US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to announce a 20% reduction in the number of generals and admirals across the military, in the latest effort to reshape the Pentagon’s senior leadership.
The planned announcement is due to be made on Wednesday during a rare address to military officers at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia.
It follows an order issued by Mr Hegseth in May requiring at least 10% of all general and flag officers to be cut, alongside a 20% reduction in general officers in the National Guard.
Mr Hegseth said the earlier reductions were intended to “drive innovation and operational excellence”. He argued that the military needed to remove “unnecessary bureaucratic layers” and reduce “excess general and flag officer positions”.
Debate over the number of senior military officers
There were 851 active-duty generals and admirals across the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Space Force as of July. The figure was 848 a year earlier, while federal law caps the total at 857.
Supporters of reductions argue that having too many senior officers can slow decision-making and make the military excessively bureaucratic. Others say senior commanders are needed to manage military coalitions, respond to technological change and oversee an increasingly complex Defence Department.
Wednesday’s speech will take place exactly a year after Mr Hegseth summoned hundreds of generals and admirals to Quantico. At that gathering, he criticised the department’s “woke” standards and “toxic leaders”, while calling for tougher requirements and attacking “fat generals and admirals” and service members with beards.
At least 20 generals, admirals and civilian military leaders have been fired or resigned since Mr Hegseth became defence secretary. Those departures have included the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Army, Navy and Air Force’s senior uniformed officials, as well as the civilian secretaries of the Army and Navy.
Mr Hegseth, a former National Guard infantry officer and Fox News host, frequently criticised senior military leaders before taking up his current role, accusing them of offering insufficient support to frontline troops and placing too much emphasis on diversity initiatives.
Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona said on Tuesday that Mr Hegseth was “in the process of purging the upper echelon of the military from its best leaders”.
“We need strong leaders. These folks have decades of experience, some of the best leadership our military has ever had. He’s getting rid of them,” Mr Kelly said.
