Trimming this bureaucratic fat fits Hegseth’s agenda of “a laser focus on readiness, lethality and warfighting across the spectrum.”
U.S. secretary of defense Pete Hegseth—himself a former U.S. Army officer has announced a plan to trim a lot of proverbial fat from the ranks of the Army by cutting an excess number of general officers.
According to a May 1, 2025, piece by Mike Glenn of The Washington Times,
“The Army could eliminate as many as 40 headquarters-level slots for generals and push scores of desk-bound officers and sergeants back to field units as part of a wide-ranging reorganization effort of the nation’s largest military service … Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week ordered the Army to streamline its force structure and transform ‘at an accelerated pace’ by divesting itself of outdated and inefficient programs. On Thursday, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said they will ‘ruthlessly prioritize’ the needs of fighting forces contributing to the service’s lethality’ … The headquarters units across the entire Pentagon – but the Army, too – have grown way too large and they’ve grown way too bloated,’ Mr. Driscoll told reporters at the Pentagon. ‘The American soldier joins the Army to put on a helmet, get in their formations, and fight. We have stripped them of that and put them in a headquarters doing useless bureaucratic paperwork.’”
Some Weapons Systems Are on the Chopping Block
In addition, Hegseth’s memorandum cancels procurement of what he considers to be outdated or excess systems, such as the AH-64D Apache helicopter gunship, the Humvee, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), and the Gray Eagle drone.
Now, one could reasonably debate the merits of nixing battle-proven systems like the Apache and Humvee, but suffice to say that these two weapons systems are indeed getting a bit old: the Humvee is now forty years old, while the AH-64 has been in operational service since 1986.
Does History Provide a Guide for Hegseth’s Actions?
The notion of the military’s leadership structure being excessively top-heavy certainly isn’t new. Back in March 1998, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) watchdog organization published a report titled “More Brass, More Bucks, Officer Inflation in Today’s Military.”
At the time the report was published, the Army had a whopping thirty generals per division, which contrasted with twenty-four generals per division during the Cold War and a mere fourteen generals per division when World War II ended in 1945. As POGO executive director Danielle Brian bluntly put it back then, “We have more officers than we need–and we’re running the risk of creating a military force of bureaucrats rather than warriors.”
For a more recent summation, we can turn to National Defense University Press and an October 1, 2017, article by then-USMCR Col. Gregory C. McCarthy: “Are There Too Many General Officers for Today’s Military?” As McCarthy stated in his opening paragraph:
“There are approximately 900 Active-duty general/flag officers (GO/FOs) today of 1.3 million troops. This is a ratio of 1 GO/FO for every 1,400 troops. During World War II, an admittedly different era, there were more than 2,000 GO/FOs for a little more than 12 million Active troops (1:6,000). This development represents ‘rank creep’ that does not enhance mission success but clutters the chain of command, adds bureaucratic layers to decisions, and costs taxpayers additional money from funding higher paygrades to fill positions.”
Trimming this bureaucratic fat would indeed fit Hegseth’s stated agenda of “a laser focus on readiness, lethality and warfighting across the spectrum.” In other words, put more emphasis on the troops who are actually doing the fighting, killing, bleeding, and dying.
Such is not the case with today’s generals, who are sitting “in the rear with the gear,” far from the battlefront, reminiscent of the so-called “chateau generals” of World War I. Contrast this with the American Civil War, when the senior officers were true field generals who put their lives on the line with their troops, endured the same hardships and privations, and indeed suffered a higher casualty rate than that of their men. As the late CDR (USN, Ret.) Richard “Demo Dick” Marcinko, aka The Rogue Warrior, (founding commander of SEAL Team 6) was fond put of putting it, “Lead from the front, not from the rear.”
About the Author: Christian D. Orr
Christian D. Orr was previously a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ) and 19FortyFive. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). If you’d like to pick his brain further, you can ofttimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.
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