In removing General Charles Q. Brown, Jr. as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, President Trump made a necessary and long-overdue correction to a military leadership corps that has lost its way. For too long, the Pentagon has been governed by leaders more concerned with bureaucratic politics and ideological conformity than with the timeless requirements of combat: discipline, cohesion, and lethality.
America’s military is not merely a collection of well-equipped components—it is an institution forged by a distinct moral and martial tradition. Its strength has always come from a warrior ethos that prizes courage, merit, and excellence. Yet over the last two decades, that ethos has been eroded by a leadership class that increasingly serves the managerial regime rather than the nation it was sworn to protect.
In many ways, General Brown exemplified this decline.
His removal is not just about replacing one man—it is about reclaiming the military from an ideological project that has subordinated warfighting to the dictates of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Uniformed military officers have been active agents in this ideological capture, so it is only fitting to ensure accountability for this class of leaders.
During his tenure as a general, Brown presided over an Air Force increasingly preoccupied with race-based personnel policies and ideological indoctrination. In the wake of George Floyd’s death, Brown took the unprecedented step of injecting racial politics into the Air Force’s leadership ranks, signaling that his command decisions would be guided by identity-conscious policies rather than the needs of the force. In public commentary while in uniform, Gen. Brown promised the Air Force would help end systemic racism in America.
The most glaring example of Brown’s focus on racial ideology came in 2021 when he directed Air Force flight school classes to be diversified to reflect the racial demographics of the nation. The problem with such a directive is obvious: merit and ability, not racial composition, should determine who earns the right to fly America’s most advanced combat aircraft. Fighter pilots are selected based on an unforgiving meritocratic system—one that has produced the best air force in the world for generations. Brown’s policy, however, attempted to tamper with that system for the sake of ideological optics. Unsurprisingly, the results were disastrous. The initiative did not produce enough qualified pilots, making the link between diversity and unreadiness undeniable.
Just as troubling was the August 2022 memo Brown signed that formally established race-based quotas for the Air Force officer corps. This was not a benign encouragement of diversity—it was a directive that race and gender be explicitly factored into officer promotions and assignments, only to the detriment of white men. This was a bureaucratic codification of identity politics within the command structure of the world’s most powerful air force.
Brown’s leadership reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes a military strong. The Armed Forces are not a government agency meant to reflect demographic statistical parity. They are the defenders of the nation, and their only obligation is to win wars.
Predictably, critics of Brown’s removal have decried it as an attack on the “apolitical” nature of the military. But this argument ignores the very nature of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs is not a commander. He does not direct forces or lead troops into battle. His role is to advise the president and the civilian leadership of the Department of Defense.
The idea that the president should be bound to retain an advisor whose vision of the military fundamentally conflicts with his own is absurd. The Joint Chiefs are not an independent ruling body—they serve at the pleasure of the commander in chief. President Trump campaigned on restoring a warfighting culture to the military. Brown’s continued leadership would have actively undermined that objective. Even without General Brown’s brazen embrace of DEI, President Trump would have had every reason to remove him.
The uproar highlights the extent to which the Joint Staff has captured military affairs beyond the scope of their proper role in the bureaucracy. With no operational authority, the Joint Staff should be mere advisors to the president. Firing the chairman is not radical, nor should it be the final step in President Trump’s efforts to reclaim civilian control over the institution.
President Trump’s decision to replace Brown with retired Air Force Lieutenant General Dan “Razin” Caine is more than just a personnel shift: it is a rejection of the Pentagon’s self-perpetuating bureaucracy. Some will argue that Caine, who did not rise through the Joint Chiefs system, is an unorthodox pick—but that is exactly why he is the right man for the job.
The modern military promotion system has become an insular bureaucracy, rewarding those who can navigate its managerial structures rather than those who embody the qualities of decisive leadership, strategic thinking, and operational excellence. If a president wishes to restore a warrior ethos to the military, he must break the cycle of institutional self-replication that promotes officers based on their ability to comply with bureaucratic mandates rather than their ability to lead and win.
Trump’s decision to elevate Lt. Gen. Caine follows this same pattern. Caine’s background is not one of bureaucratic maneuvering, but of a combat-tested, results-driven leader who most recently spearheaded the defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Unlike Brown, who viewed the military as a tool for social transformation, Caine understands that its sole purpose is to defeat America’s enemies.
The modern Left sees every institution as a tool to be captured and transformed. The U.S. military has not been immune to this project. Over the last two decades, it has increasingly fallen under the influence of a progressive ideology that prioritizes representation over excellence, compliance over courage, and identity over ability.
Brown’s tenure was a product of this ideological shift, and his removal represents the first serious attempt to reverse it.
The military is not a civilian corporation. It is not a policy think tank. It is the institution tasked with preserving America’s sovereignty by force of arms. It must be unapologetically meritocratic, aggressively focused on lethality, and willing to do whatever is necessary to secure victory.
President Trump’s removal of Brown and nomination of Caine is not about politics—it is about survival. The United States faces real, existential threats. Our military leaders should be thinking about how to outmaneuver China in the Pacific, how to maintain air superiority in the face of advancing drone warfare, and how to ensure our warfighters are prepared for the next great conflict. They should not be wasting time engineering demographic balance in the ranks.
America does not need a military that reflects the nation—it needs a military that terrifies its enemies, dominates the battlefield, and secures peace through overwhelming strength. Leaders who promote cultural cohesion are necessary, and the military needs them now more than ever.