Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said America’s military will shed people at the top to make it more lethal on the ground.
“We’re back with more DoD reforms. This one is ‘General and Flag Officer Reductions.’ That’s the official title,” Hegseth said in a video posted on X. “My title is ‘Less Generals, More GIs.’”
In what he said was a “historic” change, Hegseth said, “We’re going to shift resources from bloated headquarters elements to our warfighters.”
In the video, Hegseth said there are 44 four-star and flag officers in the military, with a ratio of one general officer to 1,400 troops, as opposed to a World War II ratio of one general officer to 6,000 troops.
“More generals and admirals does not equal more success,” Hegseth said.
“This is not a slash and burn exercise meant to punish high-ranking officers. Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said.
Instead, Hegseth characterized the reductions as a “deliberative process, working with the joint chiefs with one goal: maximizing strategic readiness and operational effectiveness by making prudent reductions.”
Hegseth released a memo summarizing his plan.
Is reducing the number of generals a good move?
He said the two-step process will result in a 20 percent cut in the number of four-star generals and flag officers in the active-duty component of the military, accompanied by a 20 percent cut in those ranks in the National Guard.
Step two, he said, is a 10 percent cut in generals and flag officers across the military and a realignment of the Unified Command Plan.
“This is gonna be, we think, the most comprehensive review since the Goldwater Nichols Defense Reorganization Act,” Hegseth said in the video.
As noted by Politico, the bill Hegseth referenced was approved in 1986. The site noted that proposals to comply with the new directive include “consolidating the European and Africa commands — both run by four-star generals — and combining the Northern and Southern commands.”
“We cannot afford to wait,” Hegseth said, citing the global threat environment.
“We got to be lean and mean. And in this case, it means general officer reductions,” Hegseth said in the video.
“Through these measures, we will uphold our position as the most lethal fighting force in the world, achieving peace through strength and ensuring greater efficiency, innovation, and preparedness for any challenge that lies ahead,” Hegseth said in the memo.
Introducing the “Less Generals More GIs Policy.” pic.twitter.com/bQLRL2MqSC
— Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (@SecDef) May 5, 2025
Hegseth said last summer that about a third of America’s top officers were “actively complicit” in the politicization of the armed forces, according to CNN.
“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 said.
Hegseth has also said top officers are “playing by all the wrong rules” to cater to “idealogues in Washington, D.C.”
“And so they’ll do any social justice, gender, climate, extremism crap because it gets them checked to the next level,” he said.
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