Book Review: Deploying Feminism: The Role of Gender in NATO Military Operations
| Published date | 01 March 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00207020231180122 |
| Author | Bénédicte Santoire |
| Date | 01 March 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
of the smaller states is registered in his analysis but subordinated to the overall frame-
work. Likewise, between the detail of archival sources and the regional big picture, the
continuing texture of the bilateral and multilateral relationships can be lost. Lastly,
archival records present vividly the opinions of the time, but are not necessarily accu-
rate. The American assessment that “the US bombardment of Hanoi undermined
public morale and effectively sapped the people’s will to continue the fight”
4
was
made in July 1967, 6 months before the Tet Offensive.
Huang quotes his colleague Yan Xuetong, saying “from a geographical perspec-
tive…it is more likely that our country can successfully shape the neighborhood
than the global environment.”
5
In the current heat of global rivalry, it is good to
remember that China must bloom where it is planted in a complex neighborhood.
Yuxing Huang has made a significant contribution to our understanding of how
salient China’s regional diplomacy is for its broader strategic picture.
Stéfanie von Hlatky,
Deploying Feminism: The Role of Gender in NATO Military Operations.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022, 248 pp. $34.95 (hardcover)
ISBN: 978-0-1976-5352-4
Reviewed by: Bénédicte Santoire (benedicte.santoire@uottawa.ca), University of Ottawa,
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
DOI: 10.1177/00207020231180122
Deploying Feminism asks tough questions: is it possible that feminist principles could
improve North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)’s operations? What happens
when these principles clash with military culture’s core values?
In this book, Stéfanie von Hlatky examines gender as a component of NATO’sfield
missions. Based on policy analysis and fieldwork in the Baltics, Kosovo, Iraq, and at
NATO’s different headquarters, the author analyzes how the Women, Peace, and
Security (WPS) agenda
1
is understood internally by NATO’s actors and then opera-
tionalized in its ground missions.
If the title seems provocative, uncomfortable, or eyebrow-raising, it is because it
deliberately reflects the author’s argument. Indeed, drawing on the WPS agenda,
civil–military relations, and international norms literature, von Hlatky puts forward
4. Yuxing Huang, China’s Asymmetric Statecraft: Alignments, Competitors, and Regional Diplomacy
(Vancouver: UBC Press, 2023), 141.
5. Yuxing Huang, China’s Asymmetric Statecraft: Alignments, Competitors, and Regional Diplomacy
(Vancouver: UBC Press, 2023), 13.
1. The WPS agenda is a normative policy framework resulting from the landmark UN Security Council
Resolution 1325 (UNSCR1325) of October 2000, and nine subsequent resolutions. Its four founding
pillars —participation, protection, prevention, and relief and recovery—tackle women’s roles in inter-
national peace and security decision-making and gender-based violence in conflicts, among others.
282 International Journal 78(1-2)
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