US national defence hierarchy now run by women

Women have taken over not only the executive leadership of top weapons-makers, but are also the senior government officials designing and purchasing the nation’s military arsenal.

At the start of 2019, the CEOs of four of America’s five biggest defense contractors – Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and the defense arm of Boeing – are now female.

The buyers for these weapons systems, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer and the chief overseer of the nation’s nuclear stockpile are also women. Females now boast some of the most influential US security jobs, such as America’s top arms control negotiator as well as the secretary of the Air Force.

The previously male-dominated world of US government agencies and the private sector has imploded as a result of the thousands of government diversity programs rewarding contractors for hiring women and racial minorities.

“To me, it’s a national security issue: We need every mind, every person engaged — male, female, every race, every level of experience,” Lynn Dugle, a former vice president at Raytheon, explained.

“One of my biggest challenges has been resisting the temptation to tell myself I couldn’t do something,” Dugle said. “I didn’t think I was ready to be president of a multibillion-dollar business at Raytheon when I was offered the role. I continually remind myself to have courage and confidence.”

Dugle is now CEO of Engility, an engineering and IT services firm that signed contracts last year worth more than $750 million with defense and intelligence agencies. “In the long term, we need to make sure talent wins.”

The Russians and the Chinese, on the other hand, appear to have enough “talent” in their military industries to have made great progress. Yet all the women said they were responding to “global challenges”.

Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson told Politico she was “quieting that little voice” in her head that expressed doubts about her ability to do the job.

Women now have to figure out what the best way would be to develop weapons and provide services for the military, including retaining the best engineers. But they may not want to hire males for the job.

Another female in a top position argued that women have taken over because they were supported by other women. “I think there’s critical mass, where you have enough women that they’re getting noticed,” Rachel McCaffrey, a retired Air Force colonel and executive director of Women in Defense, a networking organisation, said.

The organisation is affiliated with the National Defense Industrial Association, a leading industry group.

Andrea Thompson was an Army officer before she was apointed by President Donald Trump to be undersecretary of State for arms control and international security affairs.

Thompson is currently the top diplomat to reviews billions in US arms sales while  being responsible for implementing and negotiating international weapons agreements.

“I tell folks that one of the positive aspects of serving is equal opportunity and equal pay,” she said in an interview.

Strangely, no men have been discriminating against Thompson either. So-called “gender discrimination” has been one of the key arguments in pushing women into top jobs. “Many times, I was the only woman in the room. But I was always treated the same.”

Lisa Gordon-Hagerty is the first woman to run the US National Nuclear Security Administration, the division of the US Department of Energy that builds and maintains nuclear weapons.

She also told Politico that even as the only woman in the room, she was never discriminated against. “After a while, it was never about the gender,” she said.

But Karen Panetta, dean of graduate education at Tufts University’s School of Engineering, said women were able to enter the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, that now tolerate a measure of failure.

“Every one of these incredible women all have experience working in STEM fields in some facet or another,” she said. “It trains you to learn how to fail. People don’t think about the failure or the disappointment that they’ve had along the way. It’s the distinguishing factor between women that make it versus those that don’t.”