Gen. Christopher Donahue, the West Point graduate, Delta Force veteran, and decorated combat leader who became the last American soldier to leave Afghanistan in August 2021, is stepping down from his command of U.S. Army Europe and Africa after just 18 months on the job. The Army confirmed his departure late Tuesday, and the Associated Press reported he will relinquish command on July 2.
No official reason was given. The Pentagon did not immediately comment. But the move lands squarely inside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's broader campaign to restructure the military's senior ranks, a push he has framed with a simple mantra: "less generals, more GIs."
Donahue's exit makes him the latest in a line of nearly two dozen top military leaders who have either retired or departed their posts early under Hegseth's tenure. The Army is now discussing whether to downgrade Donahue's command, U.S. Army Europe and Africa, from a four-star to a three-star billet, an unnamed Army official told the AP. Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, Donahue's deputy, will assume his duties in the interim.
Donahue's military record is not the résumé of a desk officer. He commanded Delta Force units in Iraq and Afghanistan during the hardest years of both wars. He led the 82nd Airborne Division from July 2020 to March 2022. And when the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan descended into chaos in the summer of 2021, Donahue was brought in to restore security at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.
On Aug. 30, 2021, he became the last U.S. service member to step off Afghan soil after nearly twenty years of war, a moment captured in an iconic night-vision photograph showing him boarding the final C-17 cargo plane. Within the Army, he was widely seen as a top officer who could have led the service or been chosen as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His leadership during the evacuation drew bipartisan praise.
Sean Naylor, a special operations expert, told Newsmax:
"As an officer who proved himself in combat leading the Army's most elite troops during the toughest years of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Donahue is widely respected across both the special operations and conventional parts of the military."
None of that, apparently, insulated him from the restructuring now underway at the Pentagon.
Donahue's departure fits a pattern that has accelerated in recent months. Hegseth fired Gen. Randy George as Army chief of staff just two months ago, according to the New York Post. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Charles "CQ" Brown was fired in February 2025. Other senior officers pushed out include heads of the Navy, Coast Guard, and NSA, alongside a Pentagon order to cut four-star generals and admirals by at least twenty percent.
Hegseth has insisted the changes reflect the president's prerogative. As Breitbart reported, Hegseth has said "the president is simply choosing the leaders he wants." Army spokeswoman Cynthia Smith offered a terse sendoff: "The Army thanks Gen. Donahue for his leadership of US Army Europe and Africa."
The principle behind these moves is sound. A president has every right, and arguably a duty, to install military leaders who share his strategic vision. The armed forces answer to civilian authority, and Hegseth has made clear he wants a leaner, more combat-focused force stripped of bureaucratic bloat and ideological drift.
But the speed and scale of these leadership changes raise a practical question that deserves an honest answer: Is the Pentagon replacing officers who failed with officers who will perform better? Or is it simply clearing the board?
The New York Post reported that Donahue's departure stemmed in part from frustration with internal Pentagon dysfunction, including clashes between Hegseth and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. An anonymous Pentagon insider told the Post that Donahue "was tired of dealing with the static of working under Hegseth and LaNeve", a reference to Gen. Christopher LaNeve, who replaced Randy George as Army chief of staff.
That same anonymous source offered a blunt assessment of LaNeve's leadership style:
"LaNeve is very political, and he knows Pete is playing to an audience of one in the president. He already has a penchant for being aggressive, but he really leans into it, because he knows that's what Pete wants."
Whether that characterization is fair or self-serving, it comes from an unnamed source, after all, it points to real tension inside the Army's senior ranks. The Washington Examiner reported that Donahue submitted a resignation letter after clashing with Hegseth, making him one of more than two dozen high-ranking Pentagon officials to retire or be ousted during Hegseth's tenure.
The planned downgrade of U.S. Army Europe and Africa from a four-star to a three-star command adds another layer. If the Army follows through, the move would shrink the prestige and authority of the command at precisely the moment Europe faces its most serious land-war threat since the Cold War. That decision may reflect a legitimate strategic judgment, Hegseth has publicly pushed European allies to take "primary responsibility for the defense of Europe", but it also means the officer who replaces Donahue will carry less rank and less clout within NATO.
Donahue's name will always be linked to the Afghanistan withdrawal. The war itself, sparked by the attacks of September 11, 2001, lasted nearly twenty years. The withdrawal was set in motion by a treaty negotiated with the Taliban during the Trump administration's first term, then executed under President Biden in a manner that drew widespread criticism.
Multiple reviews of the withdrawal have been conducted, by the Pentagon, U.S. Central Command, the State Department, and Congress, involving hundreds of interviews and studies of videos, photographs, and other data. Hegseth ordered yet another examination last May. What that new review seeks that prior investigations did not address remains unclear.
Donahue's role during the evacuation was operational, not political. He was the officer sent in to secure the airport when the situation deteriorated. He was the last man on the last plane. Congressional scrutiny of Pentagon leadership has intensified on multiple fronts, but Donahue's personal conduct during the withdrawal was not the subject of public criticism from either party at the time.
That makes his removal harder to read as accountability for Afghanistan and easier to read as part of the broader structural overhaul.
Conservatives should welcome a Defense Secretary willing to challenge a military establishment that, in recent years, drifted into DEI programming, risk-averse careerism, and strategic incoherence. The internal clashes Hegseth has waged over procurement, force posture, and alliance burden-sharing reflect legitimate policy priorities.
But reform and purge are different things. When nearly two dozen senior leaders depart in a compressed window, some fired, some pushed, some apparently exhausted by dysfunction, the result is not just a leaner force. It is a force that has lost institutional memory, operational continuity, and the confidence of officers who remain. Hegseth told NATO allies last week that his six-month review of American forces in Europe is "designed to ensure that NATO is moving fast and irreversibly toward Europe leading, stepping up to take primary responsibility for the defense of Europe." Fair enough. But who will lead American forces in Europe while that review unfolds?
Right now, the answer is a two-star general filling in for a four-star post that may soon become a three-star post. That is not reform. That is a gap.
The Democrats' theatrical impeachment efforts against Hegseth deserve the dismissal they have received. But the fact that the left's attacks are unserious does not mean every personnel decision coming out of the Pentagon is automatically serious. Donahue's record earned him the benefit of the doubt. The administration owes the public a clearer explanation of why a combat-proven general with bipartisan respect was shown the door, and what, exactly, the plan is to fill the hole he leaves behind.
A military that loses its best warfighters to internal politics is not getting leaner. It is getting weaker.