A purge in the United States army
Since Pete Hegseth was appointed Secretary of Defense of the United States, a name that would later change to Secretary of War, he has dismissed more than a dozen high-ranking military officials, including several four-star generals. The latest case occurred this very Friday, when Hegseth forced the early retirement of the chief of staff of the army, Randy George, right in the middle of the Iran war. But Trump and Hegseth's purge of the military goes back much further, to the beginning of their term, so they have ended up shaping a tailor-made military leadership.
The first to fall was Air Force General Charles Q. Brown, who was also the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; followed by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to command the Navy; General James C. Slife, Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force; as well as the principal legal advisors of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Shortly thereafter, all were replaced by new figures, such as Dan Caine, who is now the highest military authority after Hegseth and Trump. Despite all this, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have shown a certain independence, and it has been leaked that they advised against initiating the attack on Iran.
When talking about military purges, it is quite common to refer to the one carried out by Stalin in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, an event that all historians agree was disastrous at the time of the Nazi invasion in 1941. American defense analysts point out that the United States military may now be paying Iran the price for all these dismissals, as experience and military intelligence have been lost. The United States military is now facing one of the most significant challenges in its recent history, which is how to coexist with a president who disdains intelligence reports and, as he himself says, is guided by his instinct. However, the course of the war has made it quite clear that there has been a great lack of strategic planning and that Trump and Hegseth are now in a deadlock.
Meanwhile, in recent days there have also been dismissals in other areas of the United States government. First it was the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, responsible for immigrant deportations, and now Pam Bondi, the Attorney General –a position akin to Minister of Justice–, who allegedly did not make enough effort to cover up the Epstein files scandal. The American press predicts that there could be even more dismissals of sensitive positions in the coming days. All of this highlights the nervousness reigning in the White House, with the president's approval ratings at rock bottom due to the price increase caused by the war and with the midterm elections on the horizon.
The danger is that a cornered Trump could be even more dangerous. Both for the world and for the United States itself.