Since Donald Trump\u2019s first term, they have been viewed comfortingly as the \u201cadults in the room,\u201d a last line of defense against the impulsive whims of a president with access to the nuclear codes.<\/p>\n
Now \u2013 after an unprecedented wave of firings that has been compared by some to Stalin\u2019s purges \u2013 the Pentagon top brass no longer seem like such a reliable bulwark.<\/p>\n
Since Trump returned to office in January last year, Pete Hegseth<\/a>, the rumbustious defense secretary who has made it his mission to remake a military ethos he denounced as \u201cwoke\u201d, has fired or forcibly retired 24 generals and senior commanders, with no performance-related reason given.<\/p>\n About 60% have been Black or female, an approach seemingly driven by the administration\u2019s proclaimed onslaught against \u201cDEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) hires\u201d.<\/p>\n Yet the officers forced out have had impeccable reputations. The most recent victim was Gen Randy George, the army chief of staff, ousted last month reportedly after he refused to obey Hegseth\u2019s instruction to strike four officers \u2013 two Black men and two women \u2013 from a list of prospective promotions.<\/p>\n The spate of firings began in February last year with the termination of General CQ Brown as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, a figure that serves as the main interface between the armed forces and the civilian leadership.<\/p>\n Brown, who is Black and a distinguished former air force commander, was replaced by Dan Caine, a three-star general who had retired and had to be quickly promoted to earn the fourth military star needed to win Senate confirmation to a position some observers say he lacks the necessary qualifications for.<\/p>\n Prominent among the female officers removed was Lisa Franchetti, an admiral who was the first woman to be chief of naval operations and the first to sit on the joint chiefs of staff.<\/p>\n Hegseth was unapologetic at a hearing of the Senate armed services committee last week when Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, asked him if Trump had instructed him to single out Black and female officers for dismissal.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course not,\u201d he replied. More revealing was his follow-up: \u201cMembers on this committee and the previous leadership of this department were focused on height, social engineering, race and gender in ways that we think were unhealthy.\u201d<\/p>\n In interviews with the Guardian, insiders have portrayed Hegseth \u2013 a former Fox News host known for combative public appearances and aggressive stance towards journalists \u2013 as increasingly isolated within the Pentagon\u2019s sprawling bureaucracy and surrounded by a small coterie of close friends and relatives.<\/p>\n Some say he expresses fear and paranoia about Trump firing him from a job for which critics say his background as a former national guard infantry major with combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan is inadequate qualification.<\/p>\n Pentagon staff have been surprised to see him accompanied to official meetings by his wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer who frequently sits at the back during such encounters.<\/p>\n Hegseth\u2019s other close companions are said to be his brother, Phil, who he has appointed as a senior adviser, along with Tim Parlatore, an attorney who has previously represented Hegseth and Trump, and Ricky Buria, a former marine and Biden administration holdover, to whom he has grown close.<\/p>\n Pete Hegseth and his wife Jennifer at the White House correspondents\u2019 dinner last weekend. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst\/Reuters<\/p>\n Most of the day-to-day work of running a vast department with around 2.1m military personnel and 770,000 civilian employees worldwide is overseen by Steve Feinberg, the deputy defense secretary, who is a billionaire owner of an investment firm.<\/p>\n Hegseth, meanwhile, has focused on issues of personal interest to him. These include shaking up the Pentagon\u2019s chaplain services \u2013 a preoccupation in line with his avowed Christian beliefs, which he is said to give frequent voice with the invocation that \u201cChrist is king\u201d.<\/p>\n Military analysts say Hegseth\u2019s recent firings dovetail with plans spelled out in Project 2025, the radical blueprint drawn up by the rightwing Heritage Foundation and which has closely guided Trump\u2019s second-term policies.<\/p>\n \u201cIt talked about an officer purge and going after the so-called woke officers at the senior level,\u201d said Paul Eaton, a retired army major-general who commanded US forces after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. \u201cThey want to create ideologically pure armed forces that will be pliant to the president and his secretary of defense and whose oath will be more to a person than to the constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n Eaton likened the removals to Stalin\u2019s far bloodier purge of red army generals before the second world war \u2013 which is widely believed to have hampered the Soviet Union\u2019s initial efforts to repel the 1941 invasion by Nazi Germany \u2013 warning that it could hinder US military<\/a> operational capacity in its war effort against Iran.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe that the senior leadership of the US military has been substantially damaged,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou develop a fracture in the cohesion of the people at that level. It is if you haven\u2019t been purged, you wonder if you are next if you say the wrong thing to the man or woman on your left or right that may invoke the wrath of the secretary of defense or the president.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a really unhealthy environment when you\u2019re afraid to speak your mind, and not just truth to power, but truth in the defense of the armed forces against stupid decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n The military\u2019s willingness to resist Trump seems more crucial than ever in the light of the president\u2019s recent vows to devastate Iran\u2019s civilian infrastructure and his now-notorious warning that a \u201cwhole civilization will die\u201d unless Iranian leaders agree to his conditions.<\/p>\n Veterans worry about the rank-and-file impact of threats to carry out war crimes or even genocide. They are also concerned about the ability of senior figures \u2013 including Caine \u2013 to stand against it.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the retired officers I know are seriously concerned of the long-term effect on the force of senior leaders saying things like no quarter, no mercy (comments that have been made by Hegseth), or [that] we\u2019re going to eliminate a civilization without any remonstration from the senior military officials,\u201d said Kevin Carroll, a former army colonel who has served in the offices of the defense secretary and the joint chiefs of staff.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it poses a real long-term risk threat to the ethics and ethos of the force.\u201d<\/p>\n Misgivings have been voiced about the standing of Caine, who has never held a senior command role and who some believe lacks the authority of previous joint chief chairs to resist Trump\u2019s wilder impulses in the manner of Gen Mark Milley, who told officials to inform him of any suspect military order from the president in the wake of the 6 January, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has an extremely unusual r\u00e9sum\u00e9, I think an unprecedented r\u00e9sum\u00e9 for chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and that just has to make Caine feel that his job is always vulnerable when he sees Trump and Hegseth have fired people with excellent resumes like Brown, Franchetti or Randy George,\u201d said Carroll.<\/p>\n Eaton said: \u201cI hear he\u2019s a good man, but something happens to you when you vault from a three-star to a four-star general and there is a massive growth requirement. His body language when he does briefings with Hegseth is not that of a man who is thrilled to be there.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat he says to the president as his senior military adviser behind close doors, I don\u2019t know. But if you have the president of the United States get within two hours or 90 minutes of committing a strategic war crime, going after a civilization neutralization as he was threatening, we definitely have something missing in the civilian-military relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n Restraining Trump seems all the more urgent amid unconfirmed reports that he discussed the possibility of using nuclear weapons against Iran in a recent White House meeting.<\/p>\n A source with knowledge of the meeting insisted Trump was just \u201ctalking out loud about nukes\u201d and not \u201cdemanding a strike\u201d.<\/p>\n One senior official from Trump\u2019s first administration proclaimed himself unsurprised, calling the president \u201cenamored with nukes\u201d and saying he had to be talked out of using them against North Korea in 2017, seeing them as the \u201cultimate expression of his toughness.\u201d<\/p>\n Some question whether such powers of persuasion still exist in the present-day Pentagon.<\/p>\n \u201cFor years, we\u2019ve been told that we don\u2019t have to worry about a crazy president launching a nuclear war, because the military would not carry out any illegal order,\u201d said Joe Cirincione, a veteran national security analyst and nuclear non-proliferation expert, who called for new rules of command over nuclear strikes.<\/p>\n \u201cBut that\u2019s not real. What we\u2019ve seen in the last year is the military repeatedly carrying out illegal orders. The attacks on the alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, the raid to seize [President Nicolas] Maduro in Venezuela, the war on Iran, have all been illegal \u2013 yet the military carried them all out.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople don\u2019t understand the president has sole unfettered authority to launch nuclear weapons whenever he wants, for any reason he wants. It\u2019s a very short chain of command. It turns out that relying on the military to refuse an illegal order from the president is not an adequate barrier. We need something a whole lot stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n On one famous previous occasion, the possibility of an unstable president ordering a nuclear strike was blocked by the actions of the Pentagon.<\/p>\n In 1974, with Richard Nixon\u2019s presidency on the verge of disintegration over Watergate, the then defense secretary, James Schlesinger \u2013 fearing that the president\u2019s fragile mental state might induce him to order a nuclear attack \u2013 ordered senior military figures to check any such commands with him.<\/p>\n It is hard to see such a restraining role being played by Hegseth, who by common depiction sees his role as catering to Trump\u2019s every wish and has frequently matched his boss\u2019s belligerent rhetoric towards Iran.<\/p>\n It adds up to scenario seen with bewilderment by Pentagon veterans seasoned in observing tensions between the civilian and military leadership but conditioned to seeing them resolved amicably.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was tension between the office of the secretary of defense and the joint chiefs of staff when I served on the joint staff in 2002 and 2003 because of disagreements about Iraq over whether and how we should go to war,\u201d said Carroll. \u201cBut it was all very professional and civil. This is just disarray. It\u2019s crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n Aram Roston contributed reporting<\/p>\n Get in touch<\/p>\n Contact us about this story<\/p>\n The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know. If you have something to share on this subject, you can contact us confidentially using the following methods:<\/p>\n Secure Messaging in the Guardian app<\/p>\n The Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories. Messages are end to end encrypted and concealed within the routine activity that every Guardian mobile app performs. This prevents an observer from knowing that you are communicating with us at all, let alone what is being said.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t already have the Guardian app, download it (iOS<\/a>\/Android<\/a>) and go to the menu. 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