The Department of Defense squashed the Command Assessment Program (CAP), a program designed to improve the way the Army chooses officers for Battalion command, developed during the first Trump administration.
"Good riddance," Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in response to the cancellation of CAP. "Promotions across [Department of Defense] will ONLY be based on merit & performance." This was perhaps an odd statement as CAP was designed precisely to promote based on merit and performance.
CAP, "relied heavily on peer evaluations and behavioral analysis. Additionally, measures were introduced into the program with the stated goal of protecting minorities from bias," wrote Zita Ballinger Fletcher in defense of the program in the Army Times this week.
The Army will now revert back to the old system called the Centralized Selection Board/List or CSL. In the CSL, a panel evaluates the officer's performance and potential based on military paperwork. While the administration appears to conflate CAP with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, CAP attempted to take a more holistic view of an officer seeking battalion command and took steps to identify toxic leaders by relying heavily on peer evaluations.
The unanswered question is how reverting to the old CSL system will result in outcomes based solely on merit and performance, when that system created a cadre of senior military officers that Secretary of Defense Hegseth has described as "woke."