Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon is reviewing the effectiveness of having thousands of women serve in ground combat roles.
The Institute for Defense Analyses, a nonprofit that conducts independent research for the federal government, has been tasked with “reviewing the effectiveness of having women in ground combat roles to ensure standards are met and the United States maintains the most lethal military,” the Pentagon said in a statement to the Daily Beast on Tuesday.
“Our standards for combat arms positions will be elite, uniform, and sex neutral because the weight of a rucksack or a human being doesn’t care if you’re a man or a woman,” Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson said. “Under Secretary Hegseth, the Department of War will not compromise standards to satisfy quotas or an ideological agenda—this is common sense.”
A seven-page memo penned by Defense Undersecretary Anthony Tata last month, first obtained and reported by NPR, instructed Army and Marine leaders to provide the Institute for Defense Analyses with data on the readiness, training, performance, casualties, and command climate of ground combat units and personnel by Jan. 15. It also sought any internal research and studies on “the integration of women in combat.”
The memo reportedly stated that the move is aimed at determining “operational effectiveness of ground combat units 10 years after the Department lifted all remaining restrictions on women serving in combat roles.”
In 2015, military occupations and positions were opened to all women without exception for the first time in U.S. military history. According to NPR, about 3,800 women serve in combat units in the Army, while some 700 hold ground combat jobs in the Marines.
The Defense Department seems to be taking its cue from Hegseth, a former Fox News host and Army National Guard veteran who has been vocal about his opposition to having women in combat roles.
“I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles,” Hegseth told the Shawn Ryan Show in November 2024, the same month that President Donald Trump nominated him as defense secretary. “It hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.”
“We’ve all served with women and they’re great,” he went on. “Just—our institutions don’t have to incentivize that in places where, over human history, men in those positions are more capable.”
The self-anointed War Secretary softened his stance during his testy confirmation hearing, telling senators that women will continue to serve in ground combat roles under his leadership as long as “standards” remain high.
Once he took the helm of the Pentagon, however, he bragged about axing the agency’s “Women, Peace & Security” program, blasting it as a “woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative”—even though it was enacted under the first Trump administration.
Hegseth’s term has also seen female military leaders get pushed out, including a Navy captain who would have been the first woman in a Naval Special Warfare command overseeing Navy SEALS, and U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield, a top admiral whose name appeared on a “woke” list.
