There Are Far Too Many Generals and Admirals In The U.S. Military Today
By Royal A. Brown III
During WWII where more U.S. military were deployed than in any other modern war, the ratio of Flag Officers (Generals/Admirals) to troops (subordinates) was approx. 1 for each 6,000. In today’s too top heavy military that ratio is approximately 1 to 600. Far too many of todays Flag Officers are woke careerists who are more politicians/managers than warriors/leaders. Perfect examples include LTG Clapper (USAF-Ret) former DNI; Admiral McRaven (former SOCOM Cdr); Gen Mark Milley (former Chair Joint Chiefs Staff); Gen LLoyd Austin (current SOD); Gen CQ Brown (current Chair JCS); VAdmiral John Kirby (National Security Communications Advisor); Admiral Michael Gilday (former Chief of Naval Operations) and many, many more.
The U.S. Code explicitly limits the total number of four-star officers that may be on active duty at any given time. The total number of active-duty general or flag officers is capped at 219 for the Army, 150 for the Navy, 171 for the Air Force, 64 for the Marine Corps, and 21 for the Space Force.
NOTE: A notable exception is Senator Tommy Tuberville of Georgia who, to his credit, blocked a blanket approval of all for promotion requiring Flag Officer to be approved individually.
Please read the article titled Yes, US generals should be fired by Steve Deal below to understand.
Yes, US generals should be fired
We need a ‘Marshall moment’ to reform the military’s leadership selection system — before it’s too late
Steve Deal, Jan 08, 2025
In October 1939, just one month after he took over as Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall famously winnowed the ranks of hidebound senior officers to prepare for war. “Most of them have their minds set in outmoded patterns,” Marshall told his leadership team, “and can’t change to meet the new conditions they may face if we become involved in the war that started in Europe.”
Every democracy since a defeated Athens has pruned its senior leaders proven inadequate to the demands of their respective era – often more painful than mere public shame. Ours may be the only era when an entire general and admiralty class — more than 80% of which gain employment in the defense sector after retirement — has been consistently rewarded with lucre and prestige for losing.
With two failed wars and scores of weapons acquisition fiascoes now secured in history’s dustbin, many may fear that virtue itself has been swept from the floor. Mainstream deference to “self-serving delusion” has sustained an unearned and stunting faith in a senior leadership selection system made hollow by long-past assumptions.
Therefore, Secretary of Defense-designate Pete Hegseth’s impassioned plea to focus upon the people who serve and his condemnation of a self-perpetuating, class-creating leadership system may, if we can look past the vitriol of our day, herald our very own Marshall moment to deter war rather than to fight one.
First, most Americans do not realize that the competitive promotion board system for our military, as defined by law, ends after two-star selection. All three and four-star officers are thus political appointees — in every sense. No selection board convenes to nominate them to the Secretary, President, or Congress. So who culls the anointed from the herd? It falls to each uniformed service chief to manage an ever-shrinking, hermetically-sealed talent pool, presenting a goldilocks-like offering of options to the civilian Secretary who will then forward recommendations to the Secretary of Defense. The products of those selections, when confirmed by the Senate, will often outlast their civilian masters in duration of service. The long-term stakes of national security couldn’t be higher.
The Senate rarely applies intense scrutiny to the lists of future three-star officers before them for confirmation. A clear signal of systemic dysfunction was the outcry across senior military and mainstream media leaders for the holds exercised by Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama. Even after a storied history of senior officer failures, most valued in the end was the replication of and deference to an established hierarchy, and certainly not the effectiveness of the hierarchy selection system itself.
Hegseth is also not wrong when he accuses a senior officer class of self-serving political machinations which often disregard warfighting realities. Yes, senior rank structure past and present is required for the legal execution of the necessary battle captaincy of war. But it is the very nature of political competition for promotion at the highest levels where leaders often first stray from their virtuous origins. The philosophical descent from the battlefield to the polis can be morally treacherous for all who tread there, and especially for the battlefield’s gods who soon enough prove all too human.
Officers protected from prosecution even when found guilty of embezzlement are often the same ones who are the most ready to end much more youthful careers, rather than to stand and support them.
Reinforcing the above debilitating dynamic are the press and leaders who believe that an effective uniformed meritocracy still exists. Often the first time many of today’s elite civilian socioeconomic class mixes with the military occurs at the most senior levels. And the latter feel if they had left service earlier or earlier enjoyed their counterparts’ privileges, they too naturally would have risen as leaders of the corporate world. Pursuit of positions in the same industries that supported them in uniform is merely considered their just due.
This mutual reinforcement reaches its apogee when our most senior military leaders believe they are speaking publicly for the good of the nation, in concert with their newly joined class. They may even attempt to lead-turn the electorate by using their institutionally supported platform to trumpet policies that resonate with their own experiences while also pleasing their political masters’ desires, further ensuring their rise and importance.
A picture book of “firsts” thus replaces victories on the battlefield in the minds of power brokers who measure such selections, however fairly won, as an accretion to even greater power themselves.
AUTHOR
Steve Deal
Steve Deal, Captain, U.S. Navy (Ret.) served as deputy chief of staff to the Secretary of the Navy and deputy chief learning officer for the Department of the Navy. During his twenty-seven years on active duty, he commanded Patrol Squadron Forty-Seven, in Ali Air Base, Iraq; Joint Provincial Reconstruction Team Khost, Afghanistan; and Patrol and Reconnaissance Wing Ten in Whidbey Island, Washington.
©2025 Royal A. Brown III. All rights reserved.

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