Under the guise of government efficiency, the Trump Administration has led America through a systematic degradation of its national security apparatus in just two months. The alarm over such developments was only heightened last week as President Donald Trump’s primary campaign donor and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) czar Elon Musk was originally scheduled to receive a briefing on top-secret plans in the event of a war with China.
In fact, at the Yale CEO Caucus earlier in March, a poll of 100 leading U.S. CEOs found that 76% believe the nation is reaching a tipping point for collective action to challenge Trump over his degradation of national security, while 80% were embarrassed by the threats made towards our longstanding democratic allies and acts to placate our authoritarian adversaries.
Today, the Department of Defense is composed of approximately 765,000 civilian employees and 1.3 million active-duty troops, or about 2 million total in headcount. In 1990, the same figures stood at 1 million and 2.1 million, or 3 million total. While the Cold War was winding down in the late 1980s and early 1990s, that does not explain this decline, given the rise in threats and complexities of maintaining defense systems today. In fact, the defense budget in 1990 was 5.6% of GDP. Now, it is only 3.5% of GDP while the risk of global warfare has soared, spiking the highest in 80 years, arguably above that during the Cold War years.
Staff reductions by DOGE have triggered an exodus—voluntary and forced—of senior talent across agencies whose key assets are its human capital. Diminished cyber offensive and defensive operations offer adversaries unnecessary relief and expose the U.S. to new threats. Primary sources of soft power and influence have been yielded, leaving a void to be filled by exploitative regimes in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and other geostrategic regions. The increased politicization of historically apolitical institutions has sown distrust about government and the military among the public and introduced damaging effects on organizational efficacy and worker productivity.
The weakening of America’s diplomatic, defensive, and developmental capabilities comes as threats abroad continue to escalate. In recent weeks, China has conducted live-fire naval trainings off the coasts of Australia and Vietnam and coordinated another set of provocative sea, air, and land drills against Taiwan. Russian, Chinese, and Iranian forces held their annual joint naval exercises in the Gulf of Oman less than two weeks ago. Reports of cyber-attacks on U.S. and European public and private networks by Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran arrive nearly every week. And China and Russia have only sped up their charm offensives, recently opening a $1.3 billion mega-port in Peru, advancing economic partnerships in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and providing military aid to African leaders.
Despite foreign rivals’ actions and Trump’s promises of “peace through strength,” DOGE efforts to slash agency headcount have already resulted in a loss of institutional knowledge and specialized skill sets that cannot be replaced. While the Departments of State and Defense may be big and bureaucratic, they also oversee the most advanced networks of diplomacy and defense in the world. A system of networks that has arguably provided the most peaceful and prosperous time in recorded history.
Opportunities to improve operations and cut costs always exist in large organizations, public and private, and should be pursued. However, the arbitrary nature of layoffs across agencies, from the Defense and State Departments to the FBI, CIA, and USAID, do not live up to Musk’s intellect. In total, based on publicly available data, an estimated 40,000 people, who work hard to secure the nation from bad actors, have been pushed out of their important roles. Here is a brief overview:
- Approximately 21,000 workers at the Department of Defense have accepted voluntary resignation plans
- Nearly all of USAID’s 14,000 employees have been laid off or placed on leave
- The Trump Administration is reviewing a list of 3,600 FBI employees, including those involved in the FBI’s Jan. 6 investigation and members of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, for potential dismissal
- Virtually the entire staff of Voice of America, about 1,300 workers, were placed on leave
- About 700 State Department employees, including 450 career diplomats, have handed in resignation papers
- Roughly 400 jobs at the Department of Homeland Security, including 130 from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), have been cut
- At least 80 workers at the CIA have been let go
And many more layoffs are expected. As easy as it may be to become numb to such large quantities of firings, the numbers represent highly skilled non-partisan experts on surveillance, defense technology, foreign languages, distant cultures, influence channels, and priceless relationships with experience in significant roles in their respective agencies. Plus, all this wasted, priceless knowledge to merely reduce, at most, $4.2 billion of salaries (calculated as estimated 40,000 national security jobs cut multiplied by the average salary for federal employees of $106,382) is hardly of consequence to the $7 trillion national budget.
The Pentagon’s dismissal of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General C.Q. Brown; Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Lisa Franchetti; Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General Jim Slife; and top lawyers for the Army, Navy, and Air Force preemptively removes highly decorated and accomplished military leaders, freezes the implementation of their strategic visions, reduces morale throughout the ranks, and introduces additional uncertainty to defense systems during a vulnerable transition in presidential administrations.
The disturbing effect of Trump naming presumably more subservient military leaders in their place was showcased during the President’s announcement for the next generation of U.S. Air Force fighter jets, which were apparently named the “F-47” in his honor as the 47th president. In the press briefing, Trump went so far as claiming, “The generals picked a title, and it’s a beautiful number.” If true, the move makes the politicalization of America’s military leadership increasingly apparent—ever more concerning after Trump’s politicized termination of former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley’s security detail in January.
The ouster of nine veteran FBI leaders, including the heads of the Washington and New York field offices, removes respected leaders from their posts and casts doubt across the organization. The broader removal of FBI and CIA officers presents additional resource constraints throughout the elite agencies which have faced staffing and skills shortages for many years.
The firing of the 18 Inspectors General, who have continued to show their value by protecting the federal government from fraud, waste, and abuse in the FBI, Navy, Air Force, and Small Business Administration, among others, leaves agencies vulnerable to new sources of foreign and domestic interference.
Beyond reductions in headcount, decisions by Trump and his cabinet to cease U.S. Cyber Command’s offensive cyber and information operations against Russia and to halt coordinated efforts with the EU to counter Russian espionage are part of the President’s strange one-sided overtures towards President Vladimir Putin—despite a recent surge of cyberattacks on the U.S. government.
The downsizing of CISA reduces the ability to counter cyber threats from not only Russia but also China, Iran, and North Korea, and the disbanding of the Cyber Safety Review Board delays any attempts to address the espionage attacks from China’s Salt Typhoon, which compromised the networks of eight large telecommunications companies last year. Similarly, Trump shelved the small but vital Office of Net Assessment where a dozen military officers plan future war scenarios. The actual price paid by taxpayers for the operation of this office is less than two of the 500 trips to Mar-A-Lago Trump charged the U.S. for in his first term.
The collective closure of USAID, Voice of America, and diplomatic outposts will severely weaken U.S. soft power, compounding the negative effects of Trump’s “America First” foreign policy agenda, while China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea expand efforts to weaken U.S. influence and strengthen their own.
The politicization of the allegedly “woke” military, FBI, CIA, NSA, and other security agencies have tarnished the reputation of these apolitical institutions, further eroding the public’s confidence and national pride in them and their leaders. Recruiting will become more difficult. Attrition will increase, and continuity in operations will decline. As the five former Defense Secretaries explained in their letter to Congress last month, “The United States cannot afford to have our military infected by partisan politics and distracted from its core mission of defending the nation.”
The Trump Administration has significantly weakened America’s national security infrastructure under the false pretense of government efficiency, by reducing staffing at the Departments of Defense and State, FBI, CIA, USAID, and others despite increasing global threats. The exodus of senior talent threatens to impair our defense capabilities and soft power, allowing adversarial regimes to expand their influence.
For those of us who dedicated our lives to serving the U.S. military and those of us who worked on other national security fronts, these developments are extremely worrisome.
