US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is calling for a large reduction in the number of generals in the Pentagon, along with reducing the number of general and flag officers.
The cuts of 20% among generals are needed, according to one Texas attorney who specializes in military law.
Law firm Tulley Rinkley PLLC managing partner Sean Timmons says there are too many generals with little to do in the Defense Department these days.
Secretary Hegseth's goal is to streamline operations, he says, and there doesn't appear to be any danger to our national security with this move.
Flag officers, who were ordered to a 10% reduction, could include any single star general or higher rank, or any officer of equal Navy rank.
"We have generals on standby who don't really have a fulltime job, they're just kind of there as placeholders in case we need big army groups to go, y'know, conquer Russia or something. It's probably not necessary to have so many layers of bureaucracy, and some of these generals, they hang on for a long time, 35 or 40 years, so moving them off to retirement sooner is probably better for the armed forces.
"A lot of these generals, they're just hanging around the Pentagon, they're creating Excel spreadsheets or they're writing books or they're consulting. They're just hanging out," the Houston-based Timmons says.
"It's been standard in the Army for about 100 years to have extra generals hanging around in case there's a need for large mobilizations, but that's probably not needed anymore with technology advancing to the extent that we'll be using more drones and bombs and we're not going to need as many foot soldiers even if we did ramp up a war against China.
The conclusion, Timmons says, it the reduction in staff, even at the top, is a good thing overall.
"Generals are highly compensated, so it's better for the payroll to let them retire...you can have them on standby, retired, too, and you can recall them in an emergency and that's probably what the intent is here."