Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has mandated that “joint warfighting ability” be one of the criteria considered when officers and noncommissioned officers are evaluated for promotions, according to a recent memo.
“To that end, I am directing the creation of an additional metric for our officer and non-commissioned officer evaluation processes,” Hegseth wrote in the May 20 memo, which was shared on Reddit. “The effort to create objective, data-driven metrics for measuring and identifying warfighting ability is not a bureaucratic exercise; it is a warfighting imperative.”
Task & Purpose has confirmed the memo is authentic. The document does not specify how Hegseth defines “joint warfighting ability” or how it will be considered as part of the promotions process.
Hegseth has designated Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata to lead the effort and “delegated the authority to provide additional policy and implementation guidance as required,” the memo says.
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When asked about the memo, a Pentagon official told Task & Purpose that the move is part of an ongoing review to ensure that promotion standards are “objective, data-driven, and focused on warfighter capability.”
“No new metrics are available at this time,” the Pentagon official said.
In military parlance, joint operations refer to missions and exercises involving more than one service that operate under a single commander.
Hegseth’s memo leaves many questions unanswered, said Hendrick Simoes, a retired Navy senior chief petty officer who has extensive experience on ranking boards, which evaluate whether sailors should be prioritized for promotions.
“Not every career field has the same access to joint assignments, and every service already has its own promotion milestones and career expectations,” Simoes told Task & Purpose. “So it will be interesting to see how it integrates with those.”
In the Navy, for example, officers and NCOs have long been expected to deploy at sea to demonstrate their leadership abilities in an operational environment, Simoes said. That type of experience is also a critical factor in making them competitive for promotions.
One question is whether Hegseth’s effort will elevate the importance of joint assignments for officers and NCOs and how promotion boards will weigh that experience against other criteria that have traditionally been important for advancement, he said.
Simoes said he wants to know how the Defense Department will make sure that all service members across different career paths have a fair opportunity at billets, exercises, and other experiences that allow them to demonstrate joint warfighting ability. He also voiced concern that if the effort is rolled out too quickly, service members who believed they were competitive for promotions could suddenly face a new set of barriers to advancement.
“If the department wants joint warfighting competence to become a more significant factor in advancement, there will need to be a great deal of education, guidance, and likely some cultural change throughout the force,” Simoes said. “Leaders at every level will need to understand what this new standard means and how to advise their people accordingly.”
