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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth started the day with what he described as physical training at the Pentagon, then moved to remove roughly one in five of the military’s most experienced generals and admirals across the services. Critics have called the move a purge. Hegseth has characterized it as accountability that is long overdue.
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Hegseth has already pushed out nearly 20 senior officers, along with the secretaries of the Army and Navy, and blocked several women and minority officers from advancing to higher ranks. Former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, who served under President Biden, said the effects of Hegseth’s actions could take a generation to reverse. “We don’t have an excess of generals sitting around with nothing to do, and we don’t have overly inflated positions,” Kendall said. “What he’s doing is a political stunt, frankly, that is going to have a very negative impact.”
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Hegseth has celebrated what he calls the removal of “woke culture” from the Pentagon, including diversity quotas, gender pronouns and identity-focused observances. He has said the military should instead focus exclusively on what he calls the warrior ethos.
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The defense secretary’s effort to reshape the military comes as the United States is at war with Iran, preparing to expand its presence in Europe and conducting missions in the Caribbean. Kendall said the challenges facing the armed forces require more than physical conditioning and a warrior ethos. “We’re in an intellectual contest just as much as we are in a physical contest with our adversaries,” he said, arguing that the military must place as much emphasis on strategic thinking as it does on physical readiness. The developments also came as the U.S. military announced the completion of a long-planned troop withdrawal from Iraq, more than two decades after the 2003 invasion and following the end of a 12-year campaign against ISIS. Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, however, are already celebrating the withdrawal as a victory. Tony? Charlie, thank you.