Hegseth Blocks Merit-Based Promotion of Women and Minority Servicemembers and Fires Decorated Generals For Insufficient Loyalty

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has begun an unprecedented intervention in the promotion system in the U.S. military, blocking candidates with excellent records recommended by promotion boards. His overall pattern is to block promotion of women and minorities—but also to purge officers with suspect political loyalties.

NBC News reports:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has taken steps to block or delay promotions for more than a dozen Black and female senior officers across all four branches of the military, some of whom are seen as having been targeted because of their race, gender, or perceived affiliation with Biden administration policies or officials, according to nine U.S. officials familiar with the process.

The process within the Army, the Air Force, the Navy and the Marines is structured to ensure the most qualified officers get promoted. Hegseth’s decision to intervene in the process has raised concerns among some officials within those military branches and the White House, the nine U.S. officials familiar with the situation said. …

On Thursday Hegseth fired the Army chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, whose term was expected to be four years ending in September 2027. George, the Army’s top officer, was senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin during the Biden administration.

By law the president has the most authority to block a military promotion, either an individual recommendation or a name on a list. If a recommended promotion is pulled before it is transmitted to the White House, a reason must be provided, such as an ongoing investigation or an allegation about an officer’s conduct, and the defense secretary typically does not make those decisions. Candidates for promotion have been removed in the past if there were allegations against them or military investigations into them. The people removed from promotion lists did not have open investigations against them, U.S. officials said.

When we connect this with the administration’s ongoing commission of war crimes, its threats to commit more war crimes, and Donald Trump’s repeated threat to deploy troops to suppress political protest at home, this suggests the kind of political purge of the military necessary for a dictator to ensure unquestioned obedience and consolidate absolute power.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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