He isn't saying that a woman would not have started the war. So either he claims any woman leader would be so incompetent that Russia would lose the war, or so competent that she would win the war faster (which would according to him be a good thing).
It was such a weird experience reading Neuromancer then getting on Twitter and realizing Gibson is a turbo-lib boomer. I'd waited a long time to read the book, everyone kept calling it a masterpiece. The book lived up to those expectations. And then Gibson turns out to be so damn boring and normal.