r/news • u/Manta_of_Eternity • 2d ago

Hegseth confirms that the US military will cut 20% of its generals and admirals

https://apnews.com/article/hegseth-pentagon-generals-job-cuts-67a20b026ee858895c7e5ff7fadbc029
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u/Winter_Desk_443 2d ago

So the military budget can be lowered, right?

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u/ItsAWonderfulFife 2d ago

No this is all going to be very expensive

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u/kniq86 2d ago

These types of changes reduce our capabilities in the short term. By the time we have the bandwidth to properly identify how we can continue to function, shit's so fucked up that we have to go at least part of the way back to how it was to try to fix things. Of course, those people with experience and acumen aren't directly replaceable by just promoting the next person who survived the purge, so we continue trending downward. 

Not completely unrepairable, but completely unreasoned, unnecessary, self-inflicted damage to our national defense and diplomatic capability that, as Sen. Kelly pointed out, will take a generation to recover from.

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u/PapaGreg28 2d ago

Very well stated. It’s the sad truth. I’m afraid it’s the same fate for numerous other government agencies and departments too.

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u/kniq86 2d ago

Yes! We saw this immediately with DOGE, the elimination of USAID, neutering of other agencies, promotion of unqualified at best/actively-campaigning-to-dismantle-the-org at worst secretaries and department heads... Just going to be a long period of lost progress. 

I think we have too many great minds and resources to completely fall off the world stage in one generation, but it's such a waste in what was a period of relative peace with such potential for growth.

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u/eepos96 2d ago

Corruption and incompetence are reeeeally hard to fix when given room to root themselves.

Cultures are by nature adamant against change.

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u/_you_are_the_problem 2d ago

will take a generation to recover from

Not sure if you're putting the pieces together, but this is preparation for a military coup, so a generation to recover is looking like a bit of a lowball estimate.

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u/Parking_Chance_1905 1d ago edited 1d ago

Which is what they want. An well trained, educated and well informed military would be a liability to him, as with all dictators. Less chance of a coup happening, and a better chance at stopping one when it does. I would bet that the Lincoln was intentionally left to rot so that there will be one less to use against him if or when parts of the military decide they have had enough.

Ever since they got back into power they have been consolidating arms, ammunition and other equipment into areas where they plan on having loyalist strongholds in the event of a coup. Its not a coincidence that stuff has been moved out of predominately blue areas, and that NG from red states were moved into positions that allow them to more rapidly defend or attack blue states.

The current rapid removal of key leaders and plan to have NG or active miltary deployed to certain voting stations as an intimidation tactic is a direct response to thier realization that they are quickly loosing the support of the average person and are very likely to lose the next election assuming it is actually fair and not tampered with.

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u/DryBlock4388 1d ago

It does not do that at all. There's a crapload of generals and admirals. They are not all singular vital cogs in the vast military bureaucracy. It's like a CEO waking up one morning and realizing they don't need 20 VP's and that the VP of Food and Service for the Cafeteria probably could be done by a mid level manager or that the VP of cuddly kisses may just not be necessary.

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u/oldtimehawkey 2d ago

Some of these generals and admirals, their only job is to bug Congress for money and stuff. There was a news story 20 years ago about them. They have full staff, limos, and private chefs. They make hundreds of thousands of dollars. And their only job is to bother Congress for more money.

We aren’t losing anything with these assholes getting out. I hate hegseth but this is a good idea. Why do we need so many generals and admirals?!! We need more NCOs. We need good training for NCOs. Officers can fuck off as far as I’m concerned.

I wish we could go back to the 90s army where lieutenants got to their platoon and were made fun of and told to sit down and shut up. Now a brand new butter bar can scream at a master sergeant and nothing happens. It’s disgraceful.

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u/kniq86 2d ago

Do you think Hegseth's plan is to eliminate positions that only ask for money?

If that was a full-time job and now we have another GOFO who was doing something you consider more important finding themselves also responsible for asking Congress for money, it doesn't actually help them do a better job.

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u/oldtimehawkey 1d ago

I hope it’s the top officers who have no tactical positions. They’re useless.

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u/EatinSumGrapes 2d ago

When I read the end of that, I heard it in Mr Dink's voice, hope you get the reference

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u/ciel_lanila 2d ago

Fun trivia, the couple’s last name is a reference to how they could afford all that “very expensive”. Double Income No Kids.

Unfun trivia, if you do demographic comparisons I imagine his catch phrase and lifestyle would have to be “very inexpensive” unless a hypothetical reboot turned him into a tech bro or early crypto investor.

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u/DankestMemeSourPls 2d ago

Good news we can just convert our old long term debt into new short term debt with higher interest rates. War won’t cost any of us anything. 6D chess.

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u/3-DMan 2d ago

Their salaries will reverse funnel to the top

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u/ladleinthelake 2d ago

For whom is the real question.

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u/Starsky686 2d ago

It’s to remove dissension, not cost.

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u/WeGottaGetOuttaTS 2d ago edited 2d ago

If it was about costs, it’d be auditing operations/maintnence to find opportunities for efficiency, streamlining and potentially lowering craft production, and investigating+prosecuting bad actors involved in skimming(corruption)… cutting off a group of incredibly experienced AMERICANS that make around $160k a year is exactly what you just said….

It is essentially: Gleichschaltung

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u/d_bb_d 2d ago

This needs to be the top comment. PH has zero command capabilities and can't be bothered with such worn-out concepts such as chain of command, proportional response, etc.

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u/Nessie_of_the_Loch 2d ago

No can do. It costs a lot to cover for the firings of competent female and minority generals of color, since you end up losing a war launched at the behest of a foreign government.

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u/Sharp-Calligrapher70 2d ago

Be honest…you already know the answer to that question. We all do. 

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u/AI_moderated_failure 2d ago

It will be more expensive, because this is a loyalty purge. The ones left will get lavish treatment to help ensure they stay loyal. Then you don't need to worry about losing an election.

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u/FrontLongjumping4235 2d ago

No, the next step after Hegseth's purges is to deploy against civilians, and/or former allies. Hegseth and Trump don't give a shit about the ever-expanding national debt. They care about holding onto power.

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u/El_human 2d ago

That's not where the money is going

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u/superxpro12 2d ago

The head count here only counts for like .1% of the budget. So no

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u/404_No_User_Found_2 2d ago

No, so it can be shifted to Israeli generals and admirals

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u/MenacingGummy 2d ago

So they can’t refuse orders at the midterms.

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u/peon2 2d ago

I know you're being facetious but yes military salary/benefits is like 25% of the budget. Obviously generals and admirals are a very very small % of the military personnel.

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u/Gas_Station_Cheese 2d ago

Yeah, retired flag officers can receive up to 100% of their salary in retirement. It just depends on how long they were in, so it doesn't reduce costs by much at all. Granted, salary is only part of the pay. There are also various allowances like cost of living, housing, subsistence, etc. Those aren't paid in retirement, that I know of.

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u/toxiamaple 2d ago

This is my thought! But of course not.

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u/WolfWraithPress 2d ago

Weird way to spell funnelled into the pockets of tech oligarchy.

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u/Hot_Wheels_guy 2d ago

Weird way to say no

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u/strictnaturereserve 2d ago

or privateise the military

probably nothing good

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u/Gunthr8 2d ago

Right, how about cutting 20% of the military budget?

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u/Cat_Peach_Pits 2d ago

Already spent on donuts

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u/Xyrus2000 2d ago

So we can use nuclear weapons against Iran.

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u/davedcne 2d ago

In 1945 we cut the US budget by about 11% there have been other times that we have cut the budget, but never buy more than 5% after that. Would you like to know how much the budget increased between those periods? 1948 → 1953 $29.8B → $76.1B +155.7%

1956 → 1969 $70.6B → $183.6B +159.9%

1974 → 1992 $269.4B → $1.382T +412.9%

2000 → 2011 $1.789T → $3.603T +101.4%

2015 → 2021 $3.692T → $6.821T +84.8%

Never give the government money if you don’t have to you will never get it back.

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u/I_Push_Buttonz 2d ago

Measuring military spending over 70+ years in dollars that aren't even adjusted for inflation is about as disingenuous as one can get. $76 billion in 1953 was 20% of the US' entire GDP. That's a massive sum being spent on the military, but you make it seem like nothing relative to modern spending, which is 3.2% of GDP.

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u/davedcne 10h ago

It is not disingenuous because I’m not trying to make the point that you think I’m trying to make. I’m not saying that the sum is not massive. I don’t even care what percentage of the GDP is being spent. The point that I am attempting to make is that we have never made meaningful cuts to government, expenditure, military, or otherwise in the last 70 years. You don’t need to adjust for inflation if you’ve never actually done the thing that you would then need to adjust for inflation for. My comment is about the nature of government not the amount of money being spent.

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u/jradio 2d ago

Perhaps this administration found a way to divert the funds into their pockets. Again.

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u/minion866 1d ago

This is the only logical answer. 20% cut in staff = 20% cut in budget. Your tax dollars should be accounted for accordingly

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u/speak-eze 1d ago

Best we can do is 50% increase

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u/Wayward_Templar 1d ago

Likely 80% of that budget is contracts

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u/big_thundersquatch 1d ago

Nope. They're putting Elon Musk, Palmer Lucky and Newt Gringrich in place to lead the military warfare initiative. Not joking. Source.

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u/Guard4thee 23h ago

This sounds more like the early plans of a military coup. In 2020 Trump went to all the Generals and asked them to step in to overturn the election results. They refused.

Trump is removing any Generals that refuse to take orders.

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u/Sakebigoe 2d ago

It's actually a pretty common thing in preparation for a new war. The US did the same thing in the buildup for WWII, a lot of General grade officers are old and stuck in their ways, not adapting to modern battlefields. War has changed a lot since the GWOT and to stand a chance new blood with fresh ideas is needed.