4. Department of Defense · Notable
Reduce the number of general officers and limit their advancement
Printed page 104 4. Department of Defense
“Reduce the number of generals. Rank creep is pervasive. … The next President should limit the continued advancement of many of the existing cadre, many of whom have been advanced by prior Administrations for reasons other than their warfighting prowess.”
What has happened
- Attempted
Two billets are reported actually downgraded, and one allowlisted outlet says so. NPR, reporting Gen. Christopher Donahue's departure from U.S. Army Europe and Africa: "Defense Secretary Hegseth downgraded that job from a four-star job to a three-star — part of the Pentagon's effort to reduce the number of senior officers. So he was a four-star with nowhere to go. The Pentagon did the same, by the way, with the top Air Force job in Europe — dropped it to a three-star command." USAREUR-AF's own release confirms the consequence without naming the cause: Donahue relinquished command on 2026-07-02 to Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, "who will serve as the acting commander until a permanent successor is nominated by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate". The rung does not move, because §3b requires **two** independent allowlisted outlets for a Status resting on Secondary evidence and only NPR carries the downgrade in text we could read; the Washington Post's 2025-12-15 report that officials were "preparing a plan to downgrade several of the U.S. military's major headquarters" is a plan, and its 2026-06-23 and 2026-06-24 pieces paywall before reaching the point. No Primary states a count of billets eliminated, and the Department publishes none.
- NPR: Another top general expected to exit the Pentagon — the U.S. Army Europe and Africa and U.S. Air Forces in Europe commands downgraded from four-star to three-star
- U.S. Army Europe and Africa: USAREUR-AF Commander Relinquishes Command — Gen. Donahue relinquishes to Maj. Gen. Norrie as acting commander pending a nominated successor
- Attempted
The Secretary of War directed the services to cut at least 20 percent of active-duty four-star general and flag officer positions, at least 20 percent of general officer positions in the National Guard, and a further 10 percent of general and flag officer billets across the military — from roughly 44 four-star posts and more than 800 one- to three-star posts. He called it "Less Generals, More GIs." The memorandum sets no deadline and does not require the services to send him a list of proposed cuts, and no allowlisted source shows the number of general officers actually falling. The FY2026 NDAA sec. 502 later cut the Air Force ceiling from 171 to 168 and raised the Space Force ceiling from 21 to 24 — a redistribution, not a reduction — and made no other change to 10 U.S.C. 526.
- Secretary of Defense memorandum, General/Flag Officer Reductions (5 May 2025) — minimum 20% cut to four-star positions in the Active Component, 20% to National Guard general officers and a further 10% with the realignment of the Unified Command Plan
- Government Executive: Hegseth orders services to axe 10% of their general and admiral jobs and one-fifth of 4-star posts
- NPR: Hegseth says he's a change agent at DoD (20% cut to four-star and Guard general officers)
- National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 (Public Law 119-60)
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
The Secretary of War’s 5 May 2025 memorandum is the instrument, and as of 2026-09-06 it is Primary: it opens on media.defense.gov, contrary to the earlier note that it “is on a Department of War page that refuses to open”. Congress did not follow: FY2026 NDAA sec. 502 moves three general officer billets from the Air Force to the Space Force, leaving the total statutory ceiling unchanged.
Searched 2026-09-06 — what a report of billets actually cut would look like, and where it is not. Searched: the complete Department of War release archive for the window (500 items back to 2025-01-02), which carries 47 General/Flag Officer announcement releases and no reduction tally; the 2025-06-17 Unified Command Plan statement, which turns out to be about moving Greenland from EUCOM to NORTHCOM and not about the memorandum’s 10% tranche; the General and Flag Officer Matters page on prhome.war.gov, which lists policy issuances and no counts. The strongest thing found is the pair of European four-star billets in the second event above, and it is one outlet short of moving the rung.
This item sits in the page 103–104 personnel cluster, whose shared instruments are EO 14151, EO 14183, the FY2026 NDAA titles V, VI and IX, and the Secretary of Defense’s 2025 personnel memoranda — nearly all of which live on Department of War pages that refuse automated reads. One negative search covered the whole cluster.
- Action
- eliminate
- Object
- general officer billets and promotions
- ID
- 181