“Good riddance.” With those two words, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the end of a major, five-year-long experiment within the U.S. Army. The program, which used psychological assessments and bias-reduction measures to select the military’s next generation of commanders, has been officially canceled.
This is a deliberate act that re-ignites one of the most profound and difficult debates in our republic, a debate that reaches into every corner of American life, from our universities to our military academies: What is the true definition of “merit”?
The Rise and Fall of a “Revolutionary” Program
The Command Assessment Program (CAP), implemented broadly in 2020, was a revolutionary attempt to change how the Army chooses its leaders. For decades, promotions were based on the Centralized Selection List (CSL), a process where a board reviews an officer’s paper file – their past assignments and performance reviews.
CAP added a new, data-driven dimension. It was an intensive, multi-day evaluation that used psychological tests, peer reviews, written essays, and behavioral analysis to get a more holistic view of a candidate’s fitness for command. A key goal was to reduce the “conscious and subconscious biases” that can influence traditional promotion boards.
However, the program was not without its problems. It was plagued by a high opt-out rate, with more than half of eligible senior officers choosing not to participate last year. Its credibility was also severely damaged by a 2024 scandal in which a top general was fired for improperly trying to help a subordinate pass her assessment.
A Return to “Merit”? A Constitutional Debate
The administration has framed the cancellation of CAP as a return to a system based “ONLY on merit & performance.” This forces a critical question: what, exactly, is a meritocracy? This decision highlights two competing visions.
The first vision, championed by the administration, holds that “merit” is an objective quality that can be found in a soldier’s service record. In this view, programs like CAP, with their focus on psychological traits and “bias reduction,” are a form of “woke” social engineering that pollutes a pure, performance-based system.
The second vision, which was the foundation of CAP, argues that a traditional system based only on paper files is not a pure meritocracy. It is susceptible to the same human biases that infect any hierarchical institution – cronyism, favoritism, and subconscious prejudice. In this view, a data-driven program like CAP was an attempt to create a more accurate and objective meritocracy by adding new metrics to counteract those inherent human biases.
The Power to Shape the Military
This policy shift is a direct exercise of the President’s constitutional authority. As Commander-in-Chief under Article II, the President, acting through his Secretary of Defense and service secretaries, has the broad power to set the policies that govern our armed forces.
This power, however, operates within the framework established by Congress, which holds the ultimate authority under Article I to “make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.” The cancellation of CAP is a policy choice made by the executive branch, but it is a choice that must still align with the laws and statutes passed by the legislative branch.
The cancellation of the Command Assessment Program is a significant victory for those who believe the military must be insulated from what they see as social experimentation. It returns the Army to a more traditional system of promotion, but it does not end the underlying debate. The question of how to best identify and promote leaders of character and competence, free from bias, is one of the most critical challenges facing our military. The nation’s security depends on getting that answer right, and the debate over the true meaning of “merit” is far from over.