Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a new warfighting assessment that every colonel and Navy captain must pass before earning a star, a move designed to replace what he calls a paper-credential culture with proven battlefield competence.
Hegseth rolled out the Joint Warfighter Evaluation on Tuesday in a video posted to his official social media account, declaring that the Defense Department will begin the program this year. The evaluation applies to eligible colonels and Navy captains seeking promotion to one-star general or admiral, the gateway rank that separates field-grade officers from the senior leaders who plan and execute wars.
Each military branch will run its own version of the test, but the common thread is the same: officers will face simulated combat scenarios and be judged on operational decisions under pressure, not on decades of accumulated performance reviews from superiors.
"America needs warfighters who can master a chaotic battle space," Hegseth said in the video. The evaluation, he added, selects commanders by "proven competence, not paper credential."
Internal documents obtained by The Hill lay out how the JWT will work across the services. The Army will put candidates through a written assessment followed by a digital wargame. The Air Force and Space Force will administer a two-hour online analysis test and then a one-hour interactive simulation.
Navy officers face the most travel-intensive version. They will report to the Naval War College for a three-hour written assessment and a two-to-three-hour wargame. The Marine Corps, by contrast, keeps its candidates remote, but demands the most time: an eight-hour evaluation on an AI-enabled platform that combines written tests with situational judgment scenarios.
The Joint Staff will evaluate 50 to 60 students at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia, using what the documents call a "hybrid" model, an independent written analysis followed by an "in-person, AI enabled execution phase."
Hegseth tasked Stuart Scheller, the deputy chief of staff to the undersecretary of Defense for personnel and readiness, to lead the JWT effort roughly a year ago. An August 12 internal memo from Anthony Tata, the Pentagon's under secretary for personnel and readiness, directed each service to provide weekly updates on its pilot program development through a JWT Operational Planning Team coordinated with Scheller.
The Defense Secretary framed the JWT as a return to a tradition the military abandoned. He pointed to the Louisiana Maneuvers, a massive series of pre-World War II exercises involving roughly 400,000 troops, as the model. Those exercises, Hegseth argued, identified the commanders who would win the war before the first shot was fired.
He named three leaders who emerged from that crucible: Dwight Eisenhower, who planned and carried out the Allied assault on the coast of Normandy; Omar Bradley, who became the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and oversaw military policymaking during the Korean War; and Admiral Chester Nimitz, who commanded Allied air, land, and sea forces across the Pacific theater.
The JWT, Hegseth said, "brings that standard to the modern multi-domain fight."
The historical comparison is deliberate. The Louisiana Maneuvers tested officers under field conditions and weeded out those who looked good on paper but could not perform under stress. Hegseth is betting that simulations and wargames, aided by artificial intelligence, can serve the same function today.
The JWT announcement did not arrive in a vacuum. Hegseth had already blocked numerous Army, Navy, and Air Force promotions to one-star general or admiral, a move that drew sharp criticism from Pentagon observers and members of Congress. The Hill reported that a large quantity of the blocked promotions involved Black and female service members.
Hegseth has argued that the existing promotion system rewards officers based on race and gender quotas rather than warfighting ability. In an earlier speech to senior military leaders at Quantico, Virginia, he laid out that view bluntly:
"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."
The Hill noted that Hegseth made these quota claims without providing proof. The JWT appears designed, at least in part, to give the Defense Department a standardized, performance-based metric it can point to when defending future promotion decisions, an "objective equalizer," in Hegseth's words, where "the scenario only cares about operational decisions under pressure."
The current system relies on promotion boards that review accumulated evaluations from an officer's superiors over the course of a career. Critics of that approach, Hegseth chief among them, argue it rewards bureaucratic skill and political navigation over the ability to command troops in combat.
The JWT is one piece of a larger pattern. Hegseth has prioritized what he calls the "warrior ethos," pushing higher physical standards and reshaping how the Defense Department selects its senior leaders. He recently established a new Pentagon homeland defense board after clearing out legacy advisory panels, consolidating his influence over defense policy.
That consolidation has not come without friction. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll stepped down after months of reported tension with Hegseth over the direction of the service, and the White House later bypassed the Army's No. 2 civilian entirely when selecting an acting replacement.
Hegseth said in his video that the backbone of the military remains its noncommissioned officers and petty officers. But he drew a line: "Victory depends on the commanders who lead them." The JWT is his answer to who those commanders should be, and how the Pentagon should find them.
Several key questions remain unanswered. The Defense Department has not said whether the JWT will supplement existing promotion boards or replace them, what happens to officers who fail the evaluation, or how many colonels and Navy captains are currently eligible. No official start date has been announced beyond Hegseth's pledge to begin the program this year.
Meanwhile, Hegseth faces continued political headwinds. Some congressional Democrats have called for his resignation over unrelated policy disputes, and senior military leaders have warned him about strain on the force from other operational demands.
None of that changes the core question the JWT raises: whether the officers wearing stars earned them by proving they can fight, or by checking the right boxes on the way up. Hegseth is forcing the Pentagon to answer that question out loud, and the answer will shape the next generation of American generals.