Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired the Pentagon's most senior military planner, according to reports, marking the latest departure among the U.S. military's top brass that has raised worries that Hegseth is stripping the most capable commanders from the armed forces. Army Lieutenant General Brett Sylvia as the Joint Chiefs of Staff's strategy, planning and policy chief, the reported. The move comes as the Trump administration weighs restarting military operations against Iran, with no peace deal on the horizon to bring the eight months of war with Tehran to a close.
But U.S. officials are concerned that the conflict, for now ground to an effective halt, risks weakening U.S. power elsewhere and further depleting stockpiles of vital missiles, including expensive yet scarce Patriot interceptor missiles. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has pledged to "finish the job" with Iran hand-in-hand with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, throwing his weight behind the embattled Israeli leader ahead of this week's Israeli elections, which failed to produce a clear winner. The previous top military planner—a position known as J5 in Pentagon parlance—was pushed out of the position a little more than a year ago.
Lieutenant General Joseph McGee was said to have clashed with Hegseth for months before his departure. "Now is not the time when you’d want to lose the J5," an unnamed former Joint Chiefs of Staff official told the Atlantic, which first reported the personnel change. "This person would serve as a critical link between the operational force, the department policy and the White House." It's not clear why Sylvia, a former 101st Airborne Division commander, was removed.
An anonymous source told ABC News that he was dismissed over a lack of confidence. It was not immediately clear who will succeed Sylvia. The Pentagon and Army referred Newsweek to the office for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which has been contacted for comment.
A spokesperson for the Joint Chiefs said its members offered their "deepest gratitude" to Sylvia and his family for more than three decades of "distinguished service to our nation." Hegseth has overseen a tearing apart of the Pentagon, deriding diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and lauding traditional, masculine "warrior" ideals while sidelining the department's most senior military lawyers, decrying "woke" ideology and demanding that female service members meet the "highest male standard." Hegseth confirmed last month that he would axe one-fifth of all U.S. generals and admirals by the start of 2027, calling the measure "long overdue." He condemned what he called "fat generals and admirals" during an extraordinary gathering of the country's most senior military commanders in September 2025. Air Force General Charles "CQ" Brown Jr., Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman. Just weeks into Trump's second administration, the president suddenly announced that the military's top-ranking soldier was being replaced by the Air Force General Dan Caine.
Hegseth described Brown as an "honorable man, not the right man for the moment" in February 2025, while warning that more dismissals would follow. Admiral Lisa Franchetti, chief of Naval Operations. Franchetti, the first woman to serve as the Navy's top official, was removed the same day Brown was forced out.
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