The U.S. Army has decided to cancel its Command Assessment Program, ending a Biden-era experiment that never gained the trust or enthusiasm of the officer corps.

This move comes after months of review and signals a firm shift back toward proven methods of selecting commanders.

The Command Assessment Program, known as CAP, was first introduced in 2019 as a pilot program for picking battalion commanders.

By 2020, it had spread throughout the Army, replacing the Centralized Selection Board system that had long been used to determine promotions.

Here's What They're Not Telling You About Your Retirement

CAP was designed to address what its supporters called conscious and unconscious biases in leadership selection, incorporating psychological tests and peer evaluations into the process.

“The battery of psychometric assessments employs several different instruments to measure cognitive capacity, emotional intelligence, conscientiousness, self-awareness, and other behavioral traits,” Army documents explained when CAP was first detailed in January. Those same documents, however, acknowledged the weakness of relying so heavily on subjective judgments.

“Though not completely hidden, assessing intellect through casual observation is highly subjective and contextual,” Army officials noted.

This reliance on behavioral analysis and peer evaluations marked a sharp departure from the Army’s tradition of rewarding performance, results, and leadership ability.

This Could Be the Most Important Video Gun Owners Watch All Year

CAP also included measures explicitly intended to shield minorities from potential bias, which many inside the ranks saw as a distraction from the Army’s core mission.

Former Army Secretary Christine Wormuth was one of the most vocal advocates of the program. She argued that CAP created a safeguard against poor leadership. “The CAP process puts a priority on screening out individuals who have counterproductive leadership behaviors,” Wormuth said in a podcast.

“You can be confident that the folks coming out of CAP who are going into command … are a lot less likely to have counterproductive leadership tendencies.”

Yet while the idea sounded appealing in theory, the reality was far less encouraging. Officers across the Army expressed little interest in participating. In 2019, when the program was still new, about 40 percent of eligible officers opted out.

Image Credit: DoW

By 2024, that number had skyrocketed to 54 percent, a record level of disengagement. Such numbers demonstrated that CAP had failed to inspire confidence among those whose careers it most directly affected.

At the same time, CAP’s impact on the overall quality of leadership was far from clear.

Supporters praised the program for highlighting positive personality traits, but there was no evidence that it made officers more effective or that it attracted stronger candidates to senior leadership roles. Instead, many soldiers came to see CAP as an unnecessary burden that undermined merit-based advancement.

In recent months, the administration has taken decisive steps to correct what it views as misguided policies left over from the Biden years. CAP became one of the most high-profile examples of that rollback.

The Department of the Army initially suspended the program, announcing that it would review the evaluation process. After further study, officials made the decision to eliminate it altogether and return to the Centralized Selection Board system.

The decision reflects a renewed focus on readiness and combat effectiveness.

Military leaders and their civilian counterparts have emphasized the importance of building a fighting force based on proven capability rather than on social experiments.

The return to the CSL system will ensure that promotions once again prioritize performance, accomplishments, and battlefield leadership.

Ending CAP is more than just an administrative change. It is a statement of principle that America’s armed forces must be led by men and women who have demonstrated their ability in real-world situations rather than through subjective personality tests.

Because the Army depends on leaders who can inspire, organize, and win in the most demanding circumstances, it must select those leaders through a process that reflects both fairness and effectiveness.

Critics of CAP had long warned that the program risked weakening the Army by sidelining traditional standards in favor of abstract psychological analysis. Those concerns are no longer theoretical.

The cancellation of CAP is a recognition that the experiment did not deliver on its promises and that the nation’s defense cannot afford to be shaped by programs that fail to win the confidence of the troops themselves.

This move demonstrates a serious commitment to rebuilding trust within the officer corps. It also underscores a broader effort to strengthen the military by discarding initiatives that dilute focus and morale.

In bringing back the CSL system, the Army is sending a clear message: leadership must be earned through performance, dedication, and results, not through subjective evaluations that lack reliability.

America’s soldiers deserve leaders chosen for their proven ability to guide troops in battle and uphold the highest traditions of service.

The cancellation of CAP is a step in that direction, and it reflects a larger vision of restoring excellence, merit, and effectiveness at the very top of the chain of command.

Warning: Account balances and purchasing power no longer tell the same story. Know in 2 minutes if your retirement is working for you.