The Good, Bad, and Dangerous in Hegseth’s Pentagon Overhaul

Filed 19h ago · Via Foreign Policy · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Diplomatic Security Service from Washington, D.C., United St · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius writes that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has dismissed 26 generals and admirals and blocked or withheld roughly 55 other promotions since taking office, according to a congressional official's count, with Hegseth now proposing to cut the general officer ranks by 20 percent total. Hegseth announced the plan in a Quantico speech that also called for a new Autonomous Warfare Command and a 120-day review involving Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey and Newt Gingrich.

Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned the purge hands 'a priceless gift to America's enemies' and chills honest military advice. Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican not seeking reelection, called the moves 'arbitrary and capricious' and said no qualified executive would act that way.

Ignatius, who says he is no Hegseth fan, nonetheless credits some of the six announced reforms as overdue fixes to a sclerotic procurement bureaucracy, while condemning the purge of senior leadership as destructive. Sen. Mark Kelly suggested Hegseth's animus toward the brass stems from personal grievance rather than policy.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A fellow can be right about rusty procurement rules and still be swinging the ax at the wrong necks, and that is about the size of it here. Firing a tenth of your generals and calling the remainder a turnaround is the kind of math that only impresses the man holding the hatchet. When the quiet Republicans start whispering what the Democrats are shouting, that is usually a sign the barn is already on fire.

Source: Read the original at Foreign Policy → Scored: Krampus Workshop · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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