Several residents in my condo work in the Pentagon or are in the Navel. They have complained to me that Sec Hegseth has fired some of the most outstanding Generals in our military. I asked Walter Slocombe, who was the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy during the Clinton Administration, what he thought about that. Here is his reply.
“Re firings. The military like other huge complex organizations is shaped by its top leadership and civilian control includes choosing top level promotions. And it’s legitimate for the Secretary of Defense to pick officers partly on the basis of whether he believes candidate shares his policy views.
“That said it is dangerous to make these choices largely on that factor. The risk is great of incubating political cliques in the associated with parties or individual politicians. (I had the impression the Bundeswehr had some of this.)
“Moreover its important the top leadership feel free to be candid with the civilians (while being equally committed to execute decisions once made.) Hegseth goes way over the line in prioritizing loyalty.
“In addition he apparently believes virtually any woman or minority in a senior job is a “DEI hire.” That means the senior officers will be even more heavily white than is now the case. It seems clear that Hegseth systematically rejects recommendation for promotions of non-white males.
“Principles aside going in that direction that ignores the very real facts about the demography of the military–30% of enlisted are Black and 18% are Hispanic. But only 25% of officers are black or Hispanic. And only 11% of generals and admirals are minorities or Hispanic. That disparity inevitably affects perspectives in the force. It’s not that officers % must exactly match enlisted but that explicit discrimination is very bad for morale.”
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