"Why NATO must make gender central to its security thinking"

"Gender-based brutality in conflict is not new: Sexual violence has been used as a weapon of war for centuries. In 2000, United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1325 mandated an increase in women’s participation and gender perspectives in all UN peace and security efforts. NATO also launched its Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda. However, Russia’s unprovoked war on Ukraine underscores how much more the Alliance needs to do to ensure that gender perspectives are incorporated in all core tasks, policies, and practices at a time when hard security concerns can overshadow other priorities.

That recognition was at the heart of a public conversation on 'Gender and Strategic Competition' held by the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative and Our Secure Future on July 15. 'I don’t see any other way of looking at the current strategic challenges if we do not include gender perspectives,' said Irene Fellin, NATO special representative for WPS. Fellin asserted that military policies must account for the impact of conflict on women and girls. 'There can be no security if we do not look at the entire spectrum of the population,' Fellin said."