Gender in the Situation Room

A Portrait of VP Harris as a National Security Decision Maker

Last month The Washington Post columnist David Ignatius spoke, off the record, to White House officials who had seen Vice President Kamal Harris in action on national security. They reported that Harris is up to the gig. None of this is a surprise, what else would they say?

The Washington Post op-ed page is often a message board for DC-insiders which informs the wider political class of the state-of-play, while helping to set the tone for media elsewhere. Ignatius is a long-time DC-insider himself who has extensive contacts within the national security establishment.

What struck me about the article is the gender-coded messaging.

And if she’s convinced of the need, she’s not afraid to act. “She’s more hard-line than most people think,” said one retired four-star general who has briefed her many time.

One top member of her staff put it this way: “She’s always the same person, pushing for information, making sure people aren’t bulls----ing her.” Having watched her often in discussions about using military force, he concluded: “Her approach is to measure twice, cut once. But she’s not afraid to take the shot.”

The key take-away here is: Sure she’s a woman, but that doesn’t mean she can’t order military strikes. Even a big important general says so.

The fault isn’t with Ignatius, there is a trope that Harris can’t be president because “She isn’t strong enough to stand up to dictators.”

This baseless critique plays into the idea that women are soft, gentle, nurturing creatures while only men have the physical and mental strength to address the hard realities of the world. Being nurturers, women will shy away from the hard necessary in our brutal Hobbesian world.

We have seen several women lead their nations through periods of war in living memory: Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, and Margaret Thatcher. We’ve even seen a few women autocrats (like the recently deposed Sheikh Hasina). For all kinds of complex reasons, men have been far more likely to become national leaders than women, but the women who have risen to leadership hardly seem to be pacifists. It could be argued that in fact they are tougher than their male counterparts, considering the additional difficulties they had reaching positions of power.

Asking the Right Questions

More interesting analytically is the discussion on Harris’ “prosecutorial” approach of asking questions, checking underlying assumptions, and pressing for more information. This is a critical element in policymaking.

The great Elizabeth Saunders compares decision-making on Iraq in the administrations of Bush 41 and 43. There were some important similarities, including several of the same figures in key positions. One administration’s war in Iraq went pretty well, the other, less so. Saunders focuses on the relative experience of the two Presidents Bush. The elder was deeply knowledgeable on national security affairs whereas Bush 43 was not. Saunders found that Bush 41 was better able to monitor and oversee his deeply experienced subordinates. When they brought him plans and options Bush 41 would probe them, ask questions, demand follow-up, and keep an eye on the implementation of foreign policy directives. Bush 43 was less able to do that, there was an information asymmetry between the president who was a neophyte in foreign policy and his experienced advisors.

Harris, with four years in the Senate and four years as VP, now has more foreign policy experience than any of her recent predecessors besides Bush Senior and Biden. She has at least begun to reduce the information asymmetries that have plagued many of these predecessors on foreign policy and the prosecutorial approach will serve her will in monitoring foreign policy process and implementation.

Harris and the Intelligence Community

According to Ignatius:

Harris got off to what her aides agree was a bumpy start with her intelligence briefer. During the administration’s first year, the briefer was presenting a classified personality profile of a female foreign leader Harris would be meeting. The briefer was a woman, but Harris thought some of the language she was using was gender-biased. Rather than just voicing her discomfort, Harris requested an intelligence community internal review.

The result, never previously reported, was an internal assessment by the intelligence community of whether analysts had routinely used gender-biased language in intelligence reports. The review examined several years of analytical reports, comparing how often certain words had been used about women and men. Harris was so concerned that she asked intelligence agencies to train their analysts to avoid any such bias in the future. She also requested more reporting from the intelligence community on gender issues and sexual violence around the world.

Mondale, Bush Sr., Gore, Cheney, and Biden (all Washington insiders) helped their outsider presidents work with the intelligence community. This consistent vice-presidential role was one of the more striking findings of a paper I wrote looking for patterns in how VPs have been able to help the president across administrations.

Biden, having decades of experience with international affairs, probably didn’t need Harris’ help working with the intelligence community (IC). But Harris was not a complete neophyte to intelligence issues, so her interest is neither unsurprising nor unprecedented.

Here too, traditional national security types may deride Harris’ focus on gender issues with the IC as insubstantial and a distraction. But that would be inaccurate.

Gender-coded language is a long-standing issue. Why are intransigent negotiators who are men described as tough, but women acting in the same way are stubborn? Why are men who take charge leaders while women who do so are bossy? When a man makes a passionate argument, he is emphatic, when a woman does so she is emotional. The President’s Daily Brief (PDB) is the top-secret newsletter produced by the intelligence community for the nation’s leadership. It should be as objective and analytical as possible. Further, it should serve the recipients. If the product doesn’t meet the needs or standards of the recipient, the product needs to change.

Asking the IC to add material on an issue of interest is also not without precedent. Vice President Gore asked the CIA to produce an annex to the PDB on environmental issues (Clinton ended up asking to see it as well.) Besides the fact that the IC should produce materials on issues of interest to its ultimate customers, it was a farsighted move. Gore saw that environmental conditions contributed to political and national security problems. Similarly, sexual violence and gender issues are important in their own right but could be linked to broader social and political issues.

Ignatius’ sources portray a vice president engaged in national security issues and developing approaches and strategies to be national security decision-maker. This is hardly new, but there are gender-laden overtones in this portrait. One day soon, this will go unremarked.