Braxton Taylor
‘Friday night massacre’
In an unprecedented purge of top officers, President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday announced the dismissal of Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs; and their intent to replace Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations; and the judge advocates general—essentially the top lawyers—of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Hegseth was also reported to have fired his senior military assistant, Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short. Defense One’s Audrey Decker and Bradley Peniston have more, here.
Hegseth had targeted Brown in November, saying on a podcast, “First of all, you gotta fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs” for carrying out Biden administration DEI policies, he said. “That’s the only litmus test we care about.” But when the Fox host-turned-defense secretary arrived at the Pentagon last month, he professed satisfaction with Brown and indicated that he was looking forward to working with him.
He had also criticized Franchetti, saying in his most recent book that she lacked combat experience. Her four-decade career included command of two carrier battle groups and jobs as the Navy’s strategy director and leader of warfighting development.
The JAGs will be replaced by people who won’t “attempt to be roadblocks…to anything that happens,” Hegseth said on a Sunday morning Fox show.
Expert reax: “The JAG firings are actually more worrisome than the senior officer reliefs, because everyone two-star and above serves at the pleasure of the President, but reaching down into the organization to remove the legal constraints is far more insidious,” said Kori Schake, a civilian-military relations expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
“It’s what you do when you’re planning to break the law: you get rid of any lawyers who might try to slow you down,” said Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown Law professor and scholar at West Point’s Modern War Institute.
For what it’s worth, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board feels very differently about the JAG firings, and describes them as the “least concerning” of Hegseth and Trump’s Friday-night firings. “The JAG corps has had embarrassing prosecutorial mistakes in recent years,” the board wrote in an especially brief note on the topic, which added only, “In rules of engagement, they now can lean too far toward risk elimination over mission success.”
Additional reax: “I am shocked that, once again, Republicans on the Armed Services Committees are accepting this…accepting these firings, instead of being upset, outraged,” said Charles Stevenson, lecturer at School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University and author of SECDEF: The Nearly Impossible Job of Secretary of Defense.
“It may take actual cuts in the military,” said Stevenson. For example, “If the DOGE team comes in and says, ‘You really have to get rid of 15% or 20% of your current budget and not just shift it to things you like,’ that should provoke some kind of reaction from the Congressional Republicans who are on defense. But maybe it takes a hit in the budget for them to realize that Hegseth is not doing what they thought.”
Former SecAF Kendall: “America Has a Rogue President,” the recently departed Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall wrote in the opinion section of the New York Times on Monday.
A “Friday night massacre” is what several news outlets, lawmakers and commentators dubbed the announcement, alluding to Richard Nixon’s efforts to squelch the Watergate scandal in 1973.
Nominated to replace Brown: John Caine, a retired Air Force three-star with deep special-operations experience. Here’s his official bio and a profile by CNN; Reuters explores how Trump came to pick him.
Caine lacks experience for the job that is required by law: service as the vice chairman, a combatant commander, or a service chief. But the president can grant a waiver if “such action is necessary in the national interest.”
What his selection as CJCS may mean: Some in the U.S. national security community see a possible Trump bid for more covert action and less oversight, former military and senior defense officials told Defense One’s Patrick Tucker.
One former senior White House official said Trump picked Caine for his experience and talent running clandestine operations, his understanding of expanded authorities, and the personal rapport that developed between the men during Trump’s first term as president. But some see in Caine’s nomination—along with the ousters of the JAGs and the SecDef’s military advisor and Trump’s own record—a bid to evade legal strictures on the president’s use of military force.
One former defense official said that Trump appears to want to rely far less on traditional large-force deployments, in part because such deployments require congressional oversight and approval. New authorizations for the use of force are unlikely, the official said. Read on, here.
Gen. CQ Brown’s farewell message to troops: “I was inspired to serve by my father, who told me, ‘Four years in the military will not hurt you,’” the general wrote on LinkedIn this weekend. “Four years turned into four decades, surrounded by the finest service members and civilians from across our Nation. Every day you have inspired me. It has been my distinct honor to conclude my career as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As Chairman, I focused on Warfighting, Modernization, and Trust. The Joint Force’s commitment to our security has never been more critical. I’m confident you will continue to stand resolute in defense of our Nation. Sharene and I wish you and your families all the best. Thanks for your leadership.”
Welcome to this Monday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day three years ago, Vladimir Putin launched the Russian military’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine; but poor planning, logistical considerations, and an aborted landing at a key airport forced Putin’s generals to alter those plans, eventually settling their current approach: an incrementally growing occupation of the country, extending out from Russian-occupied eastern and southern Ukrainian territory.
Trump 2.0
About 5,400 Defense Department employees will lose their jobs this week, the first cuts in what will ultimately be a five-to-eight-percent reduction of the civilian workforce, a Pentagon official said Friday.
The cost-saving goal was announced in a statement released by Darin Selnick, who is temporarily serving as DOD’s personnel chief. The department employed 764,000 civilians as of June 2024, according to Office of Personnel Management data, which means more than 61,000 people could lose their jobs, Defense One’s Meghann Myers reports. According to Selnick, the first 5,400 to lose their job will be “probationary employees,” which, generally speaking, concerns people who have been promoted, shifted to a new job, or hired within the past year. Such workers have fewer civil-service protections.
After those firings, the Pentagon will institute a hiring freeze, then launch a “top-to-bottom” review of its civilian personnel needs, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in an eight-minute video posted Thursday evening. In his video, Hegseth insisted the initial firings will only hit “underperformers.” However, Myers notes, Selnick’s statement does not mention performance as part of the firing considerations. Read on, here.
New: Federal workers have sued over Elon Musk’s threat to fire them if they don’t explain their accomplishments, WTOP reported Monday morning. The workers in the suit called Musk’s threat “one of the most massive employment frauds in the history of this country,” AP reports.
Rewind: Musk’s threat was delivered Saturday via email to employees across the federal government, including military and intelligence officials. “Those who do not take this email seriously will soon be furthering their career elsewhere,” Musk wrote on social media after the email became public. “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” he said online, but notably not in the email itself.
Several agencies told employees to ignore the email. That includes the FBI, the State Department, Homeland Security and the Pentagon. But others, like the Department of Health and Human Services, ordered employees to comply.
Others had recommendations for employees performing work in confidential domains (e.g., responding “it’s classified”) while still others recommended a more corporate-themed response.
Related commentary: “Trump’s plan to slash the federal workforce isn’t the first, it’s just the worst,” Tom Shoop, the former editor-in-chief of Government Executive wrote last week.
On the horizon: Detaining migrants on U.S. military bases across the country, the New York Times reported Friday. The latest preferred destination is Fort Bliss, near El Paso, which could hold about 10,000 people according to current plans from the White House. “As of now, Trump administration officials say they are planning on using the bases as a holding facility before the immigrants can be deported,” the Times writes.
Beyond Fort Bliss, other sites are under consideration as well, including Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station in New York; Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey; Homestead Air Reserve Base in Florida; Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico; Buckley Space Force Base in Colorado; and Utah’s Hill Air Force Base. More, here.
Additional reading:
Pacific
The U.S. and India are launching a new alliance for autonomous systems, Defense One’s Lauren C. Williams reports. Details of the deal emerged after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited President Trump in Washington on Feb. 13 to discuss tariffs, technology, and energy and defense initiatives.
Known as the Autonomous Systems Industry Alliance, the agreement builds on an existing bilateral framework between India and the U.S., with the goal of increasing production of AI-driven autonomous systems in the Indo-Pacific region. But it’s not limited to drones; artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum, and biotechnology are also a component of this new agreement.
The two countries also announced plans to expand the India-U.S. Defense Acceleration Ecosystem, or INDUS-X, initiative launched under the Biden administration to tighten collaboration between the countries’ defense industrial bases and research institutions. The Trump administration’s follow-on effort, called INDUS Innovation, will continue that work with an emphasis in space, energy, and other tech areas, according to a joint statement. Read more, here.
Additional reading:
Etc.
Testing the Army’s new fighting strategy on Ukraine’s doorstep. This new Army framework is called Transforming in Contact, and it’s intended to speed up how quickly soldiers can buy and use new technology like off-the-shelf drones, instead of waiting years going through the Army’s traditional acquisition process.
Last week, we spoke with Army Col. Josh Glonek, who commands the 10th Mountain Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team. Glonek led one of three light infantry brigades trying this new strategy out. The 25th Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade did so in Hawaii, and the 101st Airborne Division ran its 2nd Brigade through the swamps of Louisiana.
Glonek’s troops operated in a forested, hilly, semi-mountainous region of Germany. And the terrain there yielded several interesting takeaways for the Army as it grapples with the challenges of electronic warfare, the difficulties of retaining a charge on drone batteries in extreme temperatures, how line-of-sight can limit the effectiveness of unmanned systems, and much more. Listen on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
And in the latest Ukraine developments:
Read the full article here