Women, Peace, and Security: A Bipartisan Conversation With Representatives Lois Frankel and Jen Kiggans

Representatives Lois Frankel (D) and Jen Kiggans (R), cochairs of the bipartisan congressional Women, Peace, and Security Caucus discuss the role of women in advancing democracy and stability worldwide.

ROBINSON: All right. Thank you. Good morning. I’m so happy. And thank you for your patience as we dealt with traffic this morning. I am Linda Robinson, a senior fellow for women in foreign policy here at the Council on Foreign Relations. And we’re delighted to welcome to the two co-chairs of the Women, Peace, and Security Caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives.

This is an on-the-record discussion. It’s about women, peace, and security, specifically about the Women, Peace, and Security Act of 2017 and the work of the caucus in overseeing it. Representative Lois Frankel of Florida is an original co-founder of the caucus. And Representative Jen Kiggans of Virginia, a former naval aviator, is the—has joined as co-chair following the departure of Mike Waltz from the House of Representatives. He is now, of course, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

So what we’d like to do today is talk about the law, about its implementation, as you’ve observed it in your time, and then about the way ahead. So very simple construct here. Many people in the room, I believe, may not know about this law. There are, of course, some experts. And we’ll count on them to bring up some of the salient details in our conversation. But what I’d like to do is just briefly note that October 31 was twenty-fifth anniversary of the U.N. Resolution 1325 that really, for the first time, formally recognized the important role that women play in peace and conflict resolution around the world, and the need to expand measures to protect women from the violence they suffer in wartime.

So this resolution spurred 115 countries to develop national action plans. The U.S. was one of them, with a national action plan in 2011. The U.S. was the first country to go ahead and codify the requirements for promoting this role of women into law in 2017. And then, subsequently, the caucus was formed, really to perform the important role of oversight in the implementation. The law is actually quite specific, and has an array of requirements. We can talk about that. We also have a policy brief. But it’s very broad, requiring the U.S. government to undertake actions across six areas. And just briefly, they involve promoting women’s decision making at all levels in conflict prevention, peace negotiations, peacekeeping, protection of women from violence, and their involvement in relief and recovery actions. It required a formal strategy—which was promulgated, the first version, in 2019—and then implementation plans for the relevant department and agencies to carry it out.

So this has been implemented over the years. And what we’d like to—and implement to a degree. Let’s say these expansive requirements have not all been met. But I just wanted people in the room to be aware that there’s been machinery in place. People have been trained throughout the four departments and agencies that are designated in the law as leads for carrying this out. So what we have is a framework. And what I’d like to do now is to really turn the conversation over. We’re going to talk for about thirty minutes and then have questions. And starting with Representative Frankel, you—we’re just delighted to have this bipartisan gathering, because it’s a bipartisan law, and it’s really wonderful that you two are working together to really push this forward. So I just would like to ask you, Representative Frankel, talk about what the point of this is. What’s the real motivating purpose why women need to be involved at this extensive level, that the law is requiring? Thank you.

FRANKEL: OK. Thank you for all being here. And, Linda, thank you for your great work. And I’m so happy to be with Jen, who really is a terrific member. And thank you for your service.

KIGGANS: Well, likewise.

FRANKEL: Yeah, yeah. Oh boy. You know, it’s really a tough political environment now, but when I tell you how this came about I think you’re going to have a little chuckle. OK? (Laughs.) So I think you mentioned with the U.N., the U.N. resolution really came about with the women activists. There was a lot of sexual violence in wars. And so a lot of activism promoting the resolution now. And our resolution, our law, when I tell you who is behind it—

KIGGANS: Go ahead. (Laughter.)

FRANKEL: Don’t be shocked. Because the sponsors were Kristi Noem, Marco Rubio, right, Jeanne Shaheen, did I get them all? Anyway, strange bedfellows. And a real driving force in the—and the law—our law was signed by Donald Trump. And a real driving force, I think, was his daughter, Ivanka, who really, especially on the economic issues, was driving it. The way our caucus came about was I had a bill called Keeping Girls in School. And it really—it was to emphasize the importance and put money into appropriations to keep girls in school around the world. And so we were having a debate in the Congress on the bill. And this gentleman got up, a Republican who I had never met even though he was in my delegation. And he had his daughter with him. And he started just talking about how he served in Afghanistan, how he saw himself the importance of educating girls, and what a difference it made. And he introduced his daughter. And his name was Mike Waltz. And so that really started our friendship. And we so we started the Women, Peace, and Security Caucus together.

But really, for me—the motivating fact for me is, look, I have always been what we call a feminist. And I have a son and two grandsons, so men, I want you all to have the same rights too. I understand that. (Laughter.) But I think women and men, we both—they bring different perspectives. It’s just—you know, I don’t want to make this more complicated than it is, because the issues a lot of times that women face in life are just different than men face. Both important, so it’s important to have both perspectives. Because usually it’s—this is—I don’t want to be so stereotyping, but usually women are the ones raising the children, making sure they’re doing their homework, or whatever. Women have physical issues different from men.

And when it comes to war, what happens to the men and the women? Usually, the men are going off to war. Well, in Israel the women went off to war too. But life changed so dramatically. You have—sexual assault becomes a tool of war. You have all of a sudden women having to take over responsibilities in their home country that they didn’t have to before. I mean, so many things change. You have women losing their husbands, their fathers, their sons. I mean, so many—so if you want to have peace, if you want to have peace and you want to have a plan, you better have the diversity at the table to understand what it’s going to take. And I think that’s really sort of a synthesis of where I was coming from.

ROBINSON: Thank you.

Representative Kiggans, could you give us your thoughts on the value of the law and what you personally feel is operative?

KIGGANS: Yeah. So I think Congresswoman Frankel covered a lot of it. But for me, and why I was interested in becoming a co-chair of Women, Peace, and Security, and how it was actually pitched to me by Mike Waltz, who said you’d probably be a good person to replace me, I have a lot of interest not only in the recovery, reconstruction phase. I understand what that looks like. I was not only—I served for ten years. I was married to an F-18 pilot who served for twenty years. So understanding what it’s like to be the one at home, but also being member of spouse support groups, and who we did have a mishap or two where we’re—you know, that we had to be supportive and just get the family back together, and how we—how we kept our kids. You know, we are the cornerstone of our families. So understanding that, and then understanding the active duty side of how important women are just in the—in the military role as well. That was really an interest of mine.

But since I’ve had this position, I’ve been in Congress for three years now, and the events and the roundtables, the conferences that we’ve attended together, listening to women from all parts of the world—from Ukraine to the Middle East to we did some work with even Japan. And, I mean, the role of women in that recovery, reconstruction phase can’t be overstated, not just with educating of children but just getting the house back together. I mean, I kind of lived through it in a very small way, you know, domestically. But listening to other women, and the stories that they tell, and the much more real struggles they’ve had of their whole cities falling apart around them, and the schools not even being there. And then the little things like childcare, and things that we think of, of how we get back to work and back to regular life. And in war-torn countries, those things are very much taken away.

So the role of women, I mean, we are the cornerstone of the family. It’s just the way it is. I was with my chief of staff the other day. And his child had a doctor’s appointment. And the doctor called him and said, this is the work you need to do to get—and the child’s going to be under anesthesia, and you have to make sure they don’t eat for however many hours, you know? And he’s, like, why are you calling me? Call my wife. (Laughter.) Make a note on there that says, do not call me. Call my wife. She’s the one that that runs the show. And it’s kind of true. And so I appreciate that role. Men have certainly a very significant role, especially when it comes to the military and war fighting and what that looks like. But the role of women cannot be understated. And I know that women, peace, and security has been in the news for good and not as good reasons recently. And it is a source of frustration, just with the history of the caucus and of the law that was passed under the first Trump administration.

So I would say to you, and in my mind, you know, just keeping good advocates, keeping the squeaky wheel. This is—you know, it goes like this. And we may be in a phase where it’s maybe not as recognized as I think it deserves to be, but continue to talk about it. This will continue to be an issue. Women, peace, and security will continue to exist. It exists in the international community. It will exist for us. You know, we’ll get back to the place of prominence and where we think it should be. But just we’ll keep doing these types of events to make sure people know women, peace, and security exists, and keep doing our one-on-one work.

FRANKEL: And, Linda, I want to just add something, because my son, Ben, is a United States Marine veteran and who served in two wars. So I can just tell you, from the mother’s perspective, you know, what it’s like. And you think about—you raised so many good points. The emotional trauma of—right? The emotional trauma of war on people. These are kinds of things that have to be thought about and dealt with, right? And so, again, you have—you need the different perspectives.

ROBINSON: Thank you. So I would like—I think this is a wonderful way to start. And we can talk about some of the details of the programs in our discussion, but I would just like to add, even though there are some disputes, there is a bedrock bipartisan support not only from the original sponsors—as recently as April Secretary of State Rubio at the International Women of Courage Award, spoke about his role in sponsoring the law. So I think one of the tasks is to see what support is there and galvanize the forward momentum.

General Caine, now the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked in his confirmation hearing about women, peace, and security. And he said it really helps us understand the full spectrum of challenges before us. He had experience as a special operator from the Air Force side of things working in the field with the combat support teams, the women that were out there in Afghanistan. And I think he has a perspective that many uniformed military that I’ve worked a lot with, it’s about understanding the human terrain, to use the military jargon. It’s about their roles as agents and their roles as objects of harm in wartime. So I think it’s really—it has been incorporated to some degree into the thinking of our military services.

What I’d like to do is pivot to add on, we’ve worked through the COCOMs, the regional combatant commands. INDOPACOM is one of the most active, but also SOUTHCOM, AFRICOM. All of the combatant commands have had programs and conducted a series of exercises to train peacekeepers, to support women joining the military, to help countries write their own national action plan. So I just wanted to kind of sketch the landscape. State Department, the Global Women’s Issues office, until it was disbanded this summer, was very active in promulgating through their funding various activities. The last administration put sanctions authorities to use to designate alleged perpetrators of sexual violence in wartime. And that’s a very powerful tool to push forward on the critical issue of accountability.

So you’re welcome to put up any examples you think that are good that you’d like to show we’ve actually been doing some things. I also want to turn to Representative Kiggans. You were living, I believe, or posted in Japan. So you’re aware that’s become one of the most prominent of our allies and partners. So independent of us, and together with us, many countries around the world, and NATO, have been actively carrying this out. So I thought you might want to talk a little bit about Japan.

KIGGANS: Yeah. No, it’s interesting to—even having gone back several times, and to talk to the Japanese about their inclusion of women, especially in the military. That’s an interest of mine. I lived through, you know, a very, very awesome career as a helicopter pilot, where I wore the same uniform, was treated very equally, received the same pay. I thought everything—the rest of the world was like that. And then it’s not, especially not in politics. But, you know, I chose to go into naval aviation in 1993, which was the year that—the first year that women could fly in combat. That was—I kind of lived through watching DACOWITS and the work that they did, the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service, and how they really set that stage for us that we could fly in combat too. And I was stationed, flying the H-3 at Naval Air Station Oceana when the first jet pilots came through the pipeline. My husband was an instructor at the time in the F-18 fleet replacement squadron.

So living kind of vicariously through—I knew them, because there were not very—we were—there were three female pilots on base. So we saw each other around, and just talking to them. But—and then listening to my husband. And he still—he’s reached since retired, works for the airlines, but still teaches at the simulator at the same naval air station. So we’ve had many, many decades now of women that are going through this jet pipeline. So it’s—to listen to him, he’s a—you know, and his real stories about how awesome that integration has been, and trust that he would tell me if it wasn’t too. But, I mean, the same struggles. It’s very much in the—so there’s some men that have struggles, there’s a couple women who have—but, for the most part, we are an amazing complement to a force.

Our military needs us, for sure. We talk about recruitment and retention all the times, but the roles that we play not just in naval aviation—that’s very personal and I know that the best—but on ships and submarines. I mean, I have the luxury, being on Armed Services Committee, of being briefed from different service branches, different components. Navy is obviously my favorite as a Navy veteran, in a big Navy district that I represent. But the submariners came. We had several admirals come and just give me an update on the submarine forces. And we chatted all about AUKUS and Virginia-class, Columbia-class. It was a great discussion.

And I said, well, before you leave, can you talk to me a little bit about the integration of women? I’m just curious. Since I left the Navy you now have women on subs. When I was a midshipman in the Navy, I could only—women could be on less than twenty-four hours. So I spent—they flew us out at, like, two in the morning. I remember we got on a sub. They waited to get off the sub twenty-three hours, like, just to get our—so we could have an experience on a submarine. But now women deploy on submarines. And he’s, like, you know, I have to tell you—I’m not just telling you this because you were a woman in the Navy—but, you know, that was one of the best things we’ve done. He’s, like, they’re hard working. Their retention is good. The morale is better. They really just complement the mission nicely. They’re smart.

So all those things. And I don’t think he was lying to me. I think that’s true. So I look at what we’ve done as a military, especially as a Navy. And I want other countries to do that, because I want, especially our allied partner militaries, to succeed. I need them right now. The world is not a safe place. If I don’t have our allied partners’ militaries that have also good recruitment and retention, that are inclusive of women and the roles that we can play—both in combat and noncombat roles. So a big interest of mine, and a priority of mine in this caucus, this Women, Peace, and Security Caucus, is to work with our allied partner countries to tell the stories of what we’ve learned. Because we did a lot of work last Congress with quality of life issues and looking at, you know, childcare, healthcare, spouse deployment, pay. But, you know, what did we learn from that? Because we did a lot work to help them to be able to not just recruit women but retain families. I think that’s just an important piece of it.

So I need all the women out there—Israel is an interesting—we got to visit them last year as well. And to look at their integration of women, it’s not only women but differently abled people, they do a really fabulous job of—you know, military services is mandatory there. So really giving kind of everyone a role, putting everyone in a uniform, making them all feel like they’re on the team and the mission to defend their country, their homeland. So I think that’s important. But there’s so many—especially young women now. I mean, I love my role in Congress because I get to meet all kinds of young people, women who want to serve, or want to be pilots. It’s awesome, you know. And not just the military, but other aviation jobs that are historically very male-dominant roles.

But we need to be there. We need to be there, because the more of us that are there, the better—I mean, the smoother it works. Politics has a long way to go. I think we—you know, we try. I think that your party does better than mine sometimes in recruiting and retaining just hard-working women. But we need to be in those spaces because we provide different leadership, different voices. And I think it’s an important piece.

ROBINSON: Thank you.

I would turn to you, Representative Frankel.

FRANKEL: Well, I nominate Jen Kiggans to be the secretary of war and defense. (Laughter.)

KIGGANS: Appreciate that. I don’t know if I want that job, but thank you. (Laughter.)

FRANKEL: You know, there’s what you call the reality of the situation. I think—and we’ll do—because she—you are—she is sincere with what she’s saying, right? I don’t mean to put you in an awkward situation. But, to me, I try to be as respectful as possible. And it’s really not easy. But this secretary—what is—he’s not the secretary of war. That that should give you an indication of where he’s coming from. No, he’s just the opposite of—at least what he has said. Now, I’m not going to—it’s very hard to know the depths of what’s going on. And you would have a better idea. But I don’t want to put her in a position that she would have to say.

KIGGANS: You can. I mean—(laughter)—

FRANKEL: No, but listen, this is a man who is the head of our Defense Department, or the War Department, who has fired the top women, fired the Blacks. He doesn’t want diversity. He said women should—I mean, he basically sent a message that women shouldn’t be in the military. There are so many backwards things, policy things, that are going on there. To me, it’s very demoralizing. And so I hope it doesn’t discourage women from moving forward, because there—it’s hard to know in each—even with the Kristi Noem. I mean, she was the sponsor of the legislation. They have—you know, they use this—they—this expression “woke.” I wish you would wake up and understand the importance of having women involved.

Especially, you know, you have a president now who happens to be my constituent. We’re both very lucky with that. (Laughter.) But anyway, not to get into the politics. (Laughter.) But who says he’s the peacemaker. He does the peace. I think what’s very, very important is, as they try—as they try to get peace or plans, whether it’s in Israel now, or Ukraine or, I mean, there’s wars every—you know, conflicts everywhere, to make sure that women are at the table. Very, very important. Especially, I mean, you can look and just see, you take Israel and Gaza, what happened to women. And you need to have women there to talk it out.

ROBINSON: Thank you.

Yes, please.

KIGGANS: Can I make just a quick comment, to follow up with that. But I did have the opportunity on Armed Services Committee when we—when we had a hearing to have the secretary of war, secretary of—the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was there that day as well. But after my normal litany of needing F-35s in naval aviation in Oceania that I always—(laughs)—but that’s another passion project. But, you know, I did have my last minute. We only have five minutes when we’re in a hearing like that for members of Congress to ask questions to the different Cabinet members that are there. But I did—if you go back and watch the tape, the last minute probably minute is—thirty seconds to a minute is me just saying, you know, I’m a co-chair of Women, Peace, and Security Conference (sic; Caucus), and I just want you to know that I joined the military to fly in combat, you know, the year that we could, 1993, and women—the service that women provide is essential to our military. So just know that women are watching. And I just want you to take that—I didn’t ask a question about it. I just kind of made that statement.

FRANKEL: Well, thank you for that.

KIGGANS: So—and everybody has different leadership styles. I can’t speak—I mean, you know, we see a lot of it. So everyone has different leadership styles. The thing that I care about—and, you know, we could be here and debate it if it’s right or wrong, you know, different people’s styles—but I care about—I care about strength on the world stage. That’s the only—that’s really the only thing that I think I care about. If you ask me, what’s the number-one thing? I care about peace in the world. I care about not sending my husband, my children—I am also a military mom. My son is flying fighter jets in Texas right now. I have another son that has an OCS package in. So I’m a military mom as well. And so many people in my district are military families. And I care about keeping them out of harm’s way.

We send them into harm’s way. We send them to the Red Sea for nine-plus months. I know those wives. I know those kids. Those kids are friends with my kids. I know what happens when we send them to the Red Sea. And I know what our Navy looks like and the challenges of our military right now. And I care about strength on the world stage. I care about preventing that problem. And so when I—when our country permits weakness, and they see us as weak, we don’t have world peace anymore. And I have to send my people, my family and my friends, into harm’s way. And I want to prevent that. So that’s the biggest difference. So I know we can pick—we can nitpick and say we might not agree with some of these leadership styles, but I care about that.

I care about when Vladimir Putin shows up in my country and I’m flying F-35s over his head. I like that—(laughter)—I like that. I like that kind of stuff where I can really stick it to people who are watching. When I can assemble all world leaders at the White House for a meeting, and the rest of the world is, like, oh my gosh, the United States, they got them all together. Like, they’re strong, their allies are with them. I care about that message. So and I don’t care which party is doing it, but I think it’s going a little better than it was where we had some chaotic withdrawals from Afghanistan, we had some issues with—we saw what happened to Ukraine. We saw what happened in Israel. I don’t like that. I don’t like the appearance of being weak on the world stage, because it puts my family, my district, people I really, truly care about, in harm’s way. So I want to prevent that. And that’s one way to do it.

ROBINSON: Thank you. I’m going to open up to questions now. I just wanted to underline that, many people may know, but 18 percent of the uniformed force in the United States is women. So it’s not a nice-to-have. It’s a critical part of the force, and at all levels. So I appreciate the personal testimony and your knowledge and advocacy. And I think it’s important, also in the Congress there are many women with security backgrounds. There are many women who have devoted their careers, like Representative Frankel, to women’s issues. So I think there’s a base that does cross party lines. And it’s really not a partisan issue, in my view. The research makes it very clear that peace accords that have women at the table are 35 percent more likely to last fifteen years or longer. There’s been a ton of research on this. Involving women is good for everyone.

So with that, I want to remind you we’re on the record. We’ve got twenty-five minutes. I have to end on time. So I’m going to start. I see the gentleman here, and then we’ll go around the room.

Q: Good morning. I’m Charlie Bolden.

A little bit of background. I retired as a major general in the United States Marine Corps of thirty-four years after commanding the Third Marine Aircraft Wing. It had some incredible women. I retired after twenty years from NASA as the NASA administrator, where I had some incredible women. I hear what you say. People generally—and this is with all due respect—people say—you know, hear what people say, but watch what they do, I would respectfully disagree about leadership styles making a difference. There’s a difference between leadership style and leadership effectiveness and the message you send. And I would ask, does the caucus have an opportunity to send a message to the secretary of defense? He is not the secretary of war, again, with all due respect. Does the caucus have the ability to sit with the chair—with the chairman and the secretary and explain the critical importance of acting the way that we—

ROBINSON: Would you both like to have a comment?

KIGGANS: Well, Armed Services Committee does. We have them for hearings. And depending on, you know, who’s doing the questions—it’s five minutes. So we get—you know, and I have a lot of active duty issues, the infrastructure, the quality of life work is really important to me. So I usually spend—and, you know, Meredith Berger can attest to that—the work that we did last administration just on, you know, the housing situation. So I usually spend my time—but I did spend—I get five minutes. So I did spend the last part just addressing the women’s issues. But, you know, depending on what your priorities are, that’s up to the member of Congress. But I don’t know if you have an opportunity to have any interface.

FRANKEL: You know, early on—well, let me just say, the guy’s a jerk, in my opinion, all right? And that’s just being polite, OK? (Laughter.) He should not be in this position. And I don’t want to—you’re terrific. I’m not—I’m not going to put her in a—I try to be polite here. I don’t think there’s anything I could say to this man that’s going to change his mind. Now, I will say this, early on when the—I think he made some kind of comments about women, peace, and security is woke, and all that kind of stuff. There were letters sent to top officials conveying our thoughts that this was—the importance of the women, peace, and security. And we still have very good people on our Armed Services Committee, both sides of the aisle, that do a lot to promote, even in our own armed services, women’s issues, because it was our women’s veterans, for example, right, who got the childcare.

One of the things that the caucus did was we—for many years the equipment was really designed for men, not for women. Those kinds of things. So our advocacy is not just for what’s happening overseas, because, you know, you want to have, just for example, promoting women in government in other governments. We used to do that with USAID programs and democracy programs. Hello! Where are they? They’re gone. We don’t have a USAID anymore. And that’s—so now there’s something in the State Department that’s going to be something like it. We don’t even know. There was so many people fired—so many thousands of people fired, so much money taken out of what we were using it, for USAID, for the State Department. They’re still organizing. And we have—maybe you get feedback where you are—but, like, my focus has been on what’s going on in the State Department and what was going on at USAID. I don’t really know. We don’t get reports. We get very little feedback right now. So I just think it’s a mess. That’s my—

ROBINSON: We’ll take the next question, back in the back.

Q: Hi. I’m Katharine Nasielski with NYU. Thank you both so much for your work on these issues for a long time.

I wanted to ask a bit about sort of the strategy of the caucus and the implementation of WPS Act at the moment. I think in this environment, as you mentioned at the beginning, there’s some pieces of the bill, of the act, that are being implemented, and maybe some not so much. But there’s a lot that’s going on with USAID and State. And the focus has to be on all of these issues. Do you see the goal at this point of the caucus to conduct oversight over that bill to make sure that it’s being implemented? Or is the strategy at this point to sort of raise the next generation of advocates and champions for women, peace, and security, and for gender issues in Congress? And, sort of, how are you thinking about that strategy in this complicated moment?

KIGGANS: I would say, I mean, it’s not going away, right? I mean, so we are—things ebb and flow. And we could debate that. But it’s very prominent in other countries, from what I’ve seen. So maybe we lean into that a little bit more right now. You know, I think there’s a balance. There’s a balance. I don’t need the whole military to be about how can we have women leading every squad or anything like that. That’s not what I’m here for. Like, you know, we showed up. I showed up early. I stayed late. I did a better job than a lot of men I flew with to be able to have equality. Like, that’s how you do it. You show—you know, you prove that you that you’re just as good. And so I want to continue along that path.

As far as, you know, the future women, peace, and security, we’ll keep doing the things we’ve done. We have the opportunity to work with international women from different—right now, a lot of recovery efforts. The meetings we did with the Middle Eastern women, the Ukrainian women, very interesting. And Japan’s got a big interest in this. I think their natural disasters and recovery through things like their earthquakes and tsunamis, it’s been interesting to—the foreign minister of Japan was very interested in women, peace, and security. So find your—find your friends. Work with your friends right now. If there’s, you know, some challenges here, maybe not as prominent of a role. You know, it’ll be—it ebbs and flows. It needs to be there. I don’t think it needs to go away. It needs to be there. Just, you know how—there’s other countries that I think are embracing it a little more right now. So—but we should continue to absolutely have a presence. You can’t ignore that. I need women in my military, for sure. So what am I going to do to—I still need to recruit and retain them. That’s important to me.

FRANKEL: You know, it’s a difficult political environment. Let’s start with that. But I could tell you this, I know each of us—my focus is really on what goes on in the State Department now. And she does a lot of—focus is on, obviously, defense. But I could tell you this. I have—when I had Marco Rubio in front of our committee, I discuss women, peace, and security issues behind the scenes. We do that. We did send—we sent—the caucus sent a representative to Japan this year. Japan happens to be, interestingly, one of the countries that really took hold of the women, peace, and security agenda, because there was the—it was their prime—it was one of—their foreign minister. Yeah, foreign minister was very, very interested in that. And we actually had—didn’t we—we had a dinner at the embassy—at the embassy to discuss this.

Their focus, interestingly enough, is how to make sure women—the issues that affect women and families are integrated into their disaster planning. Whether it’s—I don’t know what they get over there, like, the hurricanes—tsunamis, right? OK. So, which is very interesting. It really gave us an idea, because that’s something that, you know, maybe is not top of mind, but think about our disasters. We have lots of different ones. And to make sure that the planning is understanding what the families need. And I think you did a very good review of some of those things.

ROBINSON: The funding is really a critical issue. I just want to point out, your House Appropriations Committee did report out 120 million (dollars) in its bill. No action from the Senate. Funding is up in the air. So I’d like to go—

FRANKEL: Well—

ROBINSON: Sorry, do you want to address the funding?

FRANKEL: Yeah, I think I should give you sort of a heads up on that. So we were able to get—you know, I know it sounds crazy. I hate to even say what we have, because sometimes I don’t want to alert anybody that it might be there. (Laughter.) I do all this work is like I feel like I’m undercover. (Laughter.) So—but there is money in the House. The House bill is terrible. Just I don’t want to give it kudos. But there’s—(laughs)—I mean, really. I didn’t vote for it. But there is something in there for women, peace, and security, OK, which is good. The Senate is—when I—they don’t have a bill in the—what they call it, the SFOPS, in the same space. So we can’t go to conference now. You want to know why? I mean, I don’t like to be—it’s like they say, if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything. (Laughter.) But they cannot get it together, for political reasons. So we’re waiting to really—to try to negotiate a bill. Yeah.

ROBINSON: Thank you.

Anne, please. And introduce yourself.

Q: Want me to stand up? Hi. Thank you both for your leadership and the Women, Peace, and Security Caucus. And, Linda, thank you for yours.

I have served in government in several agencies—several parts of government, most recently as the assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations. I had equal time at the Defense Department as well, where I led the women, peace, and security portfolio in OSD policy. In the bureau that I recently led, which has been disestablished, we threaded women, peace, and security through all of our work—from prevention to—all the way to conflict resolution and negotiations. I have sitting next to me the leader of our former negotiation support unit that was supporting the department in helping to resolve very difficult conflicts and, at the same time within that work, promoting women at the table.

So I learned, in the Defense Department, that a vision without resources is a hallucination. I appreciate that you’ve talked about resources here. I appreciate your leadership. And there are lots of ways to promote resources. The challenge for us right now is that the resources, the human capital that was responsible for implementing this law, is, by far and away, gone from our departments. A set of resources, a human capital that has been developed over long periods of time. Not so much serving in the military, and I want to exclude that portion of the work for the purposes of this discussion, but those who were promoting negotiations, including women at the table. We had programs in many places that helped to support our counterterrorism efforts trying to create more resilient communities to prevent recruitment from neighboring terrorist organizations, as an example in the Sahel.

So I guess my question to you, knowing the environment that we’re in, and having heard what you’ve had to say already, is whether there’d be an opportunity for the caucus to gain a better understanding of the kind of work that we had been doing, with a thought to considering, as is your responsibility—your oversight responsibility, what work we would like to see reestablished or preserved for the future. Thank you.

FRANKEL: Yes.

KIGGANS: Yes. (Laughter.)

FRANKEL: And we will follow up. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah.

KIGGANS: Yeah, I think that would be a good education for us to understand the work that was done and maybe things that are better, things that are worse. I’m sure there’s probably both. I always appreciate when we can bring both to the table and not just be, this is all bad. What is good? What is maybe a little bit better that we’re doing? And what can we do better?

FRANKEL: She’s got—I really like you. You got such a good attitude. (Laughter.) And I’m sorry to be so negative, but it is what it is. They fired people, cut the funds. You put funds in. They take—the rescissions. They took all the funds out. I mean, this is not—but maybe there’ll be another day. And I think, behind the scenes, there are avenues to try to maybe—I’m not going to say preserve—but maybe get back some of what we’ve lost. And I look forward, I know we both do, to having some sessions.

KIGGANS: Yes.

FRANKEL: Yeah.

ROBINSON: There’s a lot of good work that people don’t know about it. And we’re trying to support that education effort.

FRANKEL: And thank you.

ROBINSON: Thank you.

We have so many hands up. I’m going to try to ask you to be very succinct in your question. Gentleman in the back. And then forward. And then we’ll come to you.

Q: Thank you. Earl Carr, representing CJPA Global Advisors.

Really appreciate this fascinating discussion. I grew up with—

FRANKEL: Can you put that mic a little close to your mouth?

Q: Oh, sure. I grew up with four very strong-willed sisters, so I really appreciate this conversation. (Laughter.) You talked about resources. Someone just said about resources and vision. Can you tell us a little bit, how should the caucus best engage the private sector to further the resources, aims, and goals, and visions of this caucus?

ROBINSON: Thank you.

FRANKEL: Well, I can tell you. I mean, I meet with the private sector all the time. I have dozens of meetings. And my staff does too. I mean, we’re not—we’re not funding so many of our partners right now. That is a problem. And so I think what people—you know, peace and security is not just having the armor, the weapons, the bombs, or whatever. If you want to stop conflict, what’s the best way to stop conflict? It’s when people are living decent lives, when they’re healthy, when they have economic opportunities, when they’re getting educated. And, you know, that’s why so many—and I know there’s probably people here who were involved in those kinds of things. And so, I mean, what’s happened in this administration is, first of all, the dismantling of USAID, which was our arm to help spread—you know, have the education, to keep people healthy, keep—it’s really preventing the conflicts, and having trading partners, and keeping ourselves healthier.

So that’s a complete—I keep using the word “mess.” It’s so disrupted now because—I was trying to give examples. I mean, so even though—you know, so there was just a hurricane in Jamaica. You know, we have some money—some funding going there, but I don’t know if we have the people there who really know how to implement. And that’s the situation. And the NGOs are basically—so many of the bigger ones, the more powerful—or, you say, more influential, they don’t have the money anymore. And so it’s a—it’s really is sort of a new day. And what worries me is this like Humpty Dumpty fell on the floor and you can’t—I don’t know. We’re never going to be able to put it back the way it was. So maybe there’s some good points to that. Maybe we have to do things differently or better. But it’s going to take a long time to try to get back a lot of what’s been destroyed.

KIGGANS: And I would just add that I think the private sector has the privilege of being kind of immune to—you’re not the government. So, you know, and things I think are run a little smoother. So—and I’m a big believer in less government. I don’t like big government. So, you know, private sector can do a lot of things, a lot more mobility, to help in some of the, like, recovery efforts, and how are you promoting women. I see a lot of women CEOs and CFOs. And, you know, so I think the private sector leads in this space. You don’t need—don’t depend on the government for everything. You know, let the private sector do what it does best. And then I think you’ll come out ahead, for sure. But it’s a symbiotic relationship.

FRANKEL: OK, this is where now we’re going to have a little disagreement. (Laughter.) Yes and no. But money talks. You still need the money. I’ll just give—I’m going to give one example which really, to me, affects women all over the world. And that was funding birth control, just to make it—say it simply. And, I mean, I don’t know what happened. Jen, maybe you remember. They just left millions of dollars’ worth of—these were not abortion tools, but, like, birth control, sitting in warehouses around the world. What is the good of that? And even now, with PEPFAR, which was our best program ever, they’ve had—even though there are Republican advocates for that, I mean, it was started by Bush, right? By President Bush, yeah, PEPFAR. There is still some money there. There is money there. But the implementation is not there. And then they change the policies. Who can get the—who can get the drugs? Just pregnant women, right, or something like that.

So, I mean, it’s, like, all this work that we did to stop the spread of HIV, for example, is—I don’t know what’s going to happen. So, I mean, that’s just a—that’s one example of where we are. So, yes, the private—and the private sector has been—I don’t know if you considered NGOs private sector, but, yeah. I mean, the NGOs depended on a lot of funding from us. So it’s not a good situation.

KIGGANS: And I would just add, I mean, it has to be a balance, right? I mean, the federal government can’t pay for everything everywhere all the time. I have a $37 trillion debt because we have. And as much as I want all these things, there’s a balance. I think both parties, both recent administrations, have spent too much. We’ve expanded a lot of government programs. Again, I’m a favor of, like, how can we—can do it perhaps smoother. There’s a discussion we had because I can’t sustain that debt. So that’s another discussion for another day, but it’s a factor.

FRANKEL: Well, I have an idea for that too. (Laughter.) But we won’t—it’s great. That’s what democracy is about, right? We love democracy.

ROBINSON: I like this dynamic on the panel. (Laughter.)

We’re going to try to fit in two last questions, Mercedes and then Saskia (sp). Please introduce yourselves. And be succinct so we can have two.

Q: Thank you. Mercedes Fitchett, recently retired Department of Defense, currently at Georgetown University, had done some research which CFR had highlighted on countering the female ISIS threat.

When I read current communications on WPS, I feel like we’re sometimes stuck in the past. And so much has happened since 2016-2017. We’re no longer in Iraq, Afghanistan. It’s great-power competition. Economic security, national security. And I see such opportunities to reframe WPS with regards to great talent competition and other avenues on the operational national security side. So my challenge here for the community, and I’d like to hear your thoughts, is how do we reframe the WPS discussion so that it’s relevant for today’s national security strategy and environment?

KIGGANS: Well, I’ll talk about in Armed Services Committee especially, a very big interest of mine is just include technology—the technology inclusion right now. And I think women are leaders in that space, in the private sector, again. So, you know, what does that look like for the military? How are we getting that best technology? And that’s a process that we’ve been working on and prioritizing this Congress from the SPEED Act that the chairman just introduced, but that procurement acquisition process has been broken. It’s not great. So we have great ideas. And I think we do do it better than any other country, although China gives us a run for their—you know, our for our money. But how can I get that to the war fighter faster? So that’s been a priority for this Congress.

We put some good changes into the NDAA. We still got to get all the budget work done. But this time next year, I want my defense industry folks to come, especially from the tech side, to say that inclusion, that’s worked. You put some good policy in place. But women can lead in that front. So it’s encouraging women, and especially girls, to go into STEM jobs, all the—you know, I think there’s a lot of opportunities out there. But maybe we can make that kind of another highlight of that workforce development piece.

ROBINSON: Last words to you, Representative Frankel.

FRANKEL: Oh, you want me to say something? OK. (Laughter.)

ROBINSON: If you wish. I’d just like—we are at time, so.

FRANKEL: All right. Well, you know, I mean, that was a very good question. I’m not sure, because it’s a difficult—it’s a difficult—you know, it’s an interesting political environment. Because I think the administration’s—I think their philosophy is it’s not going to matter how many—now, I don’t want to say this in a bad way, OK? But I think their philosophy is it’s not going to matter how many people in the rest of the world get sick or die, don’t have economic opportunity, and are not educated, OK? That’s the attitude. Now, are they correct? I don’t think so. But I think we’ll find out. (Laughs.) You know, we will find out over the next few years as we see what happens in the world. But I think one thing that we have to remember is that we don’t—we don’t live in a vacuum. And as we pull back from the world, you have China moving in, right? Russia, wherever. And so I think those are the kinds of dynamics that we’re going to have to address, is what happens when we pull back. So that’s, I think, part of the next chapter.

ROBINSON: Well, I think we’ve had very rich discussion here. There’s so much more. And I regret we couldn’t get to more of the questions among you. But be assured we’re going to continue on this issue. Please stay in touch. And we will continue to try to support the work of the caucus.

FRANKEL: Thank you.

And can I invite any of you—I know there’s—you know, what? The people in this room, I think, are much—you’re much—I don’t know about her. May not be smarter than her, but you’re smarter than me and have a lot of knowledge. (Laughter.) So I really want to invite—

KIGGANS: We went to the same school, remember? We both went to Boston University.

FRANKEL: Oh, we both went to Boston University. (Laughter.) But I went to Georgetown. So—but, you know, just different experiences.

But I want to invite you to please interact with my office. Jenn is right here. She does my—she’s my foreign policy advisor. And I really, I want all of you, if you—even if you want to call make appointments, I would love to sit down with you. And I try to invite Jen whenever I think there’s something relevant, because we do like to work together. I sort of feel sorry for her, but—(laughter)—

KIGGANS: Don’t feel sorry for me. I’m good.

FRANKEL: But she says don’t, so I won’t. (Laughter.) But, anyway, thank you for the opportunity, Linda.

ROBINSON: And please join me in thanking our speakers today. (Applause.) Thank you.

(END)

This is an uncorrected transcript.