America’s disinvestment in proven peacebuilding is a global liability, undermining stability, alliances, and a more secure future for all.
It is often easier to dismantle policies when they concern women. They are more readily dismissed as optional, ideological, or symbolic rather than as core instruments of national security. That assumption helps explain how the United States has been able to quietly hollow out its own Women, Peace and Security framework without formally repealing it.
In 2017, the Women, Peace and Security Act was passed with rare bipartisan support. It recognised a hard truth backed by decades of evidence: peace processes that include women last longer, cost less, and are more resilient. The law required the US government to integrate this framework across diplomacy, defence, and development. Eight years later, the law still exists, but the capacity to implement it does not.
According to The Elimination of the U.S. Women, Peace and Security Capacity at the Department of State, a January 2026 policy report by Kayla McGill and Rachel Wein at New Lines Institute, the State Department dismantled the Office of Global Women’s Issues between January and July 2025. More than 65 expert staff were dismissed, and active programmes operating in over 50 countries were suspended. The annual savings were roughly $15 million. The long-term costs will almost certainly run into the billions.
This matters because prevention is cheaper than reaction. Research consistently shows that peace agreements with women’s participation are around 35 percent more likely to endure beyond 15 years. Early warning systems that track gender-based violence often detect instability before traditional security indicators do. Removing this expertise does not make the system leaner. It makes it blind.
McGill and Wein describe this strategy as “impoundment by elimination. Congress has not repealed the law. Funds have not been explicitly refused. Instead, the offices and staff required to execute the law have been removed, rendering compliance impossible. If this tactic is allowed to stand, it sets a precedent that should worry legislators of all political stripes. Any future administration could nullify any law it dislikes simply by deleting its implementers.
The national security implications are concerning, too. NATO allies, the European Union, Japan, and Australia continue to embed WPS into their strategic planning. The United States now arrives at coordination tables unable to match that framework. This weakens alliance cohesion and opens space for competitors. China and Russia are not filling this vacuum with inclusive governance or accountability standards. They are filling it with influence.
The New Lines Institute report also highlights how authoritarian systems weaponise gender-based oppression as a tool of control, from Russia’s use of sexual violence in Ukraine to China’s persecution of Uyghur women. By dismantling the analytical capacity to understand these dynamics, the US is discarding a strategic advantage at precisely the wrong moment. Strategic competition is not solely about the exhibition of hard power, but insights and broader values too. For the United States, progressive values have been central to its enduring global influence.
There is also a domestic dimension that should not be ignored. Democratic backsliding often begins with the erosion of oversight, the sidelining of expertise, and the politicisation of evidence. Offices focused on inclusion and civil society are frequently among the first to be targeted. The removal of WPS capacity mirrors patterns the United States has spent decades identifying abroad.
Perhaps the greatest irony is fiscal. One year of a modest overseas military intervention can cost between $2 and $4 billion. The entire WPS infrastructure operated on a fraction of that. Eliminating it may produce a short-term line item win, but it almost guarantees higher future expenditure, whether through humanitarian crises, military deployments, or reconstruction efforts.
Reversing this damage will not be easy. Expertise is already dispersing to universities, think tanks, and allied governments. Institutional memory, once lost, cannot be quickly rebuilt. Congress still has tools at its disposal, from appropriations safeguards to oversight hearings, but the window is narrowing.
The dismantling of WPS capacity raises difficult questions. Can laws designed to prevent conflict and promote stability survive when the expertise to implement them is stripped away? What does this mean for the role of prevention in national security, and for the resilience of democratic oversight more broadly? If administrative attrition can nullify legislation quietly, how secure are any of the policies meant to guide U.S. foreign and domestic strategy?
