Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth announced a steep cut in the number of top-ranked officers on May 5, 2025, as part of his streamlining of the military operations. He declared a 20% reduction in the number of four-star generals and admirals, presently the highest-ranked personnel in the US military. He considers this layoff a strategic approach to maximize operational and strategic readiness. Pete ordered this cut in a memo on the 5th of May. This article by The CEO Views offers a sneak peek into the recent declaration by the US Defence Secretary.
As of 2023, the US military had 37 four-star generals and admirals. This memo, signed by Pete Hegseth, orders the Pentagon to cut the number of general officers in the National Guard by 20%, as stated already, and to cut the total number of general and flag officers by 10% across the military.
As part of his military plans to streamline operations, Pete considered these cuts as a crucial step toward eliminating redundancies in the force structure. This is to streamline and optimize leadership by cutting off excess general and flag officer positions, as reported by CNN.
Pete Hegseth has also shed some light on his plans to streamline military operations by stating, “More generals and admirals do not equal more success.” He clarified that currently US military has one general for every 1400 troops compared to one for every 6,000 during World War II.
CNN reported earlier that the Pentagon has been making significant layoffs at the top of the military amid an administrative effort to streamline the federal government, including consolidating combatant commands such as the African and European Command.
In this context, General Randall Reed, the 15th Commander of US Transportation Command in the Department of Defense, has protested against Pete’s approach by stating, “I have always advocated for efficiency at the Department of Defense, but tough personnel decisions should be based on facts and analysis, not arbitrary percentages. Eliminating the positions of many of our most skilled and experienced officers without sound justification would not create ‘efficiency’ in the military – it could cripple it.”
“Secretary Hegseth has shown an eagerness to dismiss military leaders without cause, and I will be skeptical of the rationale for these plans until he explains them before the Armed Services Committee,” he added further.
Pete has arguably clarified during his confirmation hearing about the excessive number of generals in the military. According to him, only a third of the military’s senior officers are “actively complicit” in the politicization of the military. This has affected the maximization of strategy in the military operation, compelling him to order the cutoff as part of his military plans.
“I would say over a third are actively complicit, and then you have a lot of grumblers who are sort of going along, trying to resist the nonsense as much as they can, but they’re not fundamentally changing it,” he pronounced.
Pete Hegseth claimed further that senior officers in the military are “playing by all the wrong rules” to address “ideologues in Washington, DC.” In his words, “And so they’ll do any social justice, gender, climate, extremism crap because it gets them checked to the next level.”
“Now this is not a slash-and-burn exercise meant to punish high-ranking officers. Nothing could be further from the truth. This has been a deliberated process, working with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with one goal: maximising strategic readiness and operational readiness by making prudent reductions in the general and flag officer ranks,” clears Pete in a video posted on X.
Pete Hegseth has not specified the positions that he will cut. All of the active four-star generals in the US military include the Chief of Staff of the Army, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, and the Chief of Naval Operations.
As part of broader military plans to optimize military operations, the Trump administration has taken this step to reduce the size of the federal government.