War Secretary Pete Hegseth is moving forward with a massive shakeup of military leadership, restructuring top commands and moving the U.S. focus away from Europe and the Middle East, according to a report out Monday.
Five sources with knowledge of the matter told The Washington Post the Pentagon is set to consolidate U.S. Central Command in the Middle East, U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command into a new larger combatant command, the U.S. International Command. Other commands would be similarly consolidated, reducing the total number of combatant commands from 11 to eight. The intended restructuring is designed both to reduce the number of admirals and four star generals and refocus the U.S. military on the Indo-Pacific and Western Hemisphere, according to the sources.
The plan would be one of the most significant changes to the military’s upper echelons in decades, and the move would bring the Pentagon more directly in line with the administration’s refocusing of priorities in the recently released National Security Strategy.
“As a matter of Department of War policy, we will not comment on leaked documents that we cannot authenticate and rumored internal discussions, as well as specifics of architectural discussion or pre-decisional matters,” a War Department official told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Beyond this, any insinuation there is a divide within the Department is completely false – everyone in the Department is working to achieve the same goal under this administration.”
The Post also reports the proposal was crafted under supervision by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, at Hegseth’s request. Caine will also be sharing two alternate proposals on potential restructures.
Hegseth has been looking for ways to reduce the number of four star generals in the Armed Forces, which has roughly the same amount of generals now as during World War II.
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