00:00is general and flag officer reductions. That's the official title. My title is less generals,
00:07more GIs. It's a minimum of 20% reduction of four-star and flag officers for active duty
00:13elements and a minimum of 20% reduction of general and flag officers in the National Guard Bureau.
00:20We confront a complex and evolving threat environment. We cannot afford to wait.
00:25We're back with more DoD reforms. This one is general and flag officer reductions. That's
00:32the official title. My title is less generals, more GIs. It's a historic one, and it's in keeping
00:40with President Trump's commitment to achieving peace through strength. We're going to shift
00:44resources from bloated headquarters elements to our warfighters. Let's take a bit of a trip down
00:51memory lane. In history, when we were fighting across the globe during World War II, we had a
00:56force that was 12 million strong. For that 12 million man element, we had 17 four- and five-star
01:03generals. Today, we have 2.1 million service members with 44 four-star and flag officers. So it used to
01:12be a ratio of one general to 6,000 troops. Today, it's one general to 1,400. More generals and admirals
01:20does not equal more success. Now, this is not a slash-and-burn exercise meant to punish high-ranking
01:26officers. Nothing could be further from the truth. This has been a deliberative process working with
01:33the Joint Chiefs of Staff with one goal, maximizing strategic readiness and operational effectiveness
01:39by making prudent reductions in the general and flag officer ranks. So there's two phases here.
01:45Phase one, we're looking at our current service structure. And in phase two, it's a strategic
01:51review of the Unified Command Plan. Now, this is going to be, we think, the most comprehensive
01:58review since the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. That was a generational
02:04change in combat command structures, planning, training, geographic areas of responsibility,
02:10mission, and operational responsibilities. So as I said, it's going to happen in two phases.
02:15The result of phase one is a minimum of 20% reduction of four-star and flag officers for
02:21active duty elements and a minimum of 20% reduction of general and flag officers in the National Guard
02:27Bureau. Phase two will produce a minimum of an additional 10% reduction of overall general and
02:35flag officers throughout the DOD in conjunction with a realignment of the Unified Command Plan.
02:40It's going to be done carefully, but it's going to be done expeditiously. We confront a complex and
02:47evolving threat environment. We cannot afford to wait. We've got to be lean and mean. And in this case,
02:54it means general officer reductions.
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