By Contributor,John Lamparski,William Hartung
Copyright forbes
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – AUGUST 09: Fox anchor Pete Hegseth interviews entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel during “FOX & Friends” at Fox News Channel Studios on August 09, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images)
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In an unusual move, last week Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called a meeting of top military officers – one star up to the highest rank, four stars. The meeting would require military brass from all over the world to travel to DC on short notice, at a cost likely to hit $1 million or more. A Pentagon insider with knowledge of the plan said the meeting might just be a short pep talk from Hegseth on the “warrior ethos.”
The idea of having such a meeting did not go down well even from some members of Hegseth’s own team. One Pentagon official told the Washington Post that “They don’t need a talk from Secretary Hegseth on the warrior ethos.Others in the department were concerned about hustling commanders from areas of serious conflict to hear a short speech by the defense secretary.
The worst outcome of all would be if Hegseth were to use the opportunity of the meeting to fire a significant number of high ranking officers. The message would be clear – follow the orders of the administration without questions or critiques, or find a new job.
In his first term, Trump battled then head of the Joint Chiefs of staff Gen. Mark Milley when Milley pushed back against proposed administration initiatives like using the military for domestic law enforcement. Milley’s reward for standing with the constitution rather than the current occupant of the Oval Office was to have his security clearance revoked by secretary Hegseth. And in 2023, between stints in office, Trump described a phone call Milley had made to the Chinese leadership – a call that had been authorized by the highest levels of the administration – as “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH.”
If the treatment of Milley isn’t enough to get current officers to toe the administration line, a few more firings might do so.
The context of the potential firings is unfortunate. Analysts have been pointing out for years that the Pentagon and our military forces are top heavy, in a process the Project on Government Oversight has dubbed “officer inflation.” In a study conducted in 1998, POGO found that there were twice as many officers relative to overall military personnel relative to the ratio that existed during World War II. Hegseth took a potential step in the right direction earlier this year when he pledged to reduce the number of officers at four star rank by 20% . But given the administration’s approach to its critics, there is a danger that generals will be fired via political criteria rather than whether they are able to effectively do their jobs. Congress and the public need to watch the pattern of layoffs to make sure competent officers don’t lose their jobs for speaking their minds.
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