The US Congress has taken the initial steps to make women eligible for the military draft. Right now, only men aged 18-26 are required to register for the draft, but there is growing sentiment that that policy discriminates against women. Women have made enormous strides in achieving a degree of equality in the US military, but much remains to be done. Women are now eligible for combat roles and there is little on paper that prevents them from achieving the highest ranks. It remains to be seen, however, how the American people will react to any steps that would restore military conscription.
China has denied the US aircraft carrier USS Stennis the right to make a port call at Hong Kong. Such denials are the right of every sovereign nation (unless a vessel is in urgent distress), but China has allowed such vessels to make port calls in the past. It seems clear that the refusal is an expression of Chinese displeasure with the US position on, and activities in, the South China Sea. The US and China have yet to reach any accommodation on the maritime claims in the Sea.
USS Stennis
Sergei Karaganov is Dean of the School of World Economics and International Relations at the National Research University–Higher School of Economics in Russia. He has written an essay for Russia in Global Affairs that presents an alternative view from the American one on the course of international relations since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The essay clearly outlines a quite different understanding of Western actions since that time and it challenges many assumptions about US interventions in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya.
World Politics News 
Leave a comment