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I’m an USNA grad. I’d say you’re correct that there are demarcations in career progression.
- Typically the cutoffs are 0-3 (when first tours are up and commitments end),
- 0-4 because if you don’t promote to 0-5 you’re out for failure to promote right at the 20 year mark. Something that changed in the 80s and made things more political.
- Then there are a lot of career 0-5s and O-6s which are kept around cause they get the job done, but aren’t political enough to get promoted to Adm/Gen ranks. These are the guys who put on stars when the fighting starts to go into harms way and kick ass but would never get the option in peacetime.

But there are also 3 groups across all ranks, IMHO. The everyman, the legacy military family, and the political family. A lot of the Career 0-5/0-6s come from the first two and most, not all but most, of the flag officers come from the latter two.

I’m convinced that the promote or out requirement has caused us harm, and the many family connections that have to be satisfied have led to having more flag officers then ships in the Navy and more flag officers then divisions in the Army.

No idea how many are truly coopted, but it wouldn’t take many. I think the DS is smaller than people think in regards to who makes the real decisions - they just have a ton of lemmings and lower level fall-guys who take the blame when caught. So I would guess a few in the know and a fair number coopted or ‘under control’.