The Navy Times recently reported that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Chief of Naval Operations, and the Secretary of the Navy released statements suggesting that women should serve aboard U.S. Navy submarines. But will the cost of reconfiguring submarines prohibit integration of the force?
Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mullen told congressional lawmakers that he thought it was time to end the ban against women on submarines.
Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Roughead agrees saying “accommodations are a factor, but not insurmountable.”
“Having commanded a mixed gender surface combatant, I am very comfortable addressing integrating women into the submarine force. I am familiar with the issues as well as the value of diverse crews,” he said. “The Navy has examined the feasibility of assigning women to submarines over the years, and I have been personally engaged on this.”
Roughead said the Navy must “manage the community as a whole, such as force growth and retention within a small warfare community.”
“The size of the submarine force is much smaller than the surface and aviation forces and personnel management is more exacting,” he continued. “This has had and will continue to have my personal attention as we work toward increasing the diversity of our Navy afloat and ashore.”
Women, who make up about 12% of the 1.2 million U.S. service members on active duty, are by policy excluded from traditional front-line combat jobs. But combat roles have become blurred during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, in which irregular warfare has brought women into harm’s way.
The Navy has approximately 7,900 female officers and 44,000 female sailors, comprising about 15% of the 330,500-strong active component. But while women have been assigned to surface warships since 1993, they remain banned from submarine crews and naval special warfare teams. Females can get qualified on nuclear reactors but are restricted to serving on nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, not on any of the Navy’s 71 nuclear-powered submarines.
Submariners live in exceptionally close quarters, even taking turns sleeping in the same bunks on attack submarines. Officials have said the lack of privacy and the cost of reconfiguring subs already tightly packed with gear and crew members make it difficult to introduce female crewmembers.