Valerie M. Hudson is Professor and George H.W. Bush Chair in the Department of International Affairs at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. Donna Lee Bowen is Professor of Political Science and Middle East Studies at Brigham Young University. Perpetua Lynne Nielsen is an Associate Professor of Statistics at Brigham Young University.

Mia Bloom is Professor of Communication at Georgia University and the author of Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror and Bombshell: Women and Terrorism. Hilary Matfess is a research analyst at the National Defense University’s Center for Complex Operations and a member of the Nigeria Social Violence Project at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

[This] should not be about women’s rights, equal opportunity, career assignments for enhancement purposes for selection to higher rank. It is about, most assuredly is about…combat effectiveness, combat readiness, winning the next conflict….