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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a speech on Wednesday that the Pentagon is eliminating roughly 1 in 5 generals and admirals during the second Trump administration through firing or position cuts, following through on Hegseth’s pledge to fundamentally change how the Pentagon operates.
Hegseth said he’s aimed for the department to be “unrelenting, unapologetic, and uncompromising” in its mission to win. Generals who “clung to the woke department or seem to think civilian control of the military is simply a suggestion, well, they no longer work here,” Hegseth said.
“The number crunchers say we fired 10% of the generals and admirals across the force, and that number sounds about right,” Hegseth said. “And I know because I directed it that we’ve also reduced the overall number of general officer slots by an additional 10%. So yes, 20% reduction across the board. Now the media calls that a purge. I call it accountability, and long overdue.”
Hegseth gave that update in a speech dubbed the “State of the Force Address,” a rare military address to military officers and enlisted service members at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia. It marks the latest move by Hegseth to change the structure of the military, especially at its top levels.
Fox News was first to report the planned reductions on Tuesday.
In May 2025, Hegseth ordered that a minimum of 10% of all flag and general officers be cut, along with 20% of general officers in the National Guard. In a one-page memo posted on the Defense Department’s website, Hegseth said at the time that the cuts were necessary to “drive innovation and operational excellence.”
He argued that the military must be “unencumbered by unnecessary bureaucratic layers that hinder their growth and effectiveness,” and the key to achieving this would be “removing redundant force structure to optimize and streamline leadership by reducing excess general and flag officer positions.”
As of July, there were 851 active-duty generals and admirals across the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Space Force, according to a Defense Department tally. A year earlier, there were 848 general and flag officers. Federal law caps the number at 857.
Hegseth also announced the creation of the Autonomous Warfare Command, “a new four-star combatant command with service-like authorities, built to scale autonomous and robotic capabilities across the joint force in the fastest peacetime shift in modern military history.” And he announced a 120-day initiative called “Project Meridian” that will study the future of war — an effort led by billionaire Elon Musk, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Palmer Luckey, the founder of defense tech firm Anduril.
Hegseth additionally said the military is looking to build a new U.S. military base, inviting states to send in pitches. The Pentagon said it will serve as a “foundational hub for integrated defense operations, distributed command-and-control, and resilient cyber and technological capabilities.”
Wednesday’s speech comes exactly one year after Hegseth summoned hundreds of generals and admirals from around the world to Quantico, where he slammed the Defense Department’s “woke” standards and “toxic leaders.” He also called for tighter standards, railing against “fat generals and admirals” and service members with beards. He did so again on Wednesday.
“We are no longer the woke department, or the weak department,” he said. “Simple translation of that? No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no whimps, no radicals. Just warriors.”
Hegseth put it in Mr. Trump’s language: “I want central casting.”
“The ideological clowns are out,” he added. “The patriotic cowboys are in, with testosterone testing on top.”
Hegseth announced the Pentagon will be partnering with five “premier higher ed institutions,” including Louisiana State University, Liberty University, Tuskegee University, Mississippi State University, and Hillsdale College, to establish new corps of cadets in partnership with the Pentagon. They will be labeled distinguished military colleges, he said, and students will get priority in officer commissioning. Hegseth said the Pentagon will announce more member schools soon.
At least 20 generals, admirals and civilian military leaders have been fired or have resigned their jobs since Hegseth became defense secretary, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Army, Navy and Air Force’s top uniformed officials. The secretaries of the Army and Navy, two civilian posts, have also been replaced.
A former National Guard infantry officer and Fox News host, Hegseth frequently criticized senior military leaders before becoming the military’s top civilian leader, casting them as insufficiently supportive of frontline troops and overly focused on diversity initiatives.
There is some debate over whether the military has too many generals and admirals, a Congressional Research Service report from May notes.
Critics argue that adding too many top-level officers can slow down decision-making and make the military overly bureaucratic. But others counter that senior leaders are necessary to oversee coalitions with other countries’ militaries, navigate technological change and manage an increasingly complicated Defense Department.
Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona told reporters Tuesday that Hegseth is “in the process of purging the upper echelon of the military from its best leaders.”
“We need strong leaders. These folks have decades of experience, some of the best leadership our military has ever had. He’s getting rid of them,” Kelly said.
