Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum on Monday, November 9, 2026, ordering a restructuring of the U.S. military’s professional education system. The directive, titled "Reforming Professional Military Education to Forge Warfighters and Secure Victory," mandates 33 reforms across Senior Service Colleges and Intermediate Level Education institutions. Hegseth stated during a speech at the Naval War College that the changes are intended to prioritize combat readiness and practical warfighting skills over academic theory and ideological concerns.
The overhaul follows previous actions by Hegseth to modify military academia, including freezing tenure for civilian staff at service academies, banning certain books at the Naval Academy, and ending military attendance at specific high-ranked private universities. Hegseth argued that current professional military education (PME) has stagnated and drifted from its core purpose. The new policy establishes a singular standard for evaluating these programs: whether they prepare leaders to win wars.
Key provisions of the order include the establishment of "Warfighter Chairs" at all senior colleges, to be filled by colonels or lieutenant colonels with recent operational deployment experience. The directive also replaces subjective seminar grading with mandatory, standardized end-of-course wargames and comprehensive exams that will be heavily weighted toward final grades. Additionally, the department will eliminate lifetime tenure and emeritus status for newly hired civilian faculty, moving them to three-year, performance-based contracts.
The scale of the overhaul involves a mandatory realignment of faculty ratios to ensure a majority of instructors have direct military or defense experience. This marks a shift in how the Department of Defense manages its academic institutions, setting a precedent for centralized control over curriculum and faculty hiring. The memorandum also directs increased instruction on constitutional principles and the legal responsibilities of officers. The Under Secretary of War for Personnel and Readiness is tasked with tracking these requirements to ensure rapid execution across the department.
Implementation begins immediately, with several procedural deadlines approaching. Military departments must report initial curriculum and institutional changes within 90 days, by early February 2027. Within 180 days, institutions must have developed the new standardized wargames and examinations and established the Warfighter Chairs. More substantial curriculum changes, including expanded instruction in artificial intelligence and national defense strategy, are scheduled to take effect for the 2027-2028 academic year. These changes occur as Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) reintroduces articles of impeachment against Hegseth concerning the administration's handling of the Iran war.