Hold tight for a critical look at military readiness as the Pentagon dives into a six-month review of women serving in ground combat positions.
The assessment, detailed in a Pentagon memo obtained by OPB, aims to gauge the operational impact of female soldiers and Marines in infantry, armor, and artillery roles.
Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel Anthony Tata penned the directive last month, calling for Army and Marine leaders to supply data on readiness, training, performance, and casualties in these units. The memo demands all metrics related to individual deployability, including physical and medical standards, to be submitted to the Institute for Defense Analyses by mid-January.
Questioning a Decade of Integration
The review targets the effectiveness of ground combat units, a full ten years after restrictions on women in combat were lifted. It also seeks internal studies on female integration, hinting at a deeper scrutiny of past policy shifts.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran, has been vocal on this issue, stating in a September address at Marine Base Quantico that women must meet the "highest male standard." His words signal a push for unyielding, uniform benchmarks in roles demanding physical prowess.
Hegseth, previously critical of women in combat during his time as a Fox News host, adjusted his tone at his confirmation hearing, affirming that equal standards should apply to all. Yet, his podcast comment from November 2024, "It hasn’t made us more effective," still echoes a skepticism worth wrestling with.
Standards Over Ideology in Focus
Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson emphasized in an email that this study prioritizes maintaining elite, sex-neutral standards for combat positions. Wilson’s point that "the weight of a rucksack doesn’t care if you’re a man or a woman" cuts through any fluff about fairness and lands on raw practicality.
Hegseth himself doubled down in his Quantico speech, insisting, "Any place where tried and true physical standards were altered, especially since 2015, must be returned to their original standard." This isn’t about exclusion but about restoring a bar that ensures battlefield survival, no matter who’s carrying the load.
Critics like Ellen Haring, a retired Army colonel and West Point graduate, see this as a veiled attempt to push women out, claiming, "He’s against women in combat and he’s going to get them out." Her words deserve a nod, but they sidestep the core issue of whether adjusted standards have truly served the mission or just checked a box.
Numbers Tell a Specific Story
Currently, about 3,800 women serve in Army combat units across infantry, armor, and artillery, with over 150 completing the grueling Ranger training. The Marines count roughly 700 women in similar roles, all held to identical standards as their male peers.
A smaller but notable group, around ten women, have passed Green Beret training, proving exceptional capability in elite circles. These figures show grit, yet the question lingers if sheer numbers translate to unit cohesion under fire.
Khris Fuhr, another West Point alum who worked on gender integration, cited an Army study from 2018 to 2023 showing women often matched or outscored men in combat roles. Her dismissal of the review as "a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist" sounds sharp, but it glosses over persistent concerns about physical disparities in extreme conditions.
Historical Pushback and Future Implications
Back in 2015, then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter opened all combat roles to women, arguing it made no sense to bar half the population from serving. His stance, while idealistic, met resistance, especially from the Marine Corps, whose leadership privately questioned the impact on lethality.
A Marine exercise that year in the Mojave Desert found gender-integrated units slower and more injury-prone than all-male teams, fueling doubts about readiness. Carter countered that the study ignored individual high performers, a fair point, but one that doesn’t fully quiet worries about broader unit dynamics.
General Joe Dunford, then Joint Chiefs Chairman, notably skipped Carter’s press conference, issuing a statement focused on implementation rather than endorsement. This history suggests the current review isn’t just a whim but a revisit of unresolved tensions between policy goals and combat realities.
