Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to announce deeper cuts to the military’s top ranks, reducing the total number of positions for general and flag officers by as much as 20 percent, officials told The Washington Post on Tuesday.
The potential cuts could impact the careers of hundreds of current and rising military leaders following scores of firings and denied promotions that Hegseth has directed since becoming President Donald Trump’s defense secretary in January 2025.
Hegseth’s tenure atop the Pentagon has been marked, in part, by his drive to dramatically reshape the military’s senior-most ranks. Former top defense officials, congressional Democrats and some fellow Republicans who are alarmed by his leadership purge and efforts to impose structural changes argue that the moves are politically motivated and threaten to do lasting harm.
One of the officials who spoke to The Post said the defense secretary could outline the initiative publicly as soon as Wednesday, during a planned gathering of military officers in Quantico, Virginia. This person, like the others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that had not been publicly announced.
Hegseth’s plan to further reduce the number of senior military leaders was reported earlier by Fox News. A spokesperson for Hegseth said that the Fox report was accurate but declined to comment further.
Through several previous administrations, both Pentagon and congressional leaders have worked to reduce the size of the U.S. military as it evolved from a vast institution built for the Cold War to one that now sees more of its warfighting done by drones and other technologies, rather than through a conventional infantry force.
There are about 850 general or flag officers — military members with the rank of one-star general or above or; for the Navy, rear admiral or above — in the military, which is less than 1 percent of the total force.
The total size of the military also has shrunk in recent decades, so even though generals and admirals make up less than 1 percent of the total force, there are more of them now proportionally — a trend Hegseth targeted last year when he first directed sprawling cuts to the number of general and flag officers.
Hegseth, who rose to prominence in conservative politics as a host at Fox News, served for many years as a midranking officer in the Army National Guard. The experience, including wartime deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, hardened some of his most searing views of military culture and leadership.
A year ago in Quantico, Hegseth convened hundreds of the military’s generals, admirals and senior enlisted leaders — each with decades more military experience — for an unorthodox, highly partisan address alongside Trump. He vowed that “more leadership changes will be made” and, in forecasting a plan to mandate new fitness standards for the force, lashed out at those he characterized as “fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon.”
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