That's the title of a talk being given at Oxford today by Laleh Khalili, a lecturer at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies.

For commendable brevity in neatly fusing two academic fads, Prof. Khalili wins the Best Defense award for best fusion cooking dish of the month.  

There was some loose talk in the comments last week about women in combat. Here's some factual background.

Take it away, Donna.

By Donna McAleer

Best Defense giant slalom correspondent

In March 2011, the Military Leadership Diversity Committee issued a report to President Obama and the 112^th Congress recommending the elimination of the Combat Exclusion Policy. 

Retired Air Force Gen. Lester L. Lyles, commission chair, said the recommendation is one way the congressionally mandated body suggests the military can get more qualified women into its more-senior leadership ranks. "We know that [the exclusion] hinders women from promotion," Lyles said in an interview with American Forces Press Service. "We want to take away all the hindrances and cultural biases" in promotions.

Written in 1994 combat exclusion policy, precludes women from being "assigned" to ground combat units, but women have for years served in ground combat situations by serving in units deemed "attached" to ground units, Lyles said. That distinction keeps them from being recognized for their ground combat experience -- recognition that would enhance their chances for promotion, he said.

In mid-November Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times reported that top defense officials are wrestling to find a collective position on whether to allow women in direct ground combat.  This seems to be a never-ending, perpetually debated and continually unresolved issue.

Earlier this year, Australia lifted all gender-based restrictions on its servicewomen.  Other nations where women are able to serve in active combat roles include Holland, Canada, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Sweden and Israel.  The Dutch repealed formal restrictions on women in combat roles in 1979.

The United States has been engaged in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq longer than in any previous war. More than 230,000 American women have engaged in combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Women make up nearly 15% of the active-duty force.

In 2011, National Defense Authorization Act Congress required the defense and service secretaries to review policies "to determine whether changes are needed to ensure that female members have an equitable opportunity to compete and excel in the Armed Forces." That report was due to Congress on April 15. The Pentagon requested an extension through October.  As of Nov. 16, 2011, that reported had not been submitted.

Given the perpetual debate, perhaps it is not surprising that the Department of Defense failed to meet an October deadline.

Marine Corps General James Conway was quoted, "I don't think you will see a change because I don't think our women want it to change. There are certain demands of officers in a combat arms environment that our women see, recognize, appreciate and say, ‘I couldn't do that.' " 

Read on

This comment from "CNOL" was posted pretty late in the discussion yesterday of the role of Air Force Maj. Gen. Margaret Woodward, so you might have missed it. I think CNOL makes a point worth pausing to note. Whether or not you think intervening in Libya was the right move, a very difficult task was carried out quickly without a major public hiccup, which is impressive.

The air campaign has been about as perfect as can be:

--In a matter of a couple of days a plan to establish a no-fly and no-move zone was designed, operationalized, and implemented, and included massively complex integration and a coalition between US and multiple different European allies.

--In a manner of less than 24 hours the 2nd largest AA system in the region was practically destroyed with no friendly casualties and little to no collateral damage.

--A fairly large ground force of multiple types of armor in close proximity to civilian populations was also almost completely destroyed around the major rebel stronghold of Benghazi, and most other areas except Misurata, thus saving the rebels from a major crackdown that would have likely resulted in massive civilian casualties, also with little to no collateral damage.

How can you get better than that?! Yes, our tech superiority is largely to play here, but that still doesn't account for the massive complexity, and competing chains of command from differing nationalities.

Tom again: On Misurata, here's an update from the AM. The same story reveals (to me at least) that the officer commanding the U.S. naval strike group is Rear Adm. Peg Klein. What is this, an all-female chain of command?

By Lt. Col. Cheryl Garner, USAF
Best Defense guest columnist

It was with tooth-grinding frustration that I read retired Air Force Col. Martha McSally's 18 February column in the Washington Post. In my opinion, she's done a disservice to women like me, currently serving in Afghanistan. Even more troublesome are the outright inaccuracies in her editorial, inaccuracies I feel compelled to dispel. 

First, to the best of my knowledge, no commanders in Afghanistan are insisting that women who serve here have to wear a headscarf, or chador, as it is called locally. I bring this up because the very title of Col. McSally's article, "Why American troops in Afghanistan shouldn't have to wear headscarves," implies that this is happening. Actually, I have yet to see this. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Women service members whose duties call for them to interact with Afghans daily are frequently forbidden by commanders from wearing chador, even if they want to.

Second, McSally portrays the chador as a religious item. That statement is highly debatable. There are in fact non-Muslims in Afghanistan who wear chador because it is considered culturally appropriate, a fact that is seemingly lost on McSally, who apparently fails to grasp the wide cultural variance within the Islamic world, as evidenced by her "apples to oranges" comparison of wearing the abaya in Saudi Arabia to wearing the chador in Afghanistan.

McSally would also have readers believe two more inaccuracies -- that Female Engagement Teams (FET) comprise the majority of military women wearing headscarves in Afghanistan and that most local women in Afghanistan wear the burqa, the full-bodied cover, also known as chadoree in Dari. While FETs are indeed at the forefront of the headscarf debate, there are also women serving on Provincial Reconstruction Teams, on Human Terrain Teams, as Mentors to Afghan Counterparts, in Ministries and as Afghan Hands, like myself. Likewise, while you will find that many Afghan women in Pashtun areas of the country wear the burqa, the wearing of it is hardly uniform across the country. You will often find a mixture of traditional Afghan dress and conservative western clothing. In truth, how a female service member dresses when interacting with her Afghan counterparts should be dependent upon the situation, her environment and her judgment, not on McSally's ill informed opinions that she would see legislated by Congress. 

Read on

The 3rd Battalion of the 5th Marines has suffered a casualty rate in Afghanistan so far of more than 17 percent, according to this interesting article by Mark Walker of the North County Times.

Another Pendleton Marine, Cpl. Chad Wade, was with the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Marines. Katie Wade married him on September 18, 2009, and was widowed 14 months later on December 1, 2010. I find her blog almost too painful to read, like when she says her cheeks ache from holding back tears. "I wonder why I have to hurt this much?" she wonders. "Why am I 20 years old and widowed?"

But read on I do. "Is this real?" she asks. "I swear sometimes I sit back and just can not believe this is happening. It's like a slap in the face that my life isn't just a movie...this is what I have been handed and I have to deal with it. I'm not living someone else's life until he gets home."

Her request to the world is worth keeping in mind:

"I'm not looking for people to tell me stuff to try and make me feel better if it doesn't make them comfortable... Just talk to me. Talk to me like you would any other day. If I wanted talk about the situation with you I would. So to the people who are walking on eggshells with me and not quite sure what to say...just talk to me as a friend."

(HTs to Dan H and David W)

A Best Defense salute to Nora Naraghi, Iran's female motocross champion. She provides an interesting example of human ingenuity in dealing with dumbass governments: She wasn't allowed to ride on the roads, so she took off cross country. "My role model is Ashley Fiolek," says Ms. Naraghi.

Photo via Flickr user MotoWebMistress

Pakistan's top female squash player hails from Waziristan. She has had to defy the Taliban to play.

Photo: Defense.Pk

While Tom Ricks is away from his blog, he has selected a few of his favorite posts to re-run. We will be posting a few every day until he returns. This originally ran on October 9, 2009.

I've been reading a recent internal summary of how Marine "Female Engagement Teams," or FETs, have worked in Afghanistan. The bottom line is that done right, this approach works surprisingly well, with benefits among the population that can't be achieved by males. The findings run directly contrary to several assertions made in the comments reacting to my previous post on this subject.

First, Afghans don't seem to mind the female teams. Paradoxically, "Female Marines are extended the respect shown to men, but granted the access reserved for women," the report finds. "In other words, the culture is more flexible than we've conditioned ourselves to think."

Second, the teams have been successful in reaching the other half of the population, one that carries disproportionate influence with the prime Taliban recruiting pool. "Local women wield more influence than many of us imagined -- influence on their husbands, brothers, and especially their adolescent sons."

When one patrol that took a FET with it was observed, the female Marines were invited inside several compounds, while the male Marines stayed outside. "And in each case, the FET succeeded in breaking the ice and getting women to open up and discuss their daily lives and concerns." Nor was this an isolated event. When patrols returned, "we discovered some Afghan women had been anticipating the opportunity to meet American women. In one home, the women said they had caught glimpses of the patrolling FET through a crack in the wall and that they had ‘prayed you would come to us.'" The fact that the Afghan women welcomed return visits indicated that their men hadn't punished them for speaking to Americans.    

The women interviewed also had surprisingly diverse backgrounds. Though all impoverished now, some had once been prosperous. One group of young women reported that they had been held captive by the Taliban.

The interactions also seemed to change how some local men viewed the Marine presence. "One gentleman with a gray beard who opened his home to the FET put it this way: 'Your men come to fight, but we know the women are here to help.'"

But, the report warns, these teams can't be run casually. They are best done as a full-time job, overseen by an officer who trains and shapes the group, rather than a pick-up team of female Marines who happen to be around. The FETs also need extremely good interpreters, who must be female, fluent, and healthy enough to walk foot patrols. It also helps if they are self-confident enough to confront an Afghan male who rudely intrudes on the conversation.

There are several other tips in the report of the sort that only come from observed experience:

• Afghan security forces have to be watched and prevented from coming along as peeping toms. A special eye needs to be kept on non-Pashtun soldiers and policemen. 

• The female Marines should wear headscarves, so when they remove their helmets inside compounds they are clearly seen as women, especially by men watching from the sidelines.

• First engagements should not be turned into interviews. Nothing freezes interaction quickly than ripping through a list of questions, the report notes, except perhaps whipping out a notebook in which to record the answers. Do that only on subsequent visits, after a relationship has been developed.

• Take humanitarian aid into the compounds, where the women can get it, instead of dumping it on a clamoring crowd in the marketplace, where the strongest, fastest or most-feared men get it. "We recommend using the FETs to distribute grain directly to the women of each household." Good gifts are rice, beans, sugar, tea, cooking oil and aspirin. 

• The FETs need two types of preparation: All the Marine stuff about patrolling, search techniques, and immediate action drills, plus training in culture, history and the use of interpreters.

NB: The main barrier to more intensive and extensive use of the teams seems to be the inflexibility not of Afghan men but of U.S. Marine and Army officers.

MANPREET ROMANA/AFP/Getty Images