Pete Hegseth is doubling his cut to the military's top brass. Fox News reported Tuesday morning that the War Secretary will use his State of the Force address Wednesday to announce a 20 percent reduction in the positions reserved for generals and admirals — twice the 10 percent he ordered in May 2025. The Army, Navy, Air Force and the joint pool have their orders already: Hegseth approved the plans earlier this month and gave the services until January 1, 2027 to finish.
He is cutting billets, not bodies. Hegseth kills some star-ranked posts outright and demotes others a grade, so a colonel or a Navy captain fills a chair built for a general. He calls it "less generals, more GIs" and insists it "is not a slash-and-burn exercise meant to punish high-ranking officers." Last year he already took 20 percent of the four-star commands and 20 percent of the National Guard's generals. Now he doubles the cut across the whole roster.
Seven days before the Fox story, Hegseth signed a different order. On September 22 he directed U.S. Cyber Command, the National Security Agency and the rest of the Pentagon's intelligence agencies to defend the 2026 midterms from foreign interference. The Pentagon made the memo public Monday. Hegseth titled it "Countering Foreign Threats to 2026 Elections."
So the man thinning the officer corps is the man writing the election-security order. Hegseth put the mission in his own words, and Trump cleared the field for him first — both below.
