Hegseth to announce a 20% cut to generals and admirals

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to call for a 20% cut in the number of generals and admirals across the U.S. military on Wednesday, a Pentagon official told CBS News.

The announcement is set to take place during a rare address to military officers at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. It marks the latest move by Hegseth to change the structure of the military, especially at its top levels.

Fox News was first to report the planned reductions.

In May 2025, Hegseth ordered that a minimum of 10% of all flag and general officers be cut, along with 20% of general officers in the National Guard. In a one-page memo posted on the Defense Department’s website, Hegseth said at the time that the cuts were necessary to “drive innovation and operational excellence.”

He argued that the military must be “unencumbered by unnecessary bureaucratic layers that hinder their growth and effectiveness,” and the key to achieving this would be “removing redundant force structure to optimize and streamline leadership by reducing excess general and flag officer positions.”

As of July, there were 851 active-duty generals and admirals across the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Space Force, according to a Defense Department tally. A year earlier, there were 848 general and flag officers. Federal law caps the number at 857.

Wednesday’s speech comes exactly one year after Hegseth summoned hundreds of generals and admirals from around the world to Quantico, where he slammed the Defense Department’s “woke” standards and “toxic leaders.” He also called for tighter standards, railing against “fat generals and admirals” and service members with beards.

At least 20 generals, admirals and civilian military leaders have been fired or have resigned their jobs since Hegseth became defense secretary, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Army, Navy and Air Force’s top uniformed officials. The secretaries of the Army and Navy, two civilian posts, have also been replaced.

A former National Guard infantry officer and Fox News host, Hegseth frequently criticized senior military leaders before becoming the military’s top civilian leader, casting them as insufficiently supportive of frontline troops and overly focused on diversity initiatives.

There is some debate over whether the military has too many generals and admirals, a Congressional Research Service report from May notes. 

Critics argue that adding too many top-level officers can slow down decisionmaking and make the military overly bureaucratic. But others counter that senior leaders are necessary to oversee coalitions with other countries’ militaries, navigate technological change and manage an increasingly complicated Defense Department.

Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona told reporters Tuesday that Hegseth is “in the process of purging the upper echelon of the military from its best leaders.”

“We need strong leaders. These folks have decades of experience, some of the best leadership our military has ever had. He’s getting rid of them,” Kelly said.