rank

WASHINGTON — After Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth cut nine Navy officers, including all the women, from a promotion list, several female officers say they see the unusual intervention as a sign that their careers now have a ceiling and worry for the future generation of female military leaders.

The Navy had selected 31 sailors to promote from the rank of captain to one-star admiral, but Hegseth recently intervened to strike nine people from the list, including three women and two Black men, according to a Defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss information not permitted to be released publicly.

As a result, the Navy is not promoting a single woman to the one-star admiral rank this year even though women make up about one-quarter of all Navy officers and nearly one-third of the sea service’s midgrade ranks, according to military data from 2024.

The Associated Press spoke with eight female Navy officers of varying ranks and time in service after Hegseth’s cuts, which were reported earlier by the New York Times, became public. They spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution from their superiors.

The more junior officers said they saw the development as a sign that their careers would become politicized if they rose too far in the ranks, and some said they felt they now had a limit on how far they could be promoted. Some said it made them feel less valued within the military and wondered whether that wasn’t part of the intent.

The Pentagon has not offered any rationale on why the women, or any of the other six people, were removed from the promotion list.

Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s top spokesman, said on social media last week that “military promotions are given to those who have earned them” and that the Pentagon “will never consider the color of a service member’s skin or their gender as a factor in promotions.” The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request seeking further comment.

The Navy’s process for choosing which officers to promote to the one-star rank has been relatively constant and transparent over the years. The service convenes a group of officers, called a promotion board, that examines the records of eligible officers and chooses those deemed to be the most qualified.

The board that selected the initial slate of 31 officers for promotion was directed by then-Navy Secretary John Phelan, an appointee of President Trump, to “recommend for promotion the best qualified officers within their respective competitive category.”

The order from Phelan, who abruptly departed his post in April, said the board should consider an officer’s performance, competence and character, among other traits, as part of those qualifications.

It also said that given China’s prominence in the Trump administration’s National Defense Strategy, “special consideration shall be given to officers who have excelled in their knowledge of the political military affairs and U.S. strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific region, and operational contingency planning for Indo-Pacific war plans.”

Hegseth has long argued, without offering evidence, that women in the military benefit from preferential treatment and are not suited for combat roles.

“For too long, we’ve promoted too many uniformed leaders for the wrong reasons based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts,” Hegseth told hundreds of military leaders in September.

The approach, he asserted, made the Pentagon “less capable and less lethal.”

‘A break from tradition’

Phelan’s order said the Navy cannot discriminate based on criteria such as race and sex, and it specifically noted that “this guidance shall not be interpreted as requiring or permitting preferential treatment of any officer or group of officers on the grounds of race, religion, color, sex.”

The full list of 31 people to be promoted was approved by Phelan, other Navy leaders and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, before it reached Hegseth, who chose to make the changes, the Defense official said.

While Hegseth is within his rights to intervene in the list, “it’s just not the norm” and is “a break from tradition,” said Katherine Kuzminski, a researcher specializing in military recruiting and retention at the Center for New American Security think tank. She said that promotions historically have been seen as “the services’ business.”

Kuzminski noted that “this is a decision that’s not being made by the Navy — it’s being made by the secretary of Defense,” and she said Hegseth’s growing interference in operational aspects of the military services such as promotions is creating “tension” about what “normal” will look like going forward.

Some of the more senior Navy officers who spoke with the AP expressed concerns about the message it sends to the next generation of young sailors.

In addition to pulling the recent promotions of three women to admiral, Hegseth shortly after he took office fired Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the service’s top officer and the first woman to hold the job. He never explained his rationale.

Since then, he also has fired two other female three-star admirals without explanation.

Some of the officers who spoke to the AP said that while they were encouraging female sailors to stick with the Navy, they acknowledged that message is coming at a difficult time.

Kuzminski said the rhetoric and actions surrounding women in the military “affects individual service member decision-making and it also affects family unit decision-making,” including whether people make a career of the military.

Kuzminski said that following the months-long hold on military promotions by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) during the Biden administration, surveys showed that partisan politics spilling into the day-to-day lives of troops affected their decision-making.

One officer said this impact was not confined to women.

In conversations with other sailors in her unit, she said that male sailors were hesitant to deal with what appears to be a growing politicization of simply following the orders of previous administrations.

Toropin writes for the Associated Press.

Modern warfare has dramatically changed as we have seen from the Russia-Ukraine war, conflicts involving Gaza, India and Pakistan, and the recent US-Israeli strikes on Iran. At the centre of this shift is a surging global reliance on drone and missile technology as well as advanced air defence systems.

Turkiye, one of the largest military powers in the Middle East, is increasingly positioning itself as a major supplier in the global defence sector. Central to this effort is Roketsan, a company founded in 1988 to supply the Turkish Armed Forces, which has since evolved into the country’s primary manufacturer of missile and rocket systems.

Currently exporting to approximately 50 countries, the firm is one of the fastest-growing defence companies globally.

So how did Roketsan secure a large share of the global arms trade?

Bypassing Western embargoes

Turkiye’s defence expansion was largely accelerated by restrictions placed upon it. Western embargoes aimed at halting its military advancement meant Ankara could not acquire the necessary technical systems or components.

In 2020, the United States imposed Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) restrictions on Turkiye – a key member of the transatlantic military alliance NATO. These sanctions targeted Turkiye’s military procurement agency, its chief Ismail Demir, and three other senior officials. Washington also ejected Ankara from the F-35 stealth jet programme in July 2019.

The measures came after Ankara purchased Russia’s S-400 missile defence system, which was seen as a potential threat to NATO security. The European Union also prepared limited sanctions and discussed restricting arms exports following energy exploration disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean.

To circumvent this, the country built an integrated, domestic defence ecosystem. Today, Turkiye relies on a vast supply chain of nearly 4,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) scattered across the country. As a result, the Turkish defence industry now operates with a local production rate exceeding 90 percent.

This shift has yielded significant financial returns for Ankara. In 2025, Turkiye’s defence industry reported $10bn in exports. Roketsan’s General Manager Murat Ikinci told Al Jazeera that the company currently ranks 71st among global defence firms, with ambitions to break into the top 50, then the top 20, and ultimately the top 10.

To support this expansion, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan inaugurated several large-scale facilities last week, including:

• Europe’s largest warhead facility.
• new research and development (R&D) centre housing 1,000 engineers.
• the “Kirikkale” facility dedicated to rocket fuel technology.
• new infrastructure for the mass production of ballistic and cruise missiles.

These projects represent a $1bn investment, with the company planning to inject an additional $2bn to expand mass production capabilities.

The ‘Tayfun’ and modern warfare

Roketsan’s R&D strategy – which employs 3,200 engineers and makes the company the third-largest R&D institution in Turkiye – is heavily influenced by data gathered from ongoing global conflicts.

According to Ikinci, the war in Ukraine highlighted the impact of cheap, first-person view (FPV) and kamikaze drones supported by artificial intelligence. In response, Roketsan developed air defence systems like “ALKA” and “BURC,” alongside the “CIRIT” laser-guided missile.

The regional landscape was further complicated during the US-Israel war on Iran, as cheap Iranian-designed Shahed drones – recently upgraded by Russia with “Kometa-B” anti-jamming modules – overwhelmed defences and even struck a British base in Cyprus in March 2026. During the same month, NATO air defences were forced to intercept three Iranian ballistic missiles that entered Turkish airspace.

Meanwhile, the recent conflict between Israel and Iran showcased the use of complex attacks combining ballistic missiles with “swarms” of kamikaze drones designed to overwhelm air defences. This environment makes hypersonic technology a critical asset.

This brings the Tayfun (Typhoon) project into focus. Tayfun is a developing family of long-range ballistic missiles. Its most advanced iteration, the Tayfun Block 4, is a hypersonic missile engineered to penetrate advanced air defence systems by travelling at extreme speeds.

When Al Jazeera asked for specific details regarding the Tayfun’s exact operational range, Ikinci was elusive. “We avoid mentioning its range; we just say its range is sufficient,” he noted.

Similarly, historical Western sanctions have pushed Turkiye to form new cooperation initiatives, effectively accelerating an “Eastern shift” away from Western defence dependence. Turkish drones are now being used by a growing number of countries, including by Pakistan during its war against India last May.

Based on these threat assessments, Roketsan has prioritised five key areas of production:

1. long-range ballistic and cruise missiles.
2. air defence systems, including the “Steel Dome”, Hisar-A, Hisar-O, and Siper.
3. submarine-launched cruise missiles, utilising the AKYA system to leverage Turkiye’s large submarine fleet.
4. smart micro-munitions designed specifically for armed drones.
5. long-range air-to-air missiles, a need highlighted by the brief India-Pakistan skirmish.

A strategic export model

Unlike traditional arms procurement, Turkiye is marketing its defence industry to international buyers as a strategic partnership.

“Our offer to our partners… is as follows: Let’s produce together, let’s develop technology together,” Ikinci stated.

By establishing joint facilities and R&D centres in allied nations across the Middle East, the Far East, and Europe, Turkiye is attempting to secure long-term geopolitical alliances rather than purely transactional sales. Ikinci highlighted Qatar as a prime example of this model, describing it as a benchmark for technological, military, and security cooperation in the region.

Filling the global stockpile gap

This rapid expansion comes at a critical time for the global arms trade. Ongoing wars have severely depleted the stockpiles of advanced weapon systems worldwide.

During the recent US-Israel war on Iran, Washington relied heavily on multimillion-dollar Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems to intercept cheap Iranian drones targeting US assets across Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. With growing concerns that US interceptor supplies could run low, Gulf states – which have collectively detected over 1,000 drones in their airspace – are actively seeking alternative defence technologies, creating a highly lucrative opening for Turkiye’s missile industry.

Defence analyses indicate that even military superpowers like the US will require significant time to replenish their current air defence inventories due to the complexity and massive infrastructure required to build them.

Turkish defence officials view this shortage as a strategic opening. Having localised its supply chain, Turkiye claims it can manufacture and export these highly sought-after complex systems independently.

As global demand for air defence and ballistic technologies rises, Roketsan is aggressively reinvesting its revenues into production infrastructure to expand its footprint in the international arms market.