War Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered an immediate overhaul of higher military service colleges, issuing a memorandum with 33 directives that he said took effect immediately. The order targets how the institutions educate students preparing for senior military leadership.

The academic changes replace one familiar requirement with a test rooted in war games. Students seeking senior leadership roles will have to demonstrate their acumen using Artificial Intelligence in those exercises rather than write lengthy written dissertations.

Hegseth also directed the colleges to end emeritus status and eliminate lifetime tenure for newly hired civilian faculty. The memorandum therefore reaches beyond coursework and into the structure and future composition of college faculties.

Another directive calls for reducing the number of civilian employees who lack military experience. Hegseth instructed the colleges to “realign the civilian-faculty ratio” as part of the immediate overhaul.

The stated objective is to “ensure that the majority of full-time faculty possess direct military experience and defense experience,” according to the memorandum. Hegseth also ordered that civilians considered “purely technical subject-matter experts shall be limited.”

Hegseth outlined the directives during a speech to students and faculty at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. His remarks challenged the language, priorities and institutional culture surrounding professional military education.

“We speak endlessly of producing critical thinkers, strategic enterprise leaders, and officers with an appreciation of complex global security environments,” Hegseth said. He argued that such language does not sufficiently identify the central purpose military education should serve.

For Hegseth, that purpose is teaching students how to achieve victory. He pointed to the mission statements of service colleges, saying the words “win” and “defeat” do not appear in them and “victory” appears only once.

“This is the language of civilian bureaucracy, not military command,” Hegseth said. His criticism placed the colleges’ choice of words directly alongside his broader demand for an education system centered on winning wars.

Hegseth described the national security changes underway in similarly sweeping terms. He said the United States is undergoing “the most far-reaching strategic recalibration of our national security posture since the end of the Second World War.”

He called that recalibration “deeper and more profound than the fall of the Soviet Union.” Against that backdrop, he presented the service college directives as immediate requirements rather than proposals for a prolonged academic debate.

The War Secretary also confronted what he described as resistance inside the Naval War College. He condemned a “stubborn undercurrent of passive-aggressive institutional resistance” and criticized academics who hope to “wait out President Trump’s term in office.”

“Hear me clearly: they’re wrong, and they’re dead wrong,” Hegseth said. The warning left little ambiguity about his view of those expecting the institutional push to fade with time.

Addressing faculty members directly, Hegseth urged them to push students into “the crucible of realistic operational thought.” He said victory should serve as the sole goal across coursework at the military institutions.

“Prepare them for war for lethality, for the life and death struggles that they one day may face,” Hegseth told the faculty. The directive connected classroom preparation with the dangers students could eventually confront.

Hegseth separately told students that the United States must not accept a wartime stalemate. His message emphasized that military education should prepare officers to prevail, not merely manage conflict or settle for a draw.

“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,” Hegseth said. “They expect, they demand, they deserve nothing less than victory.”