Brent Scowcroft Center Nonresident Senior Fellows for Military Affairs and National Security Policy Dave Barno and Nora Bensahel cowrite for The Atlantic on Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s long-overdue announcement that all jobs in the US military will now be open to women:
On Thursday, Carter announced that all jobs in the U.S. military will now be open to women. Positions will no longer be closed exclusively because of gender; allmembers of the military will now be able to serve in any position for which they meet the standard. This decision will take effect on or around January 1, after the legally required 30-day congressional-review period ends.
Carter’s announcement is long overdue. As women in uniform have been fighting and dying in the wars of the last 15 years, their opportunities within the military have remained deeply constrained. Yet their remarkable performance in those same bloody conflicts has reinforced the beliefs of all who saw this day as both inevitable and right. And it has convinced many who were once skeptics.