The Quiet End of a Landmark Program
In a move stirring both confusion and outrage across the political spectrum, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has terminated the Pentagon’s Women, Peace & Security (WPS) program, an initiative uniquely codified into U.S. law under President Donald Trump. Hegseth now brands the effort—once lauded by his own Republican colleagues—as a “woke social justice exercise” incompatible with the military’s core warfighting mission. This abrupt pivot, framed as an attack on shifting progressive priorities, in reality obliterates a rare instance of bipartisan consensus that had concrete security dividends for American interests abroad.
A closer look reveals a profound irony: the WPS Act, signed into law by Trump in 2017 and once trumpeted by the Trump campaign as a major advancement for women and American security, is now being dismissed as a “Biden initiative.” This historical revisionism would be laughable were it not so revealing of the political nihilism currently prevailing over evidence-based defense policy. Those celebrating the move might ask themselves—why eliminate a program when it was championed by top GOP officials such as Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem, not to mention Ivanka Trump? The answer, critics argue, lies in today’s ever-more performative ideological posturing, not in the facts on the ground.
Missed Security Opportunities and the Politics of “Anti-Wokeness”
Among the program’s defenders stands General Dan Caine, Joint Chiefs Chairman and a Trump appointee, who argued the WPS initiative offered tangible, operation-tested security advantages. According to Caine, integrating women into conflict planning enabled U.S. forces to connect with local populations in ways male-dominated teams could not—especially among women and children, often overlooked but critical sources of intelligence and influence in many conflict zones. “The addition of female team members allowed us to read the ‘human terrain’ in Afghanistan and the Middle East in ways we couldn’t before,” Caine told NPR last year. “We stayed alive and eliminated threats because we could build trust and learn what others missed.”
Why sacrifice these pragmatic, life-saving outcomes at the altar of so-called anti-wokeness? The stark turn against the very programs once championed for their measurable results reveals a deeper ideological struggle within American conservatism. As defense officials quietly confirm, the Pentagon will now do only the bare minimum required by law—and will lobby to gut those requirements in future budgets, even as previously supportive Republicans like Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Senator Marco Rubio now sit in key roles.
“What’s lost in these partisan theatrics is the real-world impact: ending WPS doesn’t just erase a women’s program. It tells our allies that evidence and outcomes matter less than cable-news posturing—and hands our adversaries a talking point about American reliability.”
The program’s dismantling is part of a wider pattern: Hegseth has also ended celebrations of Black History Month at the Pentagon, scrubbed books like Maya Angelou’s memoirs from Naval Academy syllabi, and rebuked nearly every diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) effort as a distraction. These moves are not, as some on the right might claim, a “return to apolitical professionalism.” They represent a conscious abandonment of strategies rigorously tested for their ability to make troops more effective on the ground and America safer in the world.
Rewriting History and Undermining U.S. Credibility
America has not merely lost a program; it has lost its status as a global pioneer in recognizing the connection between women’s empowerment and sustainable peace. The United States was the first country to enshrine a standalone Women, Peace, and Security law—a move celebrated around the world and emulated by more than 90 countries. Harvard defense scholar Dr. Charli Carpenter put it plainly: “Other militaries look to the U.S. example. When we treat women’s participation as a partisan football, we undermine decades of progress at home and abroad.”
Critics note that Hegseth’s framing of WPS as a fringe concern flies in the face of hard evidence and the Pentagon’s own after-action reports from Iraq and Afghanistan. The program was never window dressing. Data compiled by the Rand Corporation and the U.S. Institute of Peace have shown that peacebuilding efforts including women are dramatically more likely to succeed and endure.
Beyond that, the erasure of the WPS program sends a chilling signal to America’s allies and its own service members. In countries where women’s voices are still silenced by violence, the U.S. military had once been a vocal champion for inclusion, modeling a more just and effective force. That leadership is now in question—while adversaries like Russia and China gleefully fill the soft-power vacuum, exploiting our own divisions to undermine liberal democracy globally.
In the end, the debate over Women, Peace, and Security is not about whether pink-washed programs have a place in our military. It’s about whether data-driven, bipartisan policy will survive America’s culture wars. Hegseth’s course correction may win applause from a few cable commentators, but it comes at a cost: the lowering of both America’s moral standing and its practical edge on the global stage.
