Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has instructed top Pentagon officials to reduce the ranks of four-star generals and admirals by at least 20%, CNN reported Monday.
This cut applies across all branches of the military, which currently has 37 four-star officers. The directive also mandates a 20% reduction in National Guard generals and a 10% overall decrease in all general and flag officers (those ranked one-star and above), who currently number around 900.
In a video posted on the social platform X, Hegseth introduced the "historic" policy and said it is about "Less generals, More GIs."
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Political commentators and journalists reacted to the development and said the move was politically motivated.
Author Don Winslow wrote X: "This is a TARGETED PROGRAM to remove GENERALS and ADMIRALS and other MILITARY OFFICERS that do not align politically with Donald Trump. This way if they ever declare martial law or invoke the military to break the law there will be little to no resistance from non-Trumpers."
Writer Marlow Stern said: "Firing a bunch of 4-star generals to pay for Trump’s military parade."
Podcaster Fred Wellman said: "You did a 2 camera shoot in your office in makeup without a jacket to announce your cool a-- plan with the bro name. You don't suppose that maybe we have more generals and headquarters today because warfare is more complex than it was in 1944 maybe? I know that would mean logic and analysis and you haven't got time for that with all of these videos and pushups you have to do."
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Defense One reporter Meghann Myers noted, "Hegseth says this isn’t a 'slash and burn,' but the memo has no guidance on criteria for eliminating jobs, nor a requirement for the services to report their proposals to him for approval."
Some social media users corrected the Defense Secretary's use of the word "less" to describe the reduction.
Journalist Marcy Wheeler wrote: "I guess both the person who corrected, 'less' with 'fewer' and the person who made useful Powerpoints got fired in the alleged DEI purge."
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