Defense Secretary Hegseth recently did much to reform our bloated military hierarchy when he recently directed a 30 percent reduction in the number of four-star general and flag officers (GO/FOs) of which there are currently 38. He left the decision of which billets and FO/GOs to eliminate up to the services and the Joint Staff. This bloat has gone on too long and has done nothing to improve the efficiency or effectiveness of our armed forces.

At one point in Afghanistan, we had more FO/GOs in that small country than we did in all the theaters during World War II. Fat lot of good it did; we still lost.

That reduction is a good start, but much remains to be done. The next step in reducing the bloat would be to order a 30 percent reduction in the number of personnel assigned to joint staffs, but Mr. Hegseth will need help with that because it would conflict with the Goldwater-Nichols (G-N) legislation that mandates officers hoping for GO/FO selection to spend three years on a joint staff. That started the bloat in the first place. Consequently, Congress would need to reform the G-N “reforms.”

Predictably, MSNBC squealed like a stuck pig when the initial reductions were announced, claiming the 16 four-stars and their staffs that will be lost would damage U.S. military readiness. There are two words to answer that … Iraq and Afghanistan.