Senior Pentagon officials are preparing a plan to downgrade several of the U.S. military’s major headquarters and shift the balance of power among its top generals, in a major consolidation sought by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, people familiar with the matter said.
If adopted, the plan would usher in some of the most significant changes at the military’s highest ranks in decades, in part following through on Hegseth’s promise to break the status quo and slash the number of four-star generals in the military. It would reduce in prominence the headquarters of U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command, and U.S. Africa Command by placing them under the control of a new organization known as U.S. International Command, according to five people familiar with the matter.
Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine is expected to detail the proposal, which had not previously been reported, for Hegseth in the coming days. Such moves would complement other efforts by the administration to shift resources from the Middle East and Europe and focus foremost on expanding military operations in the Western Hemisphere, these people said. Like others interviewed for this report, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the effort before it is conveyed to the secretary.
Hegseth’s team said in a statement that it would not comment on “rumored internal discussions” or “pre-decisional matters.” Any insinuation that there is a divide among officials over the issue is “completely false — everyone in the Department is working to achieve the same goal under this administration,” the statement said.
The Pentagon has shared few, if any, details with Congress, a lack of communication that has perturbed members of the Republican-led Senate and House Armed Services Committees, according to two people familiar with how the panels have prepared for the proposal. Top officers at the commands involved are awaiting more details as well, officials said.
The plan also calls for realigning U.S. Southern Command and U.S. Northern Command, which oversee military operations throughout the Western Hemisphere, under a new headquarters to be known as U.S. Americas Command, or Americom, people familiar with the matter said. That concept was reported earlier this year by NBC News.
Pentagon officials also discussed creating a U.S. Arctic Command that would report to Americom, but that idea appears to have been abandoned, people familiar with the matter said.
Combined, the moves would reduce the number of top military headquarters — known as combatant commands — from 11 to eight while cutting the number of four-star generals and admirals who report directly to Hegseth. Other remaining combatant commands would be U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, U.S. Cyber Command, U.S. Special Operations Command, U.S. Space Command, U.S. Strategic Command, and U.S. Transportation Command.
Those familiar with the plan said it aligns with the Trump administration’s national security strategy, released this month, which declares that the “days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over.”
The proposal was organized by the Pentagon’s Joint Staff under the supervision of Caine, and is due to be shared with Hegseth as soon as this week as the preferred course of action among senior military officials. It grew from a request made by Hegseth in the spring to look for ways to improve how troops are commanded and controlled, a senior defense official familiar with the discussion said, adding that Hegseth has kept in touch with Caine about the issue over the last several months.
Any changes would need the approval of Hegseth and President Donald Trump. The moves would come in the Pentagon’s Unified Command Plan, which lays out the roles of the military’s major headquarters.
Lawmakers have taken the extraordinary step of requiring the Pentagon to submit a detailed blueprint that describes the realignment’s potential costs and impacts on America’s alliances. The measure, included in Congress’ annual defense policy bill, would withhold money to enact the effort until at least 60 days after the Pentagon provides lawmakers with those materials.
The bill has cleared the House and is expected to pass the Senate this week.
The senior defense official said the proposed realignment is meant to speed decision-making and adaptation among military commanders. “Decay” had been observed in how the U.S. military commands and controls troops, he added, suggesting that the need for sweeping change is urgent.
“Time ain’t on our side, man,” the senior defense official said, describing internal conversations around the plan. “The saying here is, ‘If not us, who, and if not now, when?’”
The potential reorganization comes as Hegseth has begun broader efforts to cull the number of generals and admirals across the military. He also has fired or otherwise forced out more than 20 senior officers, threatened others with polygraph tests to determine whether they have leaked information to the news media, and told those remaining that if they do not like the administration’s policies they should “do the honorable thing and resign.”
Chuck Hagel, who served as defense secretary during the Obama administration and as a Republican member of the Senate before that, expressed concerns about the Trump administration’s ambitions. There are different dynamics, needs, and security threats throughout the globe, he said.
“The world isn’t getting any less complicated,” Hagel said in an interview. “You want commands that have the capability of heading off problems before they become big problems, and I think you lose some of that when you unify or consolidate too many.”
Senior military officials considered about two dozen other concepts, the senior defense official said. At least one discussion called for a reduction to six total combatant commands. Under that plan, Special Operations Command, Space Command, and Cyber Command would be downgraded and placed under the control of a new U.S. Global Command, said other officials familiar with the discussion.
Caine is expected to share at least two other courses of action with Hegseth, people familiar with the matter said. One concept calls for creating two commands to house all of the others, with all major geographic organizations such as Central Command and European Command placed under the control of an entity that would be called Operational Command. Other major headquarters, such as Transportation Command and Space Command, would fall under an organization called Support Command.
One proposal suggested the creation of a new headquarters unit, Joint Task Force War, to be based at the Pentagon. It would focus on planning and strategy when the United States was not at war, and be capable of controlling forces anywhere in the world when there was a conflict, people familiar with the matter said.
The idea didn’t “test well” in exercises with military officials and appears unlikely to be adopted, the senior defense official said. Top military officials expressed concerns that such an organization would not possess the same regional expertise and relationships inherent to the military’s current construct.
Even if you have “some of your best people” in such a task force, the senior official said, “you don’t have a fingertip feel” for what is occurring in a region. A second official said it seemed “very confusing” to have top commanders in a region prepare for a conflict there, only to hand those plans over to another commander when something occurred.
Another plan sought to reorganize the military by domain, with operations organized and led by whether they occurred on land or in air, sea, space, or cyberspace, people familiar with the matter said. The idea had supporters in the Space Force but had few other proponents, people familiar with the matter said. It also limited the Marine Corps’ influence, with it falling under the control of the Navy Department even as the other branches of service were elevated.
Military officials involved in the reorganization effort also considered whether to elevate the chairman’s role to allow him to command forces, rather than serving as the senior military adviser to both the president and the defense secretary. That could have occurred through the Joint Task Force War framework, two officials said, but the concept seemed murky.
The idea also could have been complicated by the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, landmark legislation that reorganized the military and defined the chairman’s role. Under the law, the chairman is considered the “principal” military adviser to the president, the defense secretary, and other senior officials. Operations are controlled through a chain of command that runs from combatant commanders to the defense secretary and then to the president.
