Massacre at the Pentagon
by Ambassador Thomas Graham and David Bernell
On the evening of Friday, February 21, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) General Charles Q. Brown at the direction of President Trump. Also ousted was Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the Chief of Naval Operations (which is one of the positions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff). General Brown is a black man, and Admiral Franchetti is a woman (and the first woman to hold her position). The other members of the Joint Chiefs, all white men, remained in their positions. The firings continued with General James Slife, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, and the Judge Advocate Generals (JAG) of the Army, Navy and Air Force.
Congressman Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, called the firings the “Friday Night Massacre” as it seemed reminiscent of the Watergate Saturday Night Massacre in 1973, when President Richard Nixon demanded that Attorney General Elliot Richardson fire the Watergate special prosecutor. Both Richardson and his Deputy refused to do so and resigned, but Robert Bork, the next person in line at the Justice Department, did fire Cox. This was one of the key incidents that led to the impeachment and resignation of Nixon.
The officers who were fired, and none of the service chiefs or the civilian secretaries of each service, are in the chain of command for the use of U.S. forces. The chain of command goes from the President to the Secretary of Defense to the operational commander. Rather, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the JAG positions are in place to ensure the thoughtful, careful, and legal use of military force. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is the sole military advisor to the President and the Secretary of Defense. The other Chiefs advise the Chairman.
The military officers who were fired were targeted for political reasons. There were no performance issues, and none were cited in announcing their removal. Trump and Hegseth thought they were too “woke,” too interested in diversity, or were the wrong race or gender. The firings of Brown and Franchetti in particular were not a surprise. Trump had repeatedly criticized America’s military leaders in the past, asserting that they are too interested in diversity, and these views are shared by Hegseth, who also has complained about the military and diversity. In addition, Hegseth is on the record as being opposed to anything but a limited role for women in the armed forces.
Thus in one move, Trump and Hegseth have reintroduced segregation into the highest military ranks, sending the signal that they consider leadership by a black man and a woman to be “woke” and illegitimate. At the same time, by firing the Judge Advocate Generals, they have removed potential obstacles who provide safeguards against the services carrying out unlawful orders.
Trump wants to put in place officials throughout the government who are loyal to him and supportive of MAGA, and this includes military leadership, which has historically been apolitical and nonpartisan, just as career civil servants have been. Trump and Elon Musk are trying to “clean house” and remove any sufficiently senior official they do not believe is loyal to Trump and MAGA. Trump signed an executive order on January 20 that reclassifies what is expected to be tens of thousands of nonpolitical/nonpartisan government jobs as political appointments so that he can fire anyone who might resist Trump priorities, which at this time consist of unconstitutional or illegal actions to impound Congressionally appropriated funds, eliminate agencies and programs, and fire federal employees.
The public firing of these top military officers is a rare thing in the United States. There have been two widely known such actions in the past, though they did not involve firing any of the Joint Chiefs. General Douglas MacArthur was fired after a distinguished career in the U.S. military, leading the United States and allied forces against Japan during World War II. MacArthur then served as military governor of Japan, and later led the U.S. and UN forces in the Korean War. During the war he made public remarks differing with President Truman’s policy, which the president saw as insubordinate. The President relieved MacArthur of command, but only after the Joint Chiefs had reviewed the case and had more or less given him the green light to fire him (Truman also consulted with his Vice President, the cabinet, the Speaker of the House, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court about firing MacArthur – they all agreed that Truman should take such action). A similar case occurred when President Obama fired General Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, because of critical remarks about President Obama that he gave in a magazine interview. This was a big step for President Obama, but it was a strong case.
Firing the six officers last week last was nothing like these two cases. None of these officers did anything out of line in her or his job, and indeed made every effort to be as professional and nonpolitical as possible. What it happening is the deliberate politicization of America’s nonpartisan, professional military, and it will have negative consequences for American and global security. As Congressman Smith said in his comment on the firings, “All of this continues to play into the hands of Vladimir Putin and others working to exploit the weakness Trump continues to broadcast and undermine the military, and our government, our national security interests, and democracy worldwide. It is nothing but weakening for America.”
Indeed, one wonders who Trump and Hegseth, and Musk as well, are working for. Hegseth has announced that the Department of Defense (DOD) will cut eight percent of the military budget every year for the next five years, which amounts to a total cut of 35 percent. So they will cut the military budget significantly, while ousting officers who rose through the ranks based on their performance and replacing them with people whose major attribute is going to be seen as their political loyalty. At the same time, Donald Trump recently stated that Ukraine started the war with Russia, and that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is a dictator. This is rhetoric that is identical to the that of Vladmir Putin. Trump also directed the United States to vote in the UN against a resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Joining the United States in this vote was North Korea and Belarus. Considering the words and deeds of the President and his team, it seems that the American government is now joining the side of the very countries whose foreign policies have been opposed to U.S. interests. Russia’s advance into Ukraine and its threats to Europe now appear to be the goals of the American government. This change will also serve Chinese advances in the South China Sea and elsewhere, as the United States weakens its military strength, making itself and its allies more vulnerable.
The American people are catching on to the terrible things that the Trump administration is doing. A recent poll reported that 57 percent of the American people believe that Trump has exceeded his authority in what he and his followers are doing, an very high figure for a new president. Critics of the administration expressed their concern over the direction that Trump is taking the country, saying that Elon Musk is being allowed to dismantle important government programs. This of course would include what is happening to the Defense Department. Trump says he believes he has a mandate to do what he is doing, but the poll numbers dispute that this is so.
America’s NATO allies are also increasingly worried about the direction of American policy under Trump, and increasingly vocal. When Vice President J.D. Vance gave a speech at the Munich Security Conference in which he questioned European nations’ approach to democracy, suggesting that they were suppressing free speech and targeting right wing parties that sound and act a lot like Trump and MAGA, the German Defense Minister replied, “I am a staunch ally and friend of America…and this is why I cannot just ignore what we heard before.” He stated that Vance “compares the condition of Europe with the condition that prevails in some authoritarian regimes…This is not acceptable.” The Defense Minister concluded by saying that he “explicitly contradict[s] and oppose[s]” Vance’s remarks.
The President of France has also voiced his differences with the Trump administration. When Emmanuel Macron visited the White House on Feb. 25, he tried to walk a fine line to avoid antagonizing the American president, but he publicly corrected Trump in their joint press conference, saying that Trump made an inaccurate statement when he cited figures for European and American aid to Ukraine. Macron also suggested that Trump “be careful” in negotiations with Russia that don’t include other members of NATO or Ukraine. These differences between U.S. and European foreign policy are likely to grow wider, and leaders such as Macron and incoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz have openly spoken of the need to develop a more robust European security posture that is autonomous from and less dependent on the United States.
The policies and the objectives of Donald Trump are coming into even clearer view, in case anyone has missed them thus far. Trump identifies more with the power and unaccountability of authoritarian leaders who seek to cement control at home, and who want to deal with each other in treating the nations of the world like pieces on a chessboard. Part of this effort involves Trump transforming government agencies and the power they possess into servants of him personally. It is not only the purge of the military that serves this goal, but that of the FBI, which is being led Kash Patel and his soon-to-be deputy Dan Bognino, neither of whom has ever worked at the FBI and have been known instead largely for spending their time praising Trump, while pushing conspiracy theories about the Democrats, the FBI, and the “deep state” they say has taken over the federal government. The purge of FBI agents began even before Patel was installed as FBI Director, and it can be expected to intensify, replacing a force of professional, nonpartisan agents sworn to protect and serve the public with agents who will be understood by Trump, Patel, and the public as individuals selected primarily for their political loyalty.
More importantly, agencies like the DoD and the FBI are entities in which the government can employ force in a way that few other departments can. By seeking to bend the military and law enforcement to be his own Praetorian Guard (as the Roman Emperors used to call it), Trump is on a path to ensure that the American government protects and serves him and him alone. This is a path that authoritarians have taken all over the world. It is a mistake to assume that it cannot happen here.