The Pentagon Is Losing Its Top Strategists During the Iran War

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the At the Water's Edge podcast where we look for insights beyond the headlines and take a practitioner's view on national security and geopolitics. It's the 29th of October, 2026. Let's get into it. So, this morning, let's flash this up here. All right, from Reuters, Senior U.S. General Fired Accused of Leaking Classified Information. Defense Secretary Pete Hanks has fired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Brett Sylvia, a senior military planner at the Pentagon's Joint Staff, over accusations he leaked classified information to the public, officials said on Thursday. That's already a change in the story.

[00:00:30] This morning, they said he was, you know, dismissed and we wish him all the best. It was a very cogile message just moving on with his life. And now they're saying he's like failed three polygraphs, leaking classified information, yada, yada, yada. So, what's going on here? Who is this guy? Well, one, this is about one of the most army of army generals you can find. This guy was a division commander for the 101st Airborne Division before going to the Pentagon. Now, in army context, a division commander is two stars, but not all two-star generals are created equal.

[00:00:58] There is a huge difference in authority and credibility within the army establishment with two-star generals that just have two stars and have a staff built somewhere and two-star generals that sit in a command seat. So, there are 11 active duty divisions in the United States Army. Commanding any one of them for any length of time is a massive deal. Well, you're one of the most trusted commanders in the entire military if you get one of those billets.

[00:01:24] This guy had one in one of the most storied divisions in the U.S. military, then went on to one of the top jobs in the Pentagon and is now out. Let's get into it. All right. Now, we've seen Pete Hegseth get rid of a lot of generals. I think the current count is like 26 different flag officers since he's had his job. And he gave that infamous speech in Quantico last year, the My Way or the Highway speech, which we've done a whole other episode on.

[00:01:49] But why does this particular role matter at this particular junction? Let's talk about what the J-5 is. Now, if you're not familiar with the numbering conventions for military staff rules, they all kind of follow the same one. You've got S-shops, G-shops, and J-shops. S-shops are staff sections. S for staff. G-shops work for general officers. So, they're a staff section that works for a general as opposed to a forward colonel or a lieutenant colonel.

[00:02:16] And then you have J-shops, which are joint shops. So, they work the interagency. They're not just an army institution or a naval institution. They work for lotty-dotty everybody. So, if you have, you know, an engineer battalion with a battalion commander, that battalion commander has a staff section. And all the different compartments in that staff section begin with the letter S. Same thing at the brigade level. When you go to the division level, now you have a general officer in charge. It's called a G-section.

[00:02:43] That's where this phrase, like, where's the G-2 come from? That's like the good intel that the general gets. The G-2. Two is for intel. And then when you get to the interagency or the joint force, when you're operating between branches, the G turns into a J. I know the military is very creative. And basically, you have your one shop. So, S-1, J-1, G-1. That's like your army or military HR department. That's personnel administration.

[00:03:10] Your two shop, that's intel. Three is operations. That's like the really big one. Four is logistics. Absolutely critical. Five, it depends on what type of formation we're talking about. Five is a bit of a floater. And then six is communications. So, the J-5 of the Pentagon, that's the top one in the five realm. The J-5 is the Joint Staff Director for Strategy, Plans, and Policy. The same officer is also the senior member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Military Staff Committee.

[00:03:38] It's basically the connective tissue that pulls together all aspects of military planning. You know, what are the campaign plans being put together by the different geographic combatant commanders? How does the military resource those plans? How does the interagency come together to facilitate the execution of those plans? How does the sausage actually get made? It's the most important connectivity tissue in the Pentagon. It also plays a crucial role with the interagency process.

[00:04:04] You know, when we talk about elements of national power, there's a lot more to it than just the military. And so, when you talk about the J-5, part of his job is to look at military plans and figure out how it works with the rest of the interagency. Everyone outside the military who also has a role in implementing national policy. Now, right now, we've got a couple different stories out there about why this guy was fired. And who knows what the truth is, but let's go through them real quick. So, we know this guy gets fired and there's no replacement.

[00:04:31] Fun fact, his boss was also previously fired from this role after a very short stint. Not a lot of folks seem to be able to hold down this job for very long. The initial press release we got had a very cordial statement about how we thank him for his service and wish him all the best and send him on his way. The story changed pretty quickly after that. We have an anonymous official telling One American News that Sylvia disclosed sensitive information about the Iran and Ukraine conflicts and met reporters off-site to get around the building's press restrictions.

[00:04:59] If that's true, that's actually a pretty serious allegation. And also, we have another anonymous official saying that he failed three polygraphs. You know, the Pentagon has instituted a whole policy about doing mass polygraphs of senior officials and staff members inside the building to try to find folks that are leaking to the press. The president is very upset about this. And Pete Hegseth has been charged to rooting out press leakers. So, that's very interesting. But also, like, failing a polygraph.

[00:05:26] There's not a lot of definition around what failing a polygraph means. So, you can kind of just throw that out there. Did he fail a CI poly? You know, was it handling classified information? Like, what type of failure did he have? Did he lie about it? Or did he just get a bad reading? Very tricky to read anything into three failed polygraph tests. But that's the current narrative they're going with. We've also heard that there is an Air Force investigation referring charges to the Department of Justice over this guy. Of course, none of this has been substantiated.

[00:05:55] We don't know if any of this is true. This is all unconformed reports leaking out into the media. And, of course, the Pentagon's first initial statement praised the guy after saying he was no longer in the role. And then immediately, you know, within the day, they start coming out with all the reasons for why they had to get fired. Who knows where the truth is? And, of course, because this is America and everything is political these days, Laura Loomer, which I know we all love talking about. Yeah, so Laura Loomer has gone after this general's son named Gavin, who's a former FEMA employee, over comments about the Charlie Kirk assassination.

[00:06:24] And she's previously urged Pete Hegseth to look into the general's employment status in the Department of Defense. Apparently, Laura Loomer is now a key contributor to personnel policy at the Pentagon. Interesting days. Interesting days. Now, we talked before about how his previous person in this role was also fired early. That would be Lieutenant General Joseph J.P. McGee, who was also commander of the 101st Airborne Division.

[00:06:52] Now, McGee left the office in October of 2025, supposedly over disagreements on how the war with Ukraine was being handled and the efficacy of doing drone strikes on random boats in the Caribbean. We saw a number of officers leave the service around that time because they had issues with the idea of just conducting drone strikes on civilian vessels in the middle of the open ocean, contradicting several elements of military law, international humanitarian law, for those of us who are still tracking.

[00:07:19] Now, at this point, you might be wondering, is there something about the J-5 job in particular that tends to get people fired? Well, typically, no, but there are some unique things about the rule. Rule. Rule. Rule. Rule. Rule.

[00:07:52] Rule. Rule. Rule. Rule.

[00:08:30] Rule. Rule. Rule.

[00:09:00] Rule. Rule. Rule. Rule. Rule. Rule. Rule.

[00:09:40] Rule. Rule. Rule. Rule. Rule. Rule. Rule. Rule. Hey! Rule.

[00:10:19] Rule. Rule. that wants to be told what they want to hear and be given positive narratives or easy solutions to complex problems, which of course don't exist, but that's what they want to hear. And you have a guy whose entire job is to stress test those assumptions and coordinate with elements outside of his media office to determine what the realm of the possible is. Yep. And we've seen two people sitting in that chair get fired since Trump administration's come back. And no replacement's been named.

[00:10:48] And apparently this job is just not considered very important inside the administration. So how does a firing like this impact what's going on in the building, what's going on in the Pentagon? Well, anytime. So when you're in the military, a certain point in your career, your career prospects are really based upon the career prospects of your boss. So if your boss likes you and your boss gets promoted, your boss can then vouch for you to get you promoted.

[00:11:15] You know, the officer career track ends technically at 05. That's like where a military career is designed to end, lieutenant colonel. So if you want to get from 05 to 06 colonel and then 06 to flag officer general 07, I mean, the truth of the matter is you got to know some people. You have to have some people in high places that think very highly of you because you were a key member of their team when they were a younger commander. And they got to vouch for you to get you into those roles.

[00:11:42] Now, something like the J5 position, if you're working for one of the top jobs in the Pentagon, that's a great spot for those types of career moves. So it can attract a lot of talent. Every time you have different administrations, there is some reshuffling around which people that they like to work with more, which tools of national power they're more comfortable using.

[00:12:06] You know, the balance of where the most politically advantageous jobs are for career advancement changes. And we'd be fooling ourselves to think that folks at this level aren't thinking all this through. So if you have the J5 have both of its bosses, since the administration's coming to power, get fired. Sorry, the person was supposedly a fire. That was supposedly just a retirement that parted ways.

[00:12:36] Reporting differs, but supposedly. So that guy retires early, earlier than expected. This guy gets fired unceremoniously. This is no longer a good place to have a career. And even if you believe in the work, you'd be foolish to go there to try to get a job. And if you currently have a job right now, oh boy, do you want to keep your head down, not say anything about anything to anyone because you might be next. In fact, the closer you were to this person that they're accusing of leaking information and failing polygraphs and all that sort of stuff,

[00:13:04] man, what do you think they're going to be asking about you on your next polygraph? Where do you think your career is going to go? It's time to go across the street there to some of the bars across the Potomac and start meeting some of these defense contractor folks after hours, after hours, after hours. Don't let them buy your drinks. Go meet them yourselves. And we're hearing that from a lot of folks inside the military right now. There's a lot of folks that wanted to compete for stars and command slots and this, that, and the other thing. And the entire tenor in the building, I mean, it's bad.

[00:13:33] And to get through it, they got to stick it out for at least another two and a half more years before new opportunities might arise. A lot of senior folks with families that can already retire with decent pensions. You know, it's hard to ask your family to put up with military life, even in a place like D.C., when you don't love it anymore. It's a hard job to be married to. And so a lot of folks are quiet quitting or getting ready to put in their retirement papers.

[00:14:01] And that's just some real talk from inside the building from some folks I know. Anyway, so yeah, not great for folks working in the J-5 office, not great for some careers in the military right now. Also, if you're looking at how the administration is going to be making decisions going forward, whether or not it's going to strike around, this, that, and other thing, we've essentially seen the key office responsible for anticipating the effects of military action

[00:14:29] get silenced inside the Pentagon. We'll see who comes in to replace General Silva, if anyone, in the near future. But whatever institutional breaks have been on the Trump administration, as far as executing military action unilaterally without congressional oversight, from inside the executive branch, we're seeing those getting eroded more and more and more. There's just another one step on that pipeline or timeline.

[00:15:00] Now, here's another fun look at it. Let's look at this from Iran's perspective. They see this guy get fired. And of course, I mean, like any nation state, Iran's got a whole staff of folks somewhere that all they do is sit around and they monitor who's in the U.S. military, who's getting promoted, who's getting fired, who's getting funding, who's not getting funding. Like they just go through the National Defense Authorization Act, all the press briefings, like all they do is sit there and monitor the internal politics of the Pentagon, of the U.S. military.

[00:15:29] We have that same apparatus for every other nation state that we're worried about. Those folks are watching this. Those folks then have to advise their political establishment on how to deal with the United States. So if the top military person in charge of coordinating a robust interagency response through strategic planning is getting fired, how credible do you think they're going to take

[00:15:59] any diplomatic overtures from the United States? Are they going to look at this and go, yep, the United States has thought this out. This is a diplomatic compromise they're willing to accept. This is going to be part of their long-term plan. We try to understand their plan and perhaps move forward with a diplomatic solution. If the person in charge of doing that for the U.S. keeps getting fired unceremoniously, it's hard to take anything the U.S. says from a diplomatic standpoint seriously. Because they can look at it and go, maybe they mean it, maybe they don't,

[00:16:29] but they clearly haven't thought this through. Look at the people that are supposed to think this through for them. They keep getting fired. It's not a good look at the diplomacy table. Now, is that as bad of a look as the whole thing where we keep offering diplomatic overtures as a pretense to then start bombing them? Probably not, but it doesn't help. Anyway, so for any of you out there following the conflict with Iran and looking at the news of the day, does it really matter that one more general got fired by Pete Hexeth? Probably not.

[00:16:58] Does it matter that it's this particular job in the Pentagon at this particular time? Yes. And we will see what consequences play out from this. But honestly, we probably won't even know the full story until after the Trump administration is out of office and we're on to the next thing. Anyway, stay frosty out there, folks. And be sure to like, subscribe, share an episode with a friend, all that good stuff. And we'll see y'all later. Thank you.