Pete Hegseth to slash 4-star generals in Pentagon shake-up that pulls the plug on Europe and Middle East

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is driving a major overhaul to pivot the US military away from Europe and the Middle East and refocus operations on the Western Hemisphere, sources indicate to the Washington Post.

Top Pentagon leadership are finalizing a plan that would dramatically downgrade America's military presence in traditional theaters while consolidating power closer to home – marking a fundamental shift in US strategic priorities.

The proposal would reduce US Central Command, US Africa Command and US European Command to subordinate status under a new umbrella organization called US International Command – stripping these Middle Eastern and European-focused headquarters of their current four-star authority.

Simultaneously, the plan calls for merging US Southern Command and US Northern Command into a powerful new headquarters dubbed US Americas Command, or 'Americom' – elevating the Western Hemisphere's importance in the Pentagon's hierarchy.

If approved, the restructuring would trigger the first substantial shake-up of the military's top brass in generations while slashing the number of four-star generals reporting directly to Hegseth.

The initiative aligns with Trump's national security strategy released this month declaring the 'days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over.'

Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine is expected to present detailed plans to Hegseth in the coming days.

Notably, the Senate and House Armed Services committees have not been briefed on the proposal – breaking with the Pentagon's traditional practice of coordinating major changes with congressional overseers.

Altogether, the changes would significantly shrink the number of defense headquarters from 11 to eight, while also cutting down on the number of four–star generals and admirals.

The surviving combatant commands would be the US Cyber Command, US Special Operations Command, US Indo–Pacific Command, US Space Command, US Strategic Command and US Transportation Command.

One effect of this will be to force NATO to spend the money they promised to spend on defense. Most of NATO probably gave lip service to expanding defense procurement as it will dramatically reduce welfare. Welfare serves more than just welfare. Most European countries have significant portions of their population made up of cultural minorities. The welfare payments are a way to suppress attempts at succeeding from the parent state. Also, it is politically unpopular to take away a payment that the VOTERS considered there’s by right. As a result of these pressures and the desire not to lose the next election, politician’s pinky swear to increase defense spending while keeping crossed fingers behind their back.

The US has more general officers per capita now than it did in WWII when the military had millions of members. We needed to start trimming a long, long time ago.

One effect of this will be to force NATO to spend the money they promised to spend on defense.

Unfortunately, I think what this will really require is that they spend more money on things *labeled* defense. It won't necessarily get them to increase actual combat capability. I'm sure there are study groups in all the Euro capitals right now developing analyses that will show that they need more diversity in their armed forces.

The good/bad news is that Russia has spent so much military capital on the war in Ukraine that they are not as much of a threat as they used to be. As a result, the Euros have most of a generation of "safety" regardless of their actual combat capability. The Russians got away with naked aggression which would normally provide an incentive for more aggression, but the cost was devastating. One aspect of that cost was to show that barely trained soldiers using Western equipment were competitive with supposedly well-trained Russian forces. Those study groups are going to focus on that as well, further reducing actual combat capability by minimizing training.

The US has more general officers per capita now than it did in WWII when the military had millions of members.

This is absolutely the worst thing about the current US military. The path to success is to become a "perfumed prince" who works the politics of advancement with minimal "unproductive" tours actually commanding combat forces. If there is one thing I could do about our military it would be to establish a standard of command for every officer rank (e.g. captains command companies, lieutenant colonels command battalions) and require that no officer can be promoted more than one step above their highest (and successful) actual command performance. In other words, you couldn't become a full colonel until you had successfully commanded a combat battalion (for a normal two-year tour). We need officers competing for combat slots, not competing for political slots.

If we could establish a command level for every rank, then we would tell our "allies" that they could call themselves "Grand High Poobah Of the Universe" and dress themselves in dozens of stars, but they would be treated in joint operations as though they had the rank they could justify by our standards based on actual command success.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.