What's documented

Since taking office, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired or sidelined more than a dozen senior military officers. The list includes the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the chief of naval operations, the Air Force vice chief of staff, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and — in April 2026 — the Army's chief of staff.

Several of those firings happened while the U.S. was at war with Iran.

Separately, a speech Hegseth gave in Brussels in June 2026 has strained relations with two of America's closest allies.

The firings

Gen. C.Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations, both went early in the administration. So did Gen. James Slife, the Air Force vice chief of staff, and Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, who ran the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Then April 2026. Hegseth fired Gen. Randy George, the Army's chief of staff. In the same stretch he fired Gen. David Hodne, who ran the Army's Transformation and Training Command, and Maj. Gen. William Green, the Army's chief of chaplains. The U.S. was actively at war with Iran at the time.

Axios reported that the timing of the George firing stunned current and former officials. One called it "insane," given the war. Axios also reported that two U.S. officials told the outlet George was fired over clashing personalities with Hegseth — not over any disagreement about where the Army was headed.

Newsweek reported that the firings have worried lawmakers in both parties. Some are asking whether there should be a legal limit on a defense secretary's power to remove senior officers mid-term.

Five former defense secretaries object

Five people who have held Hegseth's job wrote to Congress together. They called the firings "reckless" and asked for immediate hearings on what the firings mean for national security.

The five: William Perry, Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis, and Lloyd Austin. They served Republican and Democratic presidents both. Mattis was Trump's own first defense secretary.

Their letter says the firings "raise troubling questions about the administration's desire to politicize the military and to remove legal constraints on the President's power." It singles out the removal of the Joint Chiefs chairman, arguing it may break what Congress intended when it set that job's four-year term.

They also asked the Senate to hold off confirming any replacements until Congress reviews the reason given for each firing.

The NATO strain

In June 2026, Hegseth told NATO defense ministers in Brussels that the U.S. would review its troop levels and bases in Europe. The review could run six months. He framed it as making NATO "what it was always supposed to be, a balanced alliance."

He also criticized allies who wouldn't let the U.S. use shared bases for strikes connected to the Iran war.

Separately, on June 3, the U.S. signaled it would stop committing specific hardware to European crisis response: an aircraft carrier and its support ships, aerial refueling planes, and dozens of fighter jets.

The fallout has strained relations with two allied leaders in particular — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Merz answered the criticism publicly: "Germany is doubling its defense budget within four years. This is the greatest effort we have ever made to strengthen our defense capabilities. In this respect, we have no reason to shy away from anyone."

What this piece is not saying

No single firing here was illegal, as far as this piece can tell. The defense secretary has broad legal power over military personnel. We aren't claiming any one dismissal broke the law.

Three things are documented. They stand on their own, whatever you make of the personnel calls:

  • a lot of senior officers removed during a war
  • a joint objection from five people who have held the job, under both parties
  • a breakdown with two NATO allies, after the defense secretary's own public remarks

We're also not saying the firings and the NATO trouble are two symptoms of one problem with Hegseth's judgment or temperament. They share a backdrop — the firings happened during the Iran war, and the Brussels friction grew partly out of wartime base access. That shared timing is a real fact. But shared timing isn't shared cause. This piece reports what happened in each. It isn't claiming they're one story.

What can I do?

Read the five secretaries' letter yourself, not a summary. It's a public document, and its main legal argument — about the Joint Chiefs chairman's four-year term — is a checkable claim about the law, not just an opinion.

Watch what Congress does, not what it says. The five asked for hearings. They asked the Senate to pause replacement nominations. Whether either actually happens is a fact you can track, no matter what you think of the firings.

If you want oversight, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have direct authority over both the firings and the NATO review. One specific, answerable question: has the administration given Congress the justification for each firing that the five former secretaries asked for?

The Receipts