The current U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) policy for assigning military women was issued in 1994, and the U.S. Army’s assignment policy dates to 1992.

In the ensuing years, the U.S. Army has undergone significant technological and organizational transformation, which has changed how it organizes and fights. There is concern that, in the course of operations in Iraq, the Army has not been adhering to its own assignment policy, as there are several important and potentially problematic differences between the DoD and Army policies.

For example, the DoD policy prohibits the assignment of women to units whose primary mission is direct combat, whereas the Army policy prohibits the assignment of women to units with a routine mission of direct combat, and their definitions of direct combat differ.

The research finds that the Army is adhering to the DoD assignment policy but may not be complying with the separate Army assignment policy for women.

Assessing the Assignment Policy for Army Women serves to inform DoD decisionmaking with regard to the clarity and appropriateness of the current DoD and Army assignment policies, especially given how units are operating in Iraq.

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Margaret C. Harrell • Laura Werber Castaneda • Peter Schirmer • Bryan W. Hallmark • Jennifer Kavanagh • Daniel Gershwin • Paul Steinberg
Prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense
RAND Corporation

PREFACE
The current U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) policy for assigning military women dates to a 1994 memorandum from then–Secretary of Defense Les Aspin. During the ensuing years, the U.S. military has undergone significant technological and organizational transformation, which has resulted in changes in how the military organizes and fights.

Specifically, the Army’s recent transformation to modular brigades, as well as the differences between military missions in Iraq, and the global war on terrorism (GWOT) more generally, and military missions fought on linear battlefields during past military engagements, prompted concern among some members of Congress about the role of women in military operations in Iraq. Reflecting that, Section 541(b) of Public Law 109-163 requires the Secretary of Defense to submit a report on the current and future implementation of DoD policy for assigning military women.

This monograph is intended as input in DoD decisionmaking and focuses on Army operations in Iraq. In particular, it focuses on the Army’s brigade combat teams (BCTs) that deployed to Iraq in a modular configuration, paying specific attention to the new organic relationships of these BCTs with brigade support battalions (BSBs).

This research was sponsored by the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and conducted within the Forces and Resources Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community. The principal investigator is Margaret C. Harrell.

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