, which conversations stand out as personal milestones, the ones that truly captured the mission of smart women, smart power.
- [18:14]
A
There's too many to count. You know, I feel so privileged to have been at the helm and being trusted with all of these incredible stories from these incredible women. And every woman taught me so much, you know, from Liz King on Capitol Hill, instructing me in, like, how, you know, how her voice at the table helped bring meaningful change to military families and US Policy for military families, to, you know, Amy Pope talking about, you know, what she's been doing with the International Organization for Migration, to interviewing you, to interviewing Nancy Pelosi. You know, it's, it's hard to choose a favorite. It's hard to pick the best or the, the most because everybody did. Everybody brought their full selves to these conversations. And so I'm just so honored. I'm so honored to have been trusted with, you know, I think it's over or close to 100 conversations.
- [19:22]
B
It's amazing. I mean, I, you know, some of the women who have graced our stage include Melinda Gates and Christine Lagarde and Madeleine Albright. And I particularly remember a session with diplomats. These were ambassadors who were overseas and came back in the spring for their regular State Department reunion. And talking about career paths as a diplomat and how difficult it is as a woman and having family and a husband and so on. And it was just the women who came to these events were it was they wanted to talk about issues, but they also wanted to talk about how do I do it? How do I do it? And, you know, I still remember turning to Christine Lagarde and saying, how did you do it? She was a synchronized swimmer. She had brothers. I talked to her in the past, you know, how to, you know, what, what accounts for your success? And I thought she was going to say something like being a swimmer. And instead she said, love. And I'm like, shocked, like, what? And I turned to her and she said, the love of people around me and the people I care about and the people that I'm doing this for. And I, you know, that was really. That was a powerful moment. So I really feel like that smart women, smart power stage has been truly inspiring to generations of women pursuing these careers.
- [20:48]
A
Absolutely. And I think another thing that smart women, smart power has brought to these conversations is it's our whole selves. Right. There's the playbook for women in these spaces is still, unfortunately, quite thin. There's not that many, you know, compared to our male colleagues. You know, they've got millennia of experience in these communities, in these spaces, working these things women haven't. And we're defining what success looks like and means for ourselves, for our communities. We're defining what this world is that we want to see and how we can help create that. And so it's been an honor to have these. Yeah. These women bringing their whole selves, because that's one of the contributions that women tend to make to this field, this recognition that we are more than narrow policy agonulators. We are mothers, we are sisters, we are aunts, we are children, we are leaders, we are followers. We are all of these things. We are so many things all at once. And we're advancing the mission. And that's beautiful.
- [22:06]
B
And speaking of defining, Kathleen, let's end this wonderful podcast with one question. What does power mean to you?
- [22:16]
A
You know, we've asked this from so many guests now and had so many amazing answers.
- [22:22]
B
That's why we had to turn the tables on you.
- [22:24]
A
I know. I. And power to me is authenticity and care. Power can be about getting things done and exercising your will and all those things, you know, strategy circles will talk about. Can you muster military force on a particular objective? Yada, yada, yada. But I say authenticity and care. Maybe I'm talking about some of the things that define what meaningful power is. Authenticity. Because if you are not your authentic self, it's very hard to lead and care. If you don't care about yourself, if you don't, you care about your community, if you don't care about your people, if you don't care about your leaders, if you don't care, then it's very hard to be effective. So with those two building blocks, authenticity and care, I think power is working with others to shape things, hopefully, towards a better future. That's what I'm in it for.
- [23:28]
B
Well, on that note, let's say goodbye and wish Kathleen McInnes well in her exciting new chapter. Thank you, Kathleen. And thank you to the whole audience.
- [23:39]
A
Thank you, Nina. And thank you, everybody, for listening. It's been an honor to be your host. Listeners, stay tuned. We'll be back next week with our special guest host, Emily Harding, who will be sitting down with Vice president of human space flight at Axiom space and former NASA astronaut Dr. Peggy Whitson. Thanks for listening to smart women, Smart power. Please subscribe wherever you listen. For more information, head to www.csis.org. until next time.