Sunday, June 28, 2026
U.S. Sacks 20+ Generals & Admirals in 15 Months Under Trump, Raising Concerns Over Civil-Military Ties
By Prakash Nanda
Are Civi-Military relations in the United States under increasing strain?
This is a question that seems to be haunting the strategic elites in the US, with President Trump and his Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, continuing their sacking spree of top military generals and commanders.
The latest to get a pink slip from Heseth is General Chris Donahue, the commanding general of United States Army Europe and Africa and commander of Allied Land Command since 2024.
This is a decision that has surprised many, as given his exemplary field record, Gen. Donalhue, a four-star decorated officer, was speculated to become
Vice Chief of Staff of the Army and perhaps one day lead the service itself.
Instead, he will now relinquish his US command at a ceremony in Germany on July 2 and most likely retire from service unless he opts for a demoted post elsewhere with three stars.
Reportedly, Donahue’s departure is being presented by the Pentagon as part of Hegseth’s broader push to shrink the number of generals and admirals by 10 percent, cut 20 percent in the number of four-star positions, and a 20% reduction in National Guard general officers. His stated rationale has been “maximizing strategic readiness” and removing “redundant force structure”.
The Defense Secretary’s decision has evoked critical reactions from the retired military officials and the lawmakers in Congress.
They say such a way of relieving senior officials makes the military lose talent, lowers the morale of those serving as they do not know what is in store for them, and complicates civil-military relations by politicizing the armed forces, driven by “ideological grievance, personal rivalry, and an unrelenting demand for political loyalty”.
It is well-known that apart from political loyalty, Trump and Hegseth have shown antipathy towards all those officials who were associated with the previous Biden Administration’s “diversity, equity, and inclusion policies”. For them, these policies weakened the American military, and the officers who supported them should quit.
It may be noted that since President Trump returned to office in January 2025, the Pentagon has seen an unusually rapid turnover of senior uniformed leaders. Hegseth has removed or forced the retirement of more than 20 generals and admirals, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown Jr., Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, Air Force Vice Chief Gen. James Slife, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, the Judge Advocates General of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and DIA Director Lt Gen. Jeffrey Kruse.
Significantly, no proper explanations were given for most of these removals. This irked five of Hegseth’s predecessors – representing both Democratic and Republican administrations – so much that they wrote to Congress and expressed their concern over what they saw as “reckless” firings with “national security implications”. They were: Lloyd Austin, James Mattis, William Perry, Chuck Hagel, and Leon Panetta.
However, what is important to note is that under the American Constitution, military officials do not exactly enjoy “job guarantees”. Under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, the President is the Commander-in-Chief of the military; he can fire them or reassign them to lower-level positions.
Besides, the US Supreme Court in Myers v. United States_ (1926) affirmed that the President can remove executive-branch officers without Senate approval.
For instance, in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln relieved Major General George B. McClellan of his command of the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln was said to be frustrated by McClellan’s extreme caution and perceived political disloyalty.
During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt bypassed many senior officers to appoint George C. Marshall as the U.S. Army Chief of Staff in 1939, fundamentally reshaping military leadership.
In 1951, President Harry S. Truman fired General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War. Apparently, MacArthur had publicly challenged the President’s strategy to limit the war’s scope, leading Truman to dismiss him for insubordination to preserve the principle of civilian control of the military.
But then there are some checks on the President’s power. Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution stipulates that Congress has the power to “make rules for the government and regulation” of the armed forces.
After the Civil War, Congress passed a law stating that “No commissioned officer may be dismissed from any armed force except (1) by sentence of a general court-martial; (2) in commutation of a general court-martial; or (3) in time of war, by order of the President.”
Incidentally, Hegseth had forced the immediate retirement of US Army Chief of Staff General Randy George alongside two other top generals amid wartime tensions with Iran,
But then, going by recent history, the President of the US can always find a way out by defining what he thinks is the war and is not necessarily bound by Congressional approval.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth looks on during a press briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, on April 24, 2026. (Photo by ANNABELLE GORDON / AFP)
As (retired) Major General Charles Dunlap, the former deputy judge advocate of the US Air Force, points out, there is no universally accepted definition under US law of when the country is at war. Some statutes do use the phrase “time of war declared by Congress,” while others do not.
Besides, as three- and four-star ranks are “temporary positions tied to specific jobs”, the President ( Defense Secretary represents him) can remove an officer from the job, by transferring or discharging him or her within 30-60 days unless he or she reverts to a two-star rank and retires.
In other words, effectively speaking, even though a President cannot easily throw a General out of the Army entirely in peacetime, he can fire him from his post, which usually leads to retirement. After all, no self-respecting General will stay in the job demoted.
However, in the ultimate analysis, the matter is beyond whether a President, through his Secretary of Defense, can fire Generals with impunity. Beyond the legal point, the President’s power needs to be viewed in the broader context of civil-military relations in a democracy like the United States.
What is said to be important here is “how” the President exercises his power.
This phenomenon can best be described in terms of what the late American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, in his 1957 classic, “The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations,” called the theory of “objective civilian control”.
According to this theory, the optimal means of asserting control over the armed forces is to professionalize them. This contrasts with “subjective control”, which involves imposing legal and institutional restrictions on the military’s autonomy.
For Huntington, ‘professionalism’ entails a mutually binding relationship between society and its ‘professionals’ (officers). The latter are entrusted with evaluating the security of the state and providing expert advice to its leaders, who, in turn, must afford a measure of deference to their professional expertise and institutions, without usurping, for instance, the military hierarchy, such as “appointing a lieutenant to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff”.
Huntington argued that allowing military professionals autonomy within their own realm minimized the danger of military intervention in politics by “rendering them politically sterile and neutral” and “at the same time, ensuring that a professional officer corps carries out ‘the wishes of any civilian group which secures legitimate authority within the state’”.
Subsequently, some scholars brought slight modifications to Hunting’s thesis of objective control. In his 1999 book, “Civilian Control Of The Military: The Changing Security Environment, Michael Desch espouses a construct with a thin permeable layer operating between “political ends” and “military means”.
In this model, though there is substantial military autonomy in the military, technical, and operational realms (how to fight wars), in return for complete subordination to civilian control of politics and grand strategy (when, and whether, to fight them), in exceptional circumstances, there can be civilian intervention in what would normally be the military realm and vice versa.
Desch is emphatic that in the ultimate analysis, civilians must prevail in the event of divergence between civilian and military preferences.
On the other hand, “the subjective control” presupposes “military participation in politics”, with the society or the state molding the military in its own image either by transplanting civilian elites into the military or by promoting senior military officers based on their political beliefs. Huntington described how the two ideologies—fascism and Marxism—based on authoritarianism resulted in “subjective control”, which, in turn, could boomerang in military backlash and coups. Every democracy must avoid it, he advised.
Therefore, supporters of Huntington today argue that healthy civil-military relations rest on two pillars: civilian control and military professionalism. Civilian control is not in legal doubt — the President clearly can fire commanders. But what about professionalism and trust?
If officers believe promotions depend on personal loyalty rather than competence, candid military advice to civilian leaders suffers. If political leadership squanders years of an officer’s experience in one go, it is ultimately the US military’s loss.
This seems to be the predominant impression in the American strategic circles today.
As (retired) Major General Charles Dunlap, the former deputy judge advocate of the US Air Force, points out, there is no universally accepted definition under US law of when the country is at war. Some statutes do use the phrase “time of war declared by Congress,” while others do not.
Besides, as three- and four-star ranks are “temporary positions tied to specific jobs”, the President ( Defense Secretary represents him) can remove an officer from the job, by transferring or discharging him or her within 30-60 days unless he or she reverts to a two-star rank and retires.
In other words, effectively speaking, even though a President cannot easily throw a General out of the Army entirely in peacetime, he can fire him from his post, which usually leads to retirement. After all, no self-respecting General will stay in the job demoted.
However, in the ultimate analysis, the matter is beyond whether a President, through his Secretary of Defense, can fire Generals with impunity. Beyond the legal point, the President’s power needs to be viewed in the broader context of civil-military relations in a democracy like the United States.
What is said to be important here is “how” the President exercises his power.
This phenomenon can best be described in terms of what the late American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, in his 1957 classic, “The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations,” called the theory of “objective civilian control”.
According to this theory, the optimal means of asserting control over the armed forces is to professionalize them. This contrasts with “subjective control”, which involves imposing legal and institutional restrictions on the military’s autonomy.
For Huntington, ‘professionalism’ entails a mutually binding relationship between society and its ‘professionals’ (officers). The latter are entrusted with evaluating the security of the state and providing expert advice to its leaders, who, in turn, must afford a measure of deference to their professional expertise and institutions, without usurping, for instance, the military hierarchy, such as “appointing a lieutenant to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff”.
Huntington argued that allowing military professionals autonomy within their own realm minimized the danger of military intervention in politics by “rendering them politically sterile and neutral” and “at the same time, ensuring that a professional officer corps carries out ‘the wishes of any civilian group which secures legitimate authority within the state’”.
Subsequently, some scholars brought slight modifications to Hunting’s thesis of objective control. In his 1999 book, “Civilian Control Of The Military: The Changing Security Environment, Michael Desch espouses a construct with a thin permeable layer operating between “political ends” and “military means”.
In this model, though there is substantial military autonomy in the military, technical, and operational realms (how to fight wars), in return for complete subordination to civilian control of politics and grand strategy (when, and whether, to fight them), in exceptional circumstances, there can be civilian intervention in what would normally be the military realm and vice versa.
Desch is emphatic that in the ultimate analysis, civilians must prevail in the event of divergence between civilian and military preferences.
On the other hand, “the subjective control” presupposes “military participation in politics”, with the society or the state molding the military in its own image either by transplanting civilian elites into the military or by promoting senior military officers based on their political beliefs. Huntington described how the two ideologies—fascism and Marxism—based on authoritarianism resulted in “subjective control”, which, in turn, could boomerang in military backlash and coups. Every democracy must avoid it, he advised.
Therefore, supporters of Huntington today argue that healthy civil-military relations rest on two pillars: civilian control and military professionalism. Civilian control is not in legal doubt — the President clearly can fire commanders. But what about professionalism and trust?
If officers believe promotions depend on personal loyalty rather than competence, candid military advice to civilian leaders suffers. If political leadership squanders years of an officer’s experience in one go, it is ultimately the US military’s loss.
This seems to be the predominant impression in the American strategic circles today.
Author and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the EurAsian Times and has been commenting on politics, foreign policy, and strategic affairs for nearly three decades. He is a former National Fellow of the Indian Council for Historical Research and a recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize Scholarship.
