Charles Paige: Evaluating Women in Combat

Defense Secretary James Mattis says "the jury is still out" on whether it's a good idea.

If there’s a bright side to the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation mess, it’s that it deflected attention from comments made by Defense Secretary James Mattis that on a slower news day would have triggered outrage from the same folks stirring the Kavanaugh pot and made Mattis a target for their mischief. During a recent question and answer session at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), a cadet posed this query to Mattis:

Sir … first off I’d just like to say, pardon my language, but there are a lot of bad-ass women here, some [more] physically fit than I am, some smarter than I am, but I remember I was doing some research on the Marine Corps’ experiment to see if [having] females in combat arms makes us more combat effective, and I would just like to hear your thoughts on that.

The cadet was likely referring to a nine-month long test conducted by the Marine Corps in 2015 — the only test conducted by a service that assessed unit performance under field, combat-like conditions. Unsurprisingly, it that found that assigning females to combat-arms units broke down cohesion and made the units less effective. Although only a single example, the recent case of one of the first enlisted females serving as an infantry Marine seems to provide additional, real-world validation of the thesis. The now-demoted NCO pled guilty to fraternization (i.e., having a sexual relationship with a subordinate Marine that undermined good order and discipline in the unit) and will be discharged.

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