Pentagon purge wipes out 900 years of collective military experience

Prominent military experts, from retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling to retired U.S. Navy Adm. William H. McRaven, are sounding the alarm about the Trump administration forcing Gen. Chris Donahue to step down from his role as commander of U.S. Army Europe. The departures of Donahue and other military leaders, according to Hertling and McRaven, are making the military dangerously unstable. Similarly, legal scholars Michael N. Schmitt and Ryan Goodman are warning that President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are robbing the military of a wealth of expertise.

Writing for Just Security, Schmitt (a law professor at New York University) emphasizes that nothing good can come of the Trump/Hegseth purges at the Pentagon — especially in light of the caliber of military leaders being forced out.

"Since January 2025," the legal scholar explains, "the Defense Department has removed, replaced, or forced the early retirement of a remarkable concentration of operationally experienced senior officers. Among them are the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the chief of naval operations, the chief of staff of the Army, and the commander of U.S. Cyber Command, who concurrently serves as director of the National Security Agency. Most recently, Gen. Christopher Donahue, one of the most decorated and combat-experienced officers of his generation, has been forced out as commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa and, in his NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) role, as commander of Allied Land Command. Public explanations have been sparse and, to the extent they have been offered, largely general."

Schmitt continues, "The question regarding these departures is not whether the president and secretary of defense have broad lawful authority to reshape the senior officer corps. They unequivocally do. Nor is it a question of whether personnel decisions of this kind are ever warranted. Sometimes, they certainly are. Instead, at its core, a central question is their impact on the combat effectiveness, indeed the lethality, of our armed forces."

Schmitt, in his article, lists 25 U.S. military leaders who have been forced out during Trump's second presidency and notes that collectively, they had a combined 901 and one-half years of experience.

Schmitt argues that the military purges that occurred in the Soviet under Josef Stalin during the 1930s offer a sobering history less for the U.S., as Stalin's Red Army purges made the Soviet Union more "vulnerable" to Adolf Hitler's aggression.

"Between 1937 and 1938," Schmitt explains, "Joseph Stalin systematically purged the Red Army's officer corps. His motivations were political, for he wanted to eliminate perceived rivals and consolidate absolute personal authority. Of the five marshals of the Soviet Union, three were executed. Of the 15 army commanders, 13 were removed…. Launched in November 1939, the Winter War against Finland revealed the costs. Despite massive numerical superiority, Soviet forces performed disastrously, with the Red Army sustaining casualties at least several times higher than those of the Finns."

Goodman, also a NYU law professor, highlights Schmitt's article in a thread for X, formerly Twitter.

Goodman notes, "Over 900 years of military experience has been lost due to Pete Hegseth's purge of 25 senior military officers…. I highly recommend this important essay by Mike Schmitt just published."

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