Fired ex-Joint Chiefs chairman warns against politicizing the military in new essay
by The Washington Times AI News Desk · The Washington TimesA retired four-star general fired by President Trump last year has published an essay warning that presidents who lean on the armed forces to settle politically charged domestic disputes risk damaging the institution itself, as the administration continues a broader shake-up of the Pentagon’s senior ranks.
Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before Mr. Trump removed him in February 2025, co-authored the essay with Duke University political scientist Peter Feaver and North Carolina attorney Andrew Kragie in Foreign Affairs, tracing the relationship between the military and civilian government from the nation’s founding to the present.
Though the essay does not name Mr. Trump or Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, its timing left little doubt about its target. The piece was published Friday, days after Gen. Brown told an audience at the Aspen Institute that the administration’s recent removals of senior officers were not based on qualifications.
“What is starting to happen now, it is not about merit,” Gen. Brown said at the June 27 discussion on civil-military relations, according to Newsweek. “All of these people who are being removed are very well experienced.”
The authors argue that the military must “protect the respect that it has earned from American society by scrupulously following all lawful orders and by demonstrating every day that it is nonpartisan,” adding that service members honor their oath “not to a particular party or political leader but to the Constitution itself.”
On the question of domestic deployments, the essay states that while Americans welcome the military’s help during a genuine disaster, the calculus changes when the armed forces are assigned “more politically contentious missions, such as addressing domestic crime in cities.” Resorting to a military solution rather than fixing dysfunction in civilian institutions, the authors write, “diverts the military from focusing on its primary combat mission,” and they invoke George Washington in warning that “it is not the military’s job to save the republic from political impasses.”
The essay lands amid the administration’s deployment of National Guard troops to several Democrat-led cities, including Washington, and its ongoing overhaul of Pentagon leadership. Since returning to office, Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth have removed or pushed out a series of senior officers, most recently Gen. Chris Donahue, who resigned this week as the top U.S. Army commander in Europe, according to a Newsweek report.
Gen. Brown’s own removal came a little over a month into Mr. Trump’s second term. The president announced the move on Truth Social, thanking Gen. Brown for “his over 40 years of service” and calling him “a fine gentleman and an outstanding leader,” even as he named Lt. Gen. Dan Caine to replace him, according to a Defense Scoop report on the personnel shake-up. Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to serve as chief of naval operations, and Gen. James Slife, then the Air Force’s vice chief of staff, were dismissed the same day.
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Mr. Hegseth had called for Gen. Brown’s removal even before his own confirmation as defense secretary, telling the “Shawn Ryan Show” in November 2024 that “you’ve got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs” and that “any general that was involved — general, admiral, whatever — that was involved in any of that DEI woke [expletive] has got to go,” a remark documented by NPR’s coverage of the firing.
Mr. Trump had nominated Gen. Brown as Air Force chief of staff in 2020, at the time praising him as the “first-ever African-American military service chief” and “a Patriot and Great Leader.” President Biden later elevated him to the Joint Chiefs chairmanship in 2023.
The Pentagon pushed back on Gen. Brown’s essay Friday. Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell wrote on X that Gen. Brown had “helped champion divisive COVID-19 vaccine mandates that purged thousands of capable service members” and “stood by” as diversity, equity and inclusion trainings “elevated identity over merit,” according to Newsweek’s report on the exchange. Mr. Hegseth, Mr. Parnell said, “has restored an apolitical warrior ethos by eliminating DEI bureaucracies, refocusing leaders on lethality and standards, and empowering commanders to prioritize combat excellence over ideology.”
The Pentagon has defended the broader wave of personnel changes as a matter of the president’s prerogative.
“General officers and flag officers serve at the pleasure of the president and the secretary of war,” Mr. Parnell said. “They always have and always will.”
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The debate over the removals has drawn some Republican criticism as well. Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, a former Air Force brigadier general, said on CNN last weekend that the dismissals had “politicized the process unnecessarily,” and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina has separately criticized Mr. Hegseth’s handling of senior leadership changes.
This article was constructed with the assistance of artificial intelligence and published by a member of The Washington Times' AI News Desk team. The contents of this report are based solely on The Washington Times' original reporting, wire services, and/or other sources cited within the report. For more information, please read our AI policy or contact Steve Fink, Director of Artificial Intelligence, at sfink@washingtontimes.com
The Washington Times AI Ethics Newsroom Committee can be reached at aispotlight@washingtontimes.com.