I have to agree and disagree. I agree women aren’t the best suited to combat, but there are some situations where combat training (and some experience) for women could come in handy. For example, I was just reading about the Armenian genocide (and of course we know about other genocides). In those situation where the men are depleted through warfare or going underground to fight a guerilla war, the women are left to defend themselves and their children and old people. They could benefit from some tactical training in at least holding off the enemy until some help arrives.
Instead what we’ve seen throughout history is women being totally defenseless and eventually being rounded up and put on forced marches where the children and old and even many of the younger women die ... or they die in detention etc. We’ve seen this same scenario over and over even up to the present.
Even in WWII younger French women who were left behind when the French Army basically disintegrated or went underground ... they were rounded up to work as slaves in German munitions factories ... and eventually towards the end put in concentration camps with others. I’ve read stories of some of the younger women in those situations forming sort-of battle groups as best they could manage, escaping the camps and living rough in the nearby countryside, obtaining a few weapons with which to harry the retreating Germans and to defend themselves against advancing Russian troops who were often not kind to women POWs.
In light of many historical examples where the men are decimated through war (we see that now happening in Syria/Iraq) women could benefit from some military training to help defend those left behind.
We haven’t really seen to much of that in our country as we have had few wars on our soil which resulted in genocide or civilians ending up undefended from invading armies. There was some of that in the Revolutionary war and in those days many women knew how to operate a weapon and had some outdoor survival skills. Certainly frontier women had this knowledge and could defend themselves somewhat from Indian attacks while men were away hunting or at war.
So, just because women are in general not best suited for combat compared to men, compared to having nothing ... no training whatsoever and no way to defend yourself and your children, that is not good either.
This doesn’t necessarily mean women need to be in elite forces. But I do think all young people having some military training (like in Israel) makes your entire society more prepared for different contingencies ... such as the men being taken out and the women, children and older people being left at the mercy of invaders.
So yes, men can do a better job militarily ... if they are around. But if they are not around you need a second (and probably third) line of defense. Just because we haven’t faced the situation yet on our soil doesn’t mean it can’t happen. It would be good to have a greater percentage of our population have at least some military training.
I agree that it’s good for everyone to be weapons trained. Any family member should have the skill to protect the home with a firearm. Nor do I have any heartburn with women having survival skills. And, a gun being a great equalizer, I’ve no doubt that women have in the past and will again dispatch a good number of the enemy to meet their maker.
As you say, that’s a lot different than putting women in fighting units where all the members are trying to kill one another in combat.