Defense secretary’s latest interposition resulted in all-male, overwhelmingly white picks for promotion to admiralty
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, stripped nine navy officers including women and Black service members from a promotion list last month, according to a person familiar with the matter, resulting in an all-male, overwhelmingly white slate of 22 advancing as nominees to become one-star admirals.
Hegseth’s unusual intervention violated promotion rules designed to be merit-based and apolitical, the New York Times said on Tuesday, and extended the Trump administration’s push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the military.
The original promotion list included three women and two Black officers in addition to the two who remained, the newspaper said.
I mean part of the reason… The navy is just constantly shooting themselves in the foot constantly. The biggest being with their obsession with promoting commanders based on things like opstempo and deployment to dwell ratios.
Even when the US isn’t in a war opstempo of the US Navy is so demanding that no one wants to join the navy anymore, and the fleets are falling apart from lack of maintenance or ramming into each other from sailors being overworked and undertrained.
And thats all without bringing up the history of graft in the Navy. I mean, Lord knows how many people getting promoted now we’re around when Fat Leonard was throwing prostitutes and sacks of money at any officer sailing in the south Pacific.