The military has an up-or-out philosophy, where you must achieve a certain rank after a number of years or get forced out. The major issue with this approach is that promotions in the middle ranks heavily favor seniority. So you might have completed all of your course requirements ahead of time and have glowing PMA from your CO, all in preparation for taking your exam after you meet the time in rank, score the best on the exam, but still get passed up in favor of someone else who has been trying for 4 years to get a promotion because their FMS is higher due to seniority, not capability.
I can see why someone would conflate it with the Peter Principal, but I don't really think it's the same thing. The Peter Principal is predicated upon being good at your job at rank N, but doing poorly at rank N+1.
The military has an up-or-out philosophy, where you must achieve a certain rank after a number of years or get forced out. The major issue with this approach is that promotions in the middle ranks heavily favor seniority. So you might have completed all of your course requirements ahead of time and have glowing PMA from your CO, all in preparation for taking your exam after you meet the time in rank, score the best on the exam, but still get passed up in favor of someone else who has been trying for 4 years to get a promotion because their FMS is higher due to seniority, not capability.
I can see why someone would conflate it with the Peter Principal, but I don't really think it's the same thing. The Peter Principal is predicated upon being good at your job at rank N, but doing poorly at rank N+1.