Hegseth Issues 33 Directives to Overhaul War Colleges, Ending 80-Page Theses and Lifetime Tenure

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday, Nov. 9, ordered a sweeping overhaul of military education at the senior service colleges and intermediate-level schools, issuing 33 directives he said would take effect immediately and telling an audience at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, that the schools would be judged by one standard: whether they “forge leaders who will win America’s wars.” The announcement, described in a Pentagon release and in reporting by Military Times and Stars and Stripes, comes as the House prepares to vote on impeachment articles against him.

What the 33 directives would change

A Pentagon release said the order followed a review by a Senior Service College Task Force and covers all senior service colleges and intermediate-level education institutions. Stars and Stripes, which reviewed the eight-page memo, said Hegseth wrote that “incremental adjustments will not achieve this transformation” and that “all directed reform tasks detailed in the attached implementation directive will be executed across commands and institutions” immediately. The Under Secretary of War for Personnel and Readiness is to track the requirements, the release said.

Among the changes described in the release and by both newspapers:

• Elite “Warfighter Chair” positions at all senior colleges, filled by high-performing O-5 and O-6 commanders “fresh from operational deployments,” in the Pentagon’s wording, to “inject real-time combat lessons.”
• An end to what Hegseth called “80-page theoretical written theses as the primary capstone of war college achievement,” replaced by “competitive (artificial intelligence) war-gaming and high-stress decision-forcing scenarios,” Stars and Stripes quoted him as saying. Military Times similarly reported that students would be required to show their skill using artificial intelligence in war games rather than write lengthy dissertations, with standardized end-of-course wargames and comprehensive exams replacing subjective seminar grading.
• An end to lifetime tenure and emeritus status for newly hired civilian faculty, replaced by three-year, performance-based contracts evaluated on teaching effectiveness and national security research.
• A requirement that colleges “realign the civilian-faculty ratio” so that “the majority of full-time faculty possess direct military experience and defense experience,” with civilians who are “purely technical subject-matter experts” limited, Military Times reported.
• Modernizing and expanding sensitive compartmented information facility capacity on campuses, Stars and Stripes reported.

Stars and Stripes said the schools covered include the Army War College, National Defense University, the Naval War College, Marine Corps University and the Air War College. The Pentagon said in March that it had created the task force so that schools “that exist to teach men and women to fight wars are not distracted by political ideology,” the newspaper reported.

What Hegseth told the Naval War College

In a speech to students and faculty, Hegseth said the words “win” and “defeat” are absent from service colleges’ mission statements and that “victory” appears only once, Military Times reported. “This is the language of civilian bureaucracy, not military command,” he said. He described what he called “the most far-reaching strategic recalibration of our national security posture since the end of the Second World War,” and he criticized what he called a “stubborn undercurrent of passive-aggressive institutional resistance” at the Naval War College and academics who, he said, hope to “wait out President Trump’s term in office.” “Hear me clearly: they’re wrong, and they’re dead wrong,” he said, according to Military Times.

He told faculty to drive students into “the crucible of realistic operational thought” and told students that “the American people do not entrust their blood, their treasure, or their sons and daughters in our armed forces to lose or to fight to a draw.” Stars and Stripes reported that he also said war colleges have avoided “the rigorous study of recent American strategic failures,” including the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, and “when a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff engages in actions during a presidential transition that raised profound constitutional questions regarding civilian control of the military.” Referring to retired Gen. Mark Milley, he said, “Just because some of you know Mark Milley doesn’t mean we shouldn’t study his failures.”

Those remarks are Hegseth’s characterizations of the schools and of Milley. They are not independent findings about curricula, and Military Times and Stars and Stripes did not present a detailed rebuttal from the colleges in the accounts reviewed here.

The impeachment vote is a backdrop, not the memo

The speech came the same day Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., moved to force a House vote on eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth. Stars and Stripes reported that Hegseth told reporters traveling with him, “We’re not worried about that,” and said he would address the subject at a Pentagon press conference the next morning. The education memo should be read as a personnel-and-curriculum order, not as a formal response to the impeachment resolution. For the vote itself, see The Boston Report’s earlier coverage of the House Democratic leader’s position and of Hegseth’s earlier description of the push as a “sham.”

Whether the 33 directives change day-to-day teaching will depend on how the colleges carry them out, how faculty contracts are rewritten, and how the personnel undersecretary tracks compliance. The Pentagon release and the newspapers describe the order and the speech; they do not yet describe completed faculty cuts or a rewritten course catalog.

Sources

• U.S. Department of War: Secretary of War Pete Hegseth Orders Sweeping Overhaul of Military Education to Refocus on Combat Lethality (Nov. 9, 2026)
• Military Times: Hegseth to cut civilians from military service colleges, wants focus on ‘victory’ (Nov. 9, 2026)
• Stars and Stripes: Hegseth calls for a ‘complete overhaul’ of senior service colleges as impeachment vote looms (Nov. 9, 2026)