Newport Naval War College given 33 Military Education Reforms by Sect. of War Hegseth, Brown Program Over

by Nancy Thomas

Sect. of War Pete Hegseth Announces 33 Military Education Reforms in Newport, Confirms End of Brown Partnership

Naval War College address outlines changes to instruction, faculty and oversight; House subsequently sends impeachment resolution to committee.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used a visit to Newport’s U.S. Naval War College on Monday, November 9, to announce 33 directives reshaping professional military education—and to disclose that he had ordered the college’s longstanding partnership with Brown University ended the previous month.

Newport itself drew criticism

Hegseth’s address carried a pointed message for his Newport audience. While announcing reforms across military education, he specifically accused the Naval War College of resisting the administration’s changes. He did not identify individual faculty members or provide specific examples during that portion of the speech. He also praised the college’s use of AI-assisted wargaming, illustrating that his criticism did not extend to every aspect of its work.

His appearance followed a November 3 visit by Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, whose publicly reported discussions concerned leadership and the college’s mission. No public confirmation has established that Caine’s visit was connected to Hegseth’s announcement six days later. The reforms followed a separate review initiated in March.

Speaking to nearly 700 students, faculty and staff in Spruance Hall, Hegseth reiterated that military education must focus more directly on preparing officers to fight and win wars. His announcement followed a review by the Senior Service College Task Force, established earlier this year.

The reforms address military college curricula, student selection, grading, faculty qualifications, research priorities, academic oversight and technology. They call for greater use of war games and examinations, expanded access to classified information, and new teaching positions for officers with recent operational command experience.

Hegseth praised the Naval War College’s use of AI-assisted wargaming but also accused the institution of resisting his administration’s changes. He did not identify specific individuals or examples supporting that allegation during the address.

What the Brown partnership provided

The Brown relationship was a research and teaching partnership, rather than an arrangement enabling Naval War College students to receive Brown degrees.

Established in 2014 through Brown’s Watson Institute for International Studies, the partnership brought civilian scholars and military professionals together to examine international security issues.

Activities included joint research, lectures, workshops and visiting scholars, with work on cybersecurity, nuclear issues, Russia and Ukraine, and U.S.–China relations. One stated goal was to improve understanding between civilian and military communities.

The Naval War College independently awards its own graduate degrees. Its College of Naval Warfare, for example, awards a Master of Arts in National Security and Strategic Studies following a 10-month resident program.

Hegseth said he directed the Pentagon to end the Brown partnership in October, criticizing the university’s ideological direction. That decision was separate from the November 9 memorandum: Brown is not named in any of its 33 numbered directives.

The 33 directives

The following plain-language summaries follow the original numbering in the November 9 memorandum, Reforming Professional Military Education to Forge Warfighters and Secure Victory. They summarize the requirements rather than reproduce the document verbatim (link attached below):

1. Refocus institutional missions. Rewrite senior and intermediate military college mission statements and learning outcomes around military victory, history, joint operations, deterrence and national security decision-making.
2. Align instruction with national strategy. Use the National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy as the foundation for curricula, emphasizing homeland defense, Pacific defense, defense manufacturing and allied burden-sharing.
3. Require a culminating assessment. Establish a mandatory capstone war game or comprehensive examination that carries substantial weight in final grades and student rankings.
4. Study successes and failures. Add formal case studies addressing recent operational and ethical outcomes, civilian-military relations, lawful authority and limits on military power.
5. Review advisory boards. Examine board charters and membership, emphasizing substantial military and national security leadership experience while meeting legal requirements for balanced representation.
6. Bring industry expertise into classrooms. Require recurring lectures and panels on technology, industrial mobilization, supply chains and commercial business practices.
7. Set AI learning requirements. Establish artificial intelligence competencies and learning objectives for senior service college graduates.
8. Expand classified learning capacity. Develop infrastructure and funding plans for more classified instruction, seminars and war games, addressing security accreditation and construction delays.
9. Emphasize constitutional responsibilities. Make constitutional principles, civilian-military relations, command authorities and officers’ legal and oath-bound obligations foundational to ethics and leadership instruction.
10. Revise grading. Base most of a student’s final grade on individually assessed exercises, formal writing and examinations, reducing reliance on subjective seminar participation.
11. Change faculty composition. Require a majority of full-time faculty to possess military and defense experience. Civilian faculty should primarily have military, Pentagon, intelligence or national security backgrounds.
12. Change faculty employment arrangements. End lifetime tenure and emeritus status for newly hired faculty, consistent with law and existing agreements. Use renewable three-year performance-based civilian contracts where appropriate.
13. Recognize military teaching assignments. Designate qualifying faculty positions as joint-duty assignments and give them promotion consideration equivalent to comparable joint staff positions.
14. Track educational qualifications. Create personnel codes for military education competencies, senior college graduation and fellowships to improve subsequent assignments.
15. Require competitive student selection. Establish annual selection boards for resident military education and qualifying fellowships, emphasizing command performance, combat record and strategic leadership potential.
16. Create “Warfighter Chair” positions. Assign high-performing O-5 and O-6 officers who completed operational command within the previous 24 months to bring current operational lessons into instruction and wargaming.
17. Review accreditation options. Explore institutional accreditors suited to military missions, including a proposed Commission on Professional Higher Education, contingent on federal recognition.
18. Set research priorities. Publish an annual prioritized list of research questions reflecting operational needs and departmental strategy.
19. Standardize learning outcomes. Establish department-wide educational outcomes tailored to different levels of professional military education.
20. Update curricula more rapidly. Create a group to incorporate emerging operational lessons, adversary doctrine and disruptive technologies into military instruction.
21. Establish internal certification. Create a department-wide process for certifying military education institutions, examining academic rigor, assessments, faculty standards and graduates’ subsequent assignments.
22. Create a senior governing forum. Establish a department-level body overseeing military education policy, resources, curriculum standards and modernization.
23. Audit educational practices. Review curricula, faculty hiring and student assessments for adherence to merit, individual excellence, initiative, effort and objective performance standards.
24. Review National Defense University. Assess its mission, organization, authorities, faculty, staffing and infrastructure, and recommend long-term solutions.
25. Extend the requirements to Joint Chiefs programs. Apply directives 1–24 to relevant educational programs under the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
26. Create an intermediate continuing-education requirement. Establish “PME 1.5,” a nonresident course bridging intermediate and senior schooling, covering subjects including force management, campaign design, contested logistics and algorithmic warfare.
27. Prioritize acquisition expertise. Restructure admission to the Eisenhower School’s Senior Acquisition Concentration to prioritize qualified acquisition professionals, including program managers, contracting executives and defense software leaders.
28. Develop counter-cartel educational cooperation. Explore joint learning opportunities linking the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition and Inter-American Defense College.
29. Strengthen advanced-school screening. Require competitive screening for Joint Advanced Warfighting School candidates, assessing planning ability, critical thinking and writing.
30. Conduct an annual joint strategic war game. Give the Army responsibility for coordinating a major exercise across senior service colleges, including reserve personnel and commercial technology specialists.
31. Realign Army University. Make the university and its subordinate organizations report directly to the secretary of the Army or Army chief of staff.
32. Provide secure AI environments. Supply senior service colleges with approved cloud environments and data-loss protections for experimenting with AI tools.
33. Coordinate technology acquisition. Develop a department-wide purchasing and deployment strategy for AI simulations and operational wargaming systems, with Palantir Maven integration cited as an example.

Read the complete memorandum

The eight-page document contains the full requirements, responsible officials and implementation deadlines:

REFORMING-PROFESSIONAL-MILITARY-EDUCATION-TO-FORGE-WARFIGHTERS-AND-SECURE-VICTORY

Although the order initiates the reforms immediately, the changes will unfold over time. Many implementation plans and reports are due within 90 to 270 days. Some academic requirements extend into the 2027–28 and 2028–29 school years.

The written requirements also retain formal writing assignments. While Hegseth’s speech emphasized replacing lengthy theoretical theses with war games, Directive 3 permits a culminating war game or comprehensive examination, and Directive 10 includes writing among the principal measures of student performance.

The college’s response

Naval War College president Rear Adm. Darryl Walker said the secretary’s priorities would continue to guide the institution’s programs and curriculum. The college’s official account emphasized its responsibility to prepare military officers for command.

College spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Seth Koenig said leadership would review the directives against existing programs to determine what changes were needed, noting that some measures already aligned with current practices.

Tuesday’s press conference and impeachment vote

The following morning, November 10, Hegseth held his first Pentagon press conference since May, defending his leadership and rejecting the impeachment effort brought by Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican. He characterized the effort as politically motivated and maintained that the military operations under scrutiny were lawful.

“I stand behind every one of these operations,” Hegseth said. “I was proud to execute them, and I would do it again tomorrow.”

He concluded his prepared remarks with a prayer before taking reporters’ questions.

Later Tuesday, the House voted 211–204 to refer the impeachment resolution to the Judiciary Committee, preventing an immediate vote on the articles themselves. The official House record identifies the measure as H. Res. 1655. The action was a procedural referral, not a Senate acquittal or a determination of the allegations’ merits.

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican and frequent critic of U.S. military intervention, is serving his final weeks in Congress after losing his party’s primary to a Trump-backed challenger; he is a lame-duck lawmaker, not term-limited, and submitted the resolution – with no backing by Republican or Democratic congress people.

Massie’s allegations involved the Iran war and other military operations, civilian protections and retaliation against Sen. Mark Kelly. Hegseth denied wrongdoing, and the White House urged lawmakers to support the referral.

Hegseth ended the presser by quoting Marco Rubio about the war in Iran, “It may not have been popular, but it was necesary.”

The outlook: The referral makes immediate impeachment unlikely, but further scrutiny remains likely as Democrats prepare to take control of the House in January and have pledged investigations. Whether that produces another impeachment resolution remains uncertain. Any eventual removal through impeachment would require both House approval of charges and conviction by two-thirds of senators present—a substantially higher threshold.

RINewsToday reached out to the Naval War College’s Communications office for comment, but did not hear back.