'This is just disarray': alarm inside Pentagon after Hegseth staff purges

[Uncle Joe]

Insiders portray defense secretary as increasingly isolated after officers with impeccable reputations forced out



Since Donald Trump’s first term, they have been viewed comfortingly as the “adults in the room,” a last line of defense against the impulsive whims of a president with access to the nuclear codes.

Now – after an unprecedented wave of firings that has been compared by some to Stalin’s purges – the Pentagon top brass no longer seem like such a reliable bulwark.

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Military analysts say Hegseth’s recent firings dovetail with plans spelled out in Project 2025, the radical blueprint drawn up by the rightwing Heritage Foundation that has closely guided Trump’s second-term policies.

“It talked about an officer purge and going after the so-called woke officers at the senior level,” said Paul Eaton, a retired army major-general who commanded US forces after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. “They want to create ideologically pure armed forces that will be pliant to the president and his secretary of defense and whose oath will be more to a person than to the constitution.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/03/pentagon-pete-hegseth-us-military