On Tuesday, Defense Secretary issued a memo calling on the US military services to reduce the number of General and Flag officers by 20% across the board, with another 10% reduction associated with realignment of the Unified Combined Plan.

As a general matter, this appears to be a good idea. R. D. Hooker argued in Defense One last December that “surplus generals, swollen staffs, and excess headquarters drain headcount and resources from warfighting units.” He cites the Army’s Installation Management Command (IMC), which took over military installation management from local commanders in 2006 as falling short in its mission of applying “common standards and greater expertise” to managing Army infrastructure. Leaving aside that Hooker points only to substandard barracks conditions to support his claim, he does correctly point out that the ratio of officers to enlisted soldiers has increased 21% since 9/11.

Some began making this case almost 15 years ago. Ben Freeman, writing for the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), called it “Star Creep” and noted that despite then SecDef Robert Gates “efficiency initiatives,” and successor SecDef Leon Panetta’s expressed support, the Department of Defense added 6 General of Flag officers in 2011 rather than eliminate a planned 17 billets.

I think the issue is more complicated that a simple calculation of percentages officers in the force, and my concern here is not whether the US military should or should not reduce the size of its officer corps. My concern is the administration that has set out to do it.

The first problem is that Hegseth and the current administration seems to think it can cut budgets and workforces simply by lopping some set percentage off the top. It may well be that the percentage cuts ordered in the memo make sense, but Trump and his team have demonstrated that they act without thinking, with no consideration for unintended consequences or follow-on effects. Tariffs appear to be the most obvious example, but I think a better comparison is to the cuts to the US Agency for International Development. Cutting foreign aid, like reducing the number of General and Flag officers may or may not be a good idea. The argument that we should take care of homeless veterans before we worry about people starving overseas resonates. But no one in Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency seems to have considered the effects on American farmers who produced and sold many of the commodities purchased by USAID and sent overseas. These cuts also affect agricultural research and training that reduces the cost of food and helps protect food sources. Virginia alone will lose more than $7.24 billion in contracts and assistance. This causes uncertainty among farmers and other producers, and whatever the wisdom of this policy the administration should have taken a measured approach to these cuts so those affected could prepare and reduce the hit.

The same is true of course with cutting the number of General and Flag officers in the US military establishment. Across the board cuts are not the way to go. Such a change requires a measured approach that makes the cuts in the right places. A Colonel should indeed be able to handle the Chief of Staff role at IMC, a billet now held by a Brigadier General. But across-the-board cuts risk leaving this billet in place while cutting an officer billet that really does require a very senior General or Flag officer, such as a regional combatant command.

Another problem is the “why.” Hegseth’s memo claims cutting General and Flag officer billets is necessary to “cultivate exceptional senior leaders who drive innovation and operational excellence, unencumbered by unnecessary bureaucratic layers that hinder their growth and effectiveness.” This sounds like boilerplate conservative “cuts in government are always good” language. It’s also not clear how limiting promotion opportunities for these exceptional senior leaders does anything but hinder their growth and effectiveness, since it means some number of very innovative Colonels will never be promoted into jobs that allow them to implement their creative solutions.

I predict that this order has more to do with forcing the retirement of senior officers that Hegseth and others in the Trump Administration want out of the military. As this unfolds, I would be surprised if the key reason for eliminating a particular billet is to rid the service of the officer holding that particular billet. This could be for political, religious, or diversity reasons. I expect to see a disproportionate number of eliminated billets to be held by women, people of color, or officers who show no devoted religious belief. We might see senior officers who worked to protect the rights of servicewomen to reproductive health care forced out. General and Flag officers who demonstrated friendly relationships and willingness to work with Biden Administration appointees will be on the chopping block.

It’s notable that Hegseth’s memo does not provide a timeline for these cuts, nor did his video message announcing them. In the video Hegseth does mention completing the cuts in two phases: “a look at the current structure of the military services” and a second phase “in conjunction with realignment of the Unified Command Plan.” He promised “the most comprehensive review since the Goldwater-Nichols National Defense Reorganization Act of 1986.” While Goldwater-Nichols passed in a few short months, the analysis behind it began with command-and-control problems encountered in Viet Nam and the need to coordinate forces under the AirLand Battle concept developed in the late 1970s. The United States military can be very agile in combat, but organizational change comes slowly. Done properly, these changes would not be completed until near the end of the Trump Administration at the earliest. If we start seeing cuts sooner than that, we have a clue about the true intent.