Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s ordering of at least a 20% reduction of four-star generals and admirals has raised concerns that those cuts could be weaponized to cut officers deemed insufficiently loyal to the president and secretary.

Hegseth, in a memo to senior Pentagon leadership dated Monday, directed a reduction of at least 20% of four-star positions across the Active Component, at least a 20% reduction of general officers in the National Guard, and an additional minimum of 10% cuts in general and flag officers.

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The one-page memo did not specify which positions could be cut or what criteria would be used to determine which cuts to make, raising concerns among experts that it could target senior military officers who do not appear to be aligned with the president’s “America First” agenda.

“We’re sending a clear message that if you don’t concur with the president, ideologically, you are at risk,” Gene Moran, a national security expert and former adviser to multiple Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs during former President George W. Bush’s time in office, told the Washington Examiner. “Historically, we have wanted the military to be politically agnostic.”

The 20% reduction of four-star generals sounds steep, though in reality it would only amount to seven or eight officers. Currently, there are 38 four-star generals and admirals in 44 total positions, a handful of which are not currently filled. It’s also unclear if the cuts will be for the current four-star generals or the total four-star positions, because some are currently unfilled. There are roughly 900 general and flag officers with at least one star, indicating that the cuts will likely be around 90 officers.

Greg Williams, the director of the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight, also expressed concern that this reduction in senior officers “presents an opportunity for the administration to punish people who aren’t falling in line with their policies,” he told the Washington Examiner.

“What we don’t want to see is this kind of reduction turn into a loyal testing campaign where the people who get let go are people who are voicing independent thoughts and otherwise maintaining that the military is a non-partisan organization,” Williams added.

He recommended that the department focus on which positions they want to eliminate rather than specific individuals they want to fire.

Hegseth and the president have already dismissed multiple four-star officers: Gen. Charles Q. Brown, former chairman of the Joint Staff; Adm. Lisa Franchetti, former chief of naval operations; Gen. James Slife, the Air Force vice chief of staff; and he fired the top military lawyers of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, which are known as Judge Advocates General.

Retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, a senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Examiner that he believes the military should cut some of the four-star generals. However, he said the secretary “has shown me no reason not to be concerned” that this will be a political litmus test.

“I am concerned because Secretary Hegseth has shown me no reason to not be concerned that he would use this as a political tool,” he said, adding that it “would be massively inappropriate” if “it’s some kind of political agenda masquerading as an efficiency effort.”

The firings of Franchetti and Slife “were clearly inappropriate and not based on any actual military qualification or war-fighting skill,” Montgomery added, noting that they both “met and exceeded any standard for four-star success,” though he made a distinction with Brown, given that the role of chairman of the Joint Staff is “uniquely” tied to the president.

Despite Montgomery’s concerns, he’s “not opposed” to the cuts broadly and said he does believe the department “needs to reduce the number of four stars, and therefore have a trickle down effect to some degree on three stars and two stars.” 

He called the current posture “disproportion[ate],” given the current number of active duty forces.

Hegseth has frequently noted that the military had 17 four- and five-star generals during World War II, who commanded a roughly 12 million-person force. The military currently has slightly more than two million active-duty personnel despite more than twice the number of four-star leaders it had at that time.

The secretary has argued since before his nomination that there were too many senior generals in the military.

“I would say over a third are actively complicit” in the politicization of the military, he told radio host Hugh Hewitt last June, adding, “then you have a lot of grumblers who are sort of going along, trying to resist the nonsense as much as they can.”

HEGSETH ORDERS REDUCTION OF SENIOR COMMANDERS, CUTTING 20% OF FOUR-STAR GENERALS AND ADMIRALS

Shortly before his nomination, the former Fox News host said on another podcast, “any general that was involved — general, admiral, whatever — that was involved in any of the [diversity, equity, and inclusion] woke shit has got to go.”

Moran also tied this reduction to the White House pushing out multiple officials in the National Security Council who were accused by conservative commentator Laura Loomer of being insufficiently loyal to the president.