One to 6,000 vs. One to 1,400

"L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace!"

More than a few long-standing friends of mine have significant issues with SECDEF Hegseth that have merit. However, performance matters. I have to balance the weight their opinions have with me, with the SECDEF’s very real policies and actions.

How many times have we had “our people” whisper to us, “I agree this is a problem, but it is just impossible politically to take action. We’re trying, but it is just too hard.” etc.

Well, so many things we asked for but had deferred until the crack of doom, are being done. Give credit where credit is due. He is taking action—and not token action—where others were too afraid to go.

I have been writing long enough that there are some topics and issues I have hit on a regular basis for almost all that time. Regular readers like Sid, Byron, Mr. T’s Haircut and others who have been with us, blessedly, from the start, have read and commented on them so often, they probably can repeat them as well as I can.

Until very recently, some of them seemed like hopeless causes and pointless efforts, yet we persisted in dragging them out now and then from under the couch and talking about them. If I didn’t not mention the epoch defining changes, I would be doing the Front Porch a disservice.

Since the second Trump Administration has come into office, one action after another is being taken on systemic problems I thought would take a long time to correct, if ever. The top item is the broad and deep attack against DEI and the diversity industry’s cancerous presence.

Yesterday, the SECDEF went after two of them: our bloated and ineffective General Officer and Flag Officer (GOFO) cadre, and it looks like Goldwater-Nichols and COCOM reform.

Pinch me.

He didn’t just put out a memo, he sat down in a chair and told everyone personally.

I can’t find the official transcript, but below I will do my best to type it out. It is an informal video, as is SECDEF’s style. He did this without a teleprompter in what looks like one take. You can listen here via X, but here are my pull-quotes. I’m not going to be pedantic where he missed a few points about “General and Flag Officers” and a few others. He gets a mulligan:

This bumped what I was going to write about today for this reason … this is not just groundbreaking—this is one of the cornerstones of the reform I have been hoping for over two decades.

In WWII…we had a force 12 million strong. For that 12 million man element, we had 17 four and five star Generals (and Flag Officers). Today, we have 2.1 million servicemembers, with 44 four star (Generals and) Flag Officers).

It used to be a ration of one General to 6,000 troops. Today it is one General to 1,400.

…

There are two phases here:

• Phase 1: We are looking at our current service structure.

• Phase 2: A strategic review of our unified command plan.

Now, this is going to be, we think, the most comprohensive review since the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1986.

…The results of Phase 1 is a minimum 20% reduction in four star and Flag Officers for active duty elements, and a minimum 20% reduction of General and Flag Officers in the National Guard Bureau.

Phase 2 will produce a minimum of an additional 10% of General and Flag Officers throughout the DOD, in conjunction of a realignment of the Unified Command Plan.

Let’s go back to the OG Blog from 2006, 19 years ago, when I first broached the subject while still on active duty. It is so long ago that even the internet archive cannot find the links I have in it:

Goldwater-Nichols....that great Purple Monster...is it more of a problem or part of the solution? Admiral James A. Lyons, USN (ret.) in the Washington Times (can't find it on their site anymore, BZ to PoliticalOpinions for getting the txt prior to it rolling off the front page) makes some solid points.

The unhappy conclusion one must draw from an examination of the Joint Chiefs and the war in Iraq is that their historic function as the principal body providing military advice is defunct. The Joint Chiefs as a corporate body have become irrelevant. The chairman's role as it has now evolved seems more distant from the operating forces than ever. There is a real danger that the Joint Chiefs is careening toward the dreaded "general staff" syndrome, in which uniformity of view and ideological lock-step are more important than the no-holds-barred robust debate over tactical and strategic goals that lead to decisive victory.

It has been 20 years since Goldwater-Nichols was enacted. Now it's time to make a significant course correction. It is time for the Congress to step in and create an independent, free-thinking, committee that will bring the Joint Chiefs back into the mainstream. The 21st century demands a military that is nimble, proactive and aggressive and they are entitled to a Joint Chiefs of Staff whose individual members will stand up and be counted.

This needs to be looked at - hard. I know it has a clear ring to me. My follow-on question to Admiral Lyons is, "OK sir; when are you available to lead the initial review commission? Ideas to start?"

Check the archive at the OG Blog and here…I keep returning to the topic. It remains to what I have boiled down to three must haves for reform in DOD.

By 2022, it had reached a steady state:

• Root and branch replacement of our accretion-encumbered acquisition system.

• Repeal and replacement of Goldwater-Nichols.

• COCOM reform.

• …and as always, Joint delenda est.

What we need next is a thorough scrub of SES and a close look at those contractor positions that in the last decade have been converted into GS-15 positions. I would also argue that we have too many O6, Colonels and Navy Captains, but one step at a time.

I have heard no good pushback to this effort except by those retired GOFO who think that all junior officers who serve are like them and are motivated by the same series of incentives and disincentives that brought them to where they are.

Trust me…any Fleet Lieutenant who is already trying to position himself to be an Admiral—and we all served with those types—are not the ones you want to be an Admiral.

So, I will nod my head to the defendable critiques of SECDEF Hegseth…but I will also notice his actions in office on things I find important. Bold actions. Decisive actions. Actions deferred by others for far too long for the worst reasons.

As such, BZ SECDEF Hegseth. BZ.

There is more to do. More, faster.