Sept. 22 (UPI) — The Pentagon will change the process by which new generals are promoted to a “battlefield-style” assessment called the Joint Warfighter Evaluation, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday.
Hegseth said in a social media post that the new assessment for eligible colonels and Navy captains will “cut bureaucracy and demand true meritocracy” and screen officers on “their ability to fight, adapt and win.”
“America needs warfighters who can master a chaotic battle space,” he said.
Hegseth did not say how the Pentagon will measure “joint warfighting ability.” The promotion system that will be phased out featured boards that considered officers based on written evaluations from their superiors through their overall career.
The defense secretary has said before that the U.S. military has promoted too many leaders based on what he deemed the wrong reasons. Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran, has blocked many Navy, Air Force and Army promotions to one-star generals or admirals, including those of Black people and women.
“Real toxic leadership is endangering subordinates with low standards,” he said in an address last year to military leaders, Star and Stripes, a daily U.S. military newspaper, reported. “Real toxic leadership is promoting people based on immutable characteristics or quotas instead of basedon merit.”
Hegseth said that Stuart Scheller, the deputy chief of staff to the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, will lead the effort.
In the video, he compared it to the Louisiana Maneuvers, a series of military exercises and wargames before the United States entered World War II, and cited leaders that emerged through that endeavor.
The new evaluations will bring “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.”
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