Hegseth announces new Pentagon battlefield test for promotions to general
The Pentagon is altering the promotion process to get to the rank of general in an effort to “cut bureaucracy and demand true meritocracy” across the senior ranks, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday.
In a video posted to social media, Hegseth declared the Defense Department this year will roll out the Joint Warfighter Evaluation, a new battlefield-style assessment for eligible colonels and Navy captains. The evaluation is intended to screen the officers aimed for one-star general or admiral on “their ability to fight, adapt, and win,” according to Hegseth.
“While the backbone of our military is our NCOs [noncommissioned officers] and our petty officers, victory depends on the commanders who lead them,” Hegseth said in the video.
“America needs warfighters who can master a chaotic battle space,” he added, later noting that commanders should be chosen by “proven competence, not paper credential.”
He likened the new evaluation to the Louisiana Maneuvers — a mass series of military exercises done directly before the U.S. entered World War II, during which roughly 400,000 troops conducted a wargame to evaluate America’s training, logistics and commanders.
Hegseth said such testing brought out leaders like former President Eisenhower, a five-star Army general who planned and carried out the Allied assault on the coast of Normandy and the liberation of Western Europe; Army Gen. Omar Bradley, the first chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who eventually oversaw the U.S. military’s policymaking in the Korean War; and Adm. Chester Nimitz, who commanded Allied air, land and sea in the Pacific theater during World War II.
The Joint Warfighter Evaluation “brings that standard to the modern multi-domain fight,” Hegseth said. “This evaluation is an objective equalizer. The scenario only cares about operational decisions under pressure.”
Hegseth said he had tasked Stuart Scheller, the deputy chief of staff to the undersecretary of Defense for personnel and readiness, to lead the effort a year ago.
Each military branch will have its own version of the evaluation, according to internal documents obtained by The Hill.
The Army will use a written assessment then a digital wargame; the Air Force and Space Force will require a two-hour online analysis test followed by a one-hour interactive simulation; the Navy will have officers travel to the Naval War College for a three-hour written assessment then a two-to-three-hour wargame; and the Marine Corps requires an eight-hour remote evaluation on an AI-enabled platform combining written assessments and situational judgment tests, according to an internal memo.
The Joint Staff will evaluate 50 to 60 Joint Forces Staff College students using a “hybrid” model with an independent written analysis followed by an “in-person, AI enabled execution phase” at Norfolk, Va. school, the memo said.
The current system has promotion boards that consider officers via their accumulated evaluations from their superiors throughout their careers.
The service will provide weekly updates on its pilot program development and implementation of the JWT Operational Planning Team (OPT) that will be coordinated with Scheller, Anthony Tata, the Pentagon’s Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, said in an Aug. 12 internal memo reviewed by The Hill.
Hegseth, a former Fox News host who served in the Army National Guard, has notoriously had an issue with the military’s promotion system, blocking numerous Army, Navy and Air Force promotions to one-star general or admirals — a large quantity of them Black and female service members.
The Pentagon chief has prioritized what he calls the “warrior ethos,” pushing the armed services to embrace higher physical standards and criticizing the military branches for promoting individuals based on what he has claimed, without proof, are race and gender quotas.
“Real toxic leadership is endangering subordinates with low standards. Real toxic leadership is promoting people based on immutable characteristics or quotas instead of based on merit,” Hegseth told senior military leaders last year in Quantico, Va.
Updated 3:27 p.m. EDT
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