There is one Western, liberal democracy that remains in constant danger of being overrun by its neighbours, neighbours who have been taught to hate it with their mother’s milk.
That is Israel.
Israel has an interest in maximising the number of people who can be applied to combat so it trialled using women in combat.
That wasn’t successful for two reasons.
Firstly, troops are trained to keep advancing despite the injuries and screams of their comrades who have been hit by enemy fire. If they don’t, the attack might break and you end up with a worse situation – troops held down in exposed positions and the wounded and dying needing attention. Troops can be trained to happily ignore males screaming in pain but seem to be evolutionarily conditioned to go to the help of females in distress. This breaks the attack and makes such mixed units useless on the battlefield.
Secondly, troops react to female comrades being wounded or killed by conducting reprisals against anyone to hand, enemy combatants or civilians. This isn’t good for discipline. So Israel abandoned using women in combat because it just didn’t work out. This is a great pity, but you have to work with what you’ve got.
An Extract from:
David Archibald, 2015, “Australia’s Defence”, Connor Court, p16.