Randy Gorge, Charles Q. Brown, Lisa Franchetti, David Horne, John Phelan, Shoshana Chatfield… The list of generals and admirals fired by Pete Hegseth since his arrival at the Pentagon eighteen months ago is endless. In an article published on July 26, the New York Times established that the American Secretary of Defense had dismissed or dismissed more than twenty senior officers and that he had also removed from the promotion lists around forty senior officers selected by commissions composed of their peers.
A purge orchestrated in a chaotic manner as revealed by Pete Hegseth’s stormy hearings before the elected officials of the Armed Services Commission. At the end of April, he was unable to answer a member of the House of Representatives who asked him how many generals and admirals he had dismissed from office. “I don’t know, I don’t have the exact number,” replied Pete Hegseth. “You don’t know the exact number? It’s eight,” snapped the Democratic representative from Massachusetts.
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Women are particularly targeted by this purge. According to the New York Times, Pete Hegseth has blocked numerous promotions of women to high-level positions from being submitted to the Senate in recent months. Thus, of the 201 candidates for high-ranking positions this year, eight were women, or 4% — less than half the average percentage of the last ten years. As a result of this obstruction, the number of promotions of women to high-ranking positions in the army has never been lower in at least twenty-five years.
End of the “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” policy
The Trump administration did not hesitate to dismiss three women among the highest ranking members of the American army, not without tarnishing their reputation in the process. Linda F. Fagan, commander of the US Coast Guard, was dismissed in the hours following the inauguration of the American billionaire. For her part, Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to ascend to the position of Chief of Naval Operations, the highest position in the Navy, was fired in February 2025, after being described as “incompetent” by Pete Hegseth in his book “War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free”, published in 2024. Finally, Vice-Admiral Shoshana Chatfield, United States representative to NATO, was dismissed from her post last April “due to a loss of confidence in her ability to lead”.
Senior black American officers are also bearing the brunt of this purge. The case of Rear Admiral Stephen D. Barnett is eloquent. Although top Navy officials believed he was by far the best choice to lead the command overseeing Navy bases in the United States and abroad, Pete Hegseth offered the job in the spring to a white officer who was the third choice. A decision that shocked more than one in the Navy, but ultimately not surprising: like other black military leaders, Stephen D. Barnett had been encouraged by his superiors to help the Navy recruit and retain officers from minorities, — who remain largely underrepresented within the armed forces —, a diversity policy that Hegseth has continued to fight.
One of the first flagship measures taken by Pete Hegseth was precisely to put an end to the so-called “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) policy in the American army, in May 2025. Since then, the Secretary of Defense has knocked the heads of those who dare to step out of the ranks to support the promotions of officers from minorities. In April, Pete Hegseth fired the Army Chief of Staff, General Randy George, on the grounds that the latter had contested his decision to block the promotion of four Army colonels — two black men and two women — to the rank of brigadier general.
Loyalty to the leader
When his book “War on Warriors” is published in 2024, Pete Hegseth, who was then only a Fox News anchor, had insisted at length on the fact that it was necessary to eliminate the left-wing ideologues who had, according to him, taken over the army. “We must reconquer it even faster. We must carry out a frontal assault, a rapid counterattack, in broad daylight,” he wrote.
To do this, the Secretary of Defense surrounded himself with men aligned with his militarist, virilist and supremacist ideas, at the end of recruitment processes which raise questions. A New York Times investigation reveals how Daryl Caudle, then head of a major Navy training command, offered to help the Fox News anchor prepare for his confirmation hearing as Secretary of Defense in order to get a promotion in the face of senators unconvinced by his profile. If Pete Hegseth declined the offer, he did not hesitate to appoint him admiral, in place of Lisa Franchetti.
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Faced with critics who accuse Pete Hegseth of having violated the military ethics of the Navy and of having put the reputation of the apolitical institution after his personal ambitions, Pentagon spokespeople have stood firm, arguing that Admiral Caudle’s promotion was “strictly” based on merit.
discordant voices
A recruitment process mainly based on loyalty to the leader which raises concerns among Defense officials. Two fired officers have spoken publicly about Hegseth’s Pentagon purge. Former Vice Admiral Nancy Lacore, who is running as a Democrat in South Carolina, criticized Pete Hegseth for devoting his time to his political image and the ousting of experienced leaders rather than developing a real national security strategy. For his part, Charles Q. Brown, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, published an op-ed in the journal Foreign Affairs to denounce the sending of the army to American cities for “politically controversial missions”, such as the fight against crime, which would risk compromising its traditionally apolitical role and distracting it from its combat mission.
Among retired American soldiers, more and more dissenting voices are being heard. According to two other officers forced to resign, interviewed by MS Now on condition of anonymity, the Secretary of Defense gets rid of anyone who dares to question his ideas and orders. Pete Hegseth “is intimidated by people who have real combat experience and don’t just talk about warrior ethics,” one of the two former officers said, adding: “I think he just can’t stand being around people who take him to task when he talks nonsense.”
A military promotion process at the Pentagon which deviates from tradition, making the institution vulnerable to politicization and favoritism, but consistent with the management of the Donald Trump administration, subscribed to serial dismissals and cascading resignations.
