Trump’s shake-up of US top brass will not change focus on China rivalry: observers

The shake-up of the US military leadership is unlikely to change the Trump administration’s strategic focus on China but will leave it with less experience of the region at the top, according to observers. US President Donald Trump dismissed six senior military officers on Friday, including Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Charles Brown, the nation’s highest-ranking officer and principal military adviser to the president. Trump has nominated retired US Air Force Lieutenant General Dan Caine, a former F-16 fighter pilot, to replace Brown. Caine will need to be confirmed by the Senate to take up the position. Diao Daming, a professor at the school of international studies at China’s Renmin University, said that changing the joint chiefs chair before time was very unusual and warranted close monitoring by Beijing. Brown’s four-year term was to run until September 2027. Diao said the selection of Caine, a three-star general, for the position was also extraordinary, because the precedent was for a four-star general to assume the role. In addition, Caine is not a vice-chairman of the joint chiefs and has not overseen a military service or a combatant command that nominees are legally required to have performed in order to be nominated. Also gone are naval operations chief Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to command the US Navy, air force vice chief of staff Jim Slife, as well as judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force. Neither Trump nor Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a reason for the dismissals. Diao said the decision may have been more about politics and less about strategy, suggesting that it arose from Trump’s opposition to diversity efforts in the military, which Brown supported. “It mainly reflects the differences in views between Trump and these individuals on how to govern the military … Trump’s emphasis is to ensure loyalty to him and the ability to effectively carry out his intentions,” Diao said. “[The decision to replace Brown] might not stem from their disagreement on US foreign strategy.” Before becoming chairman of the joint chiefs in 2023, Brown was the air force chief of staff and had sought to transform the service to compete with what the United States calls the “pacing challenge” of China. Brown served as Pacific Air Forces commander from 2018 to 2020, a role that gave him extensive experience in dealing with the Chinese military’s growing presence in the Indo-Pacific region. In contrast, Caine has never had a role focused on the Indo-Pacific, and lacks experience dealing directly with China. In comments to the Ukraine Defence Contact Group on February 12 – barely 10 days before surprise pick Caine came into the spotlight – Hegseth said that Washington was focused on China’s ability and “intent to threaten our homeland and core national interests in the Indo-Pacific”. “The US is prioritising deterring war with China in the Pacific,” he said, adding that the US could no longer be mainly focused on Europe’s security. Caine served in the Middle East during the fight against Islamic State from 2018 to 2019, and worked for three years at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) until last December. He also held positions as director of special access programmes at the Pentagon and special assistant to the chief of the National Guard Bureau between 2019 and 2021, before joining the CIA. However, publicly available information regarding the extent to which these roles involved matters concerning China and the Indo-Pacific region is limited. In a social media post on Friday, Trump called Caine an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a “war-fighter” with significant inter-agency and special operations experience. Trump said in the post that alongside Hegseth, Caine and the US military “will restore peace through strength, put America first, and rebuild our military”. Diao said the US would continue to pursue its policy of strategic competition with China and its focus on the Indo-Pacific, an approach that was adopted during Trump’s first term and retained under his successor Joe Biden. The reshuffling of senior US military officials was unlikely to change this, he said. Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor with Renmin University, was of the same view. “[The reshuffle] will not change the strategic and combat priority put on the Indo-Pacific and China,” Shi said, adding that Washington’s developing split with the European Union was only expected to solidify this strategic direction. “Experienced subordinates” will still be on hand for the new military chiefs, he noted. Timothy Heath, senior international defence researcher at the Rand Corporation, said Brown’s dismissal would probably have little effect on military preparation because that was carried out by military staff and long predated him. But it did show that politics was becoming important in the military, he said. “In the Chinese military, of course, politics has long been the most important duty for the PLA. But the gap between US and Chinese military readiness remains enormous,” Heath said.

Trump’s shake-up of US top brass will not change focus on China rivalry: observers

Abrupt change in joint chiefs of staff is unusual, Renmin University professor says, calls choice of three-star general ‘extraordinary’