We need to understand that most general officers are not “bad” people. They can often be very charming and excellent conversationalists. Indeed, when a full colonel is promoted to 1-star rank, he is whisked off to a preparatory course that has been dubbed “Charm School.” Their primary strength is that they are “process” oriented- they know how the system works and how to leverage it to their advantage. They put pegs into holes, and since they micromanage, they end up juggling a lot of pegs of various shapes, sizes and colors.
A deeper problem to all of the issues so far discussed is a tremendous lack of moral courage among senior officers… or most officers for that matter. Physical courage, that is, being exposed to the danger of combat, is relatively easy compared to moral courage. The latter is saying and doing the morally right thing under pressure. Not only is this a problem in the military, it’s actually a problem in life overall, especially in the corporate world.
The issue of moral courage in the military (and government in general) came into stark relief when Uncle Joe attempted to impose a new religion by demanding that all in the military and federal government get injected with an experimental concoction to fight what really was nothing more than a flu virus. The generals lined up, did what they were told, and persecuted anyone who resisted.
So what is the solution to this problem of excess generals? Simple… fire them.
Generals, indeed all officers, are federal agents appointed by the President and then approved by the Senate. Once approved, they serve at the pleasure of the President and can be removed from office for any reason or none at all, barring any kind of legal contract considerations.
First, remove every 4- and 3-star general. And I mean all of them. Second, remove 80% of 2- and 1- star generals, and follow that by removing 70% of all full colonels and lieutenant-colonels. In addition, eliminate or downgrade many of the senior command positions. A good metric would be the ratio of GOs to other ranks from 1945, and the command structures that went with them. For example, the predecessor of Forces Command (FORSCOM) was the Army Ground Forces. During World War II, this command, which included dozens of units and all training facilities that are today grouped under a 4-star billet in the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), was commanded by a 3-star general. Today, there are multiple 4-stars controlling less than in World War II. Once the herd is culled, 3- and 4- star generals can be assigned from the remainder. But of those kept, how is this to be determined?
General officers receive evaluations much like junior officers. However, they are evaluated by fellow generals, and generals are part of what amounts to a special club, who will favor their buddies and slam the recalcitrant.[1] So which generals should we keep? By and large, the ones to keep are those with the worst… not best… evaluations. In essence, these officers are not liked by their senior fellow generals.
Perhaps they are not sufficiently a “team player” (translation: they don’t acquiesce to stupid stuff pushed by a boss). Or they received a “letter of concern” because they didn’t adequately “supervise” a task (translation: they are not micromanagers, and their subordinates made some mistakes). Or they didn’t take sufficient time to plan out a mission (translation: they strive to make decisions in a timely fashion, rather than overplanning and thus being indecisive and late on arrival). Or they didn’t follow the “approved mission” template established by a senior officer (translation: they tried to innovate and break routine to catch enemy forces off-guard, and thus inadvertently upstage their boss). Or one of my favorites: they tend to be “sexist” because they don’t want to see women in combat roles (translation: they actually believe that men and women are different, with different purposes in life, and want to protect women who regenerate the species).
Finally, any officer who retires… at any rank… should be barred for life from returning to federal or state service, except on the specific request of the President of the United States or state Governor. In particular, they should be barred from working… or even volunteering… with companies that do any direct contract work for the government. In essence, they need to go away (“thank you for your service… now go fishing and spend time with the grandkids”). Retired generals are not hired by contractors because they are smart or know the technology, but rather because they have inside contacts to help grease the skids for landing lucrative taxpayer-funded contracts. This rot goes down even to the colonel level. For example, within the federal government we see many full colonels land top civilian government jobs after they retire. This process is so egregious that we have a moniker for it in the Army: the “no colonel left behind” program.[2] If they are caught violating this, they should not only lose their pension and benefits, but reimburse any pension they had already received.
A few years ago, one of the more competent general officers I know approached me to do a study on the level of maintenance personnel for our Army helicopter fleet. He wanted a comparison between today and during the Vietnam War, for he was under the assumption that we had far more maintenance people now than then. My study, in just eight pages, demonstrated the fallaciousness of such thinking; today we had far less maintenance personnel for helicopters that were more complex. Over the years, the Army was gutting the critical personnel necessary to keep the birds flying. I never heard what he thought of my conclusions or what his recommendations were to senior Army leaders.
When the Army cuts, they cut from the meat and bone of the force. They never… ever… cut the fat. And the fat is in our officer corps in general, and senior leaders in particular. The lack of competency among our senior leaders is only seconded to the amount of money we waste on these people. In my report on the bloat of general officers, I calculated that if we went to the ratio at the end of World War II, we would save enough money and slots to field an entire light division of 10,000 men.
Today, we have more senior leaders than we know what to do with, and they are falling over each other trying to justify their existence.
It is high time we trim the force, not at the bottom but at the top. President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth need to say the magic words….
…“You’re fired.”
Russ Rodgers has several books published on Amazon.
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[1] A favorite saying within our historical offices was that there was no subordination among generals, meaning a 1-star could buck a 4-star almost with impunity.
[2] A play-on phrase to President George W. Bush’s “no child left behind” program. An added detriment to bringing retired colonels in as senior civilians is that it discourages qualified career civilians from seeking promotions to senior level positions.