US President Donald Trump has nominated Dan Caine as the next Chairperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a surprise move. The choice of the retired three-star general may stem from their initial meeting in Iraq in 2018, according to Reuters.
Trump stated at the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference that Caine, then deputy commander of the special operations task force fighting ISIS, told him the group could be eliminated within a week.
Since then, Trump has recounted the meeting several times, praising Caine. In Miami, days before announcing Caine’s nomination on his platform Truth Social, Trump called him “a real general, not a television general.”
Trump announced on Friday that he was removing the current Chairperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Charles Q. Brown. Changes to five other senior positions are expected soon, signalling a broad shift in US military leadership.
If confirmed by the Senate, Caine will lead the military during Trump’s first month in office. He will also inherit a Joint Chiefs of Staff shaken by Trump’s removal of General Brown.
Caine, a retired fighter pilot who flew F-16s, would be promoted to a four-star general. He would then face the Senate confirmation process to serve a four-year term as the top uniformed officer in the country.
Caine’s military career deviates from the path typically taken to become the president’s highest military advisor. Previous chairmen have typically headed a combat command or a branch of the military.
Caine did not reach that level of seniority before retiring. According to Trump, he was “passed over for promotion by Sleepy Joe Biden.”
Earlier this year, Caine described in a podcast interview his desire to follow in his fighter pilot father’s footsteps. Caine graduated in 1990 from the Virginia Military Institute with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.
Caine, who logged more than 2,800 hours in F-16 aircraft, was one of the pilots assigned to protect Washington during the September 11, 2001 attacks. He has held several positions in Washington, D.C. since 2005, including as a special assistant to the Secretary of Agriculture and as a director for counterterrorism policy on the White House Homeland Security Council.
“During my first term, [Caine] was instrumental in the full obliteration of ISIS, and it was done in record time, within weeks,” Trump said, adding that “many so-called military geniuses said it would take years to defeat ISIS, but General Caine said it could be done quickly, and he fulfilled his promise.”
Following Trump’s statement, then-Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the removal of the Chief of Naval Operations and the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force.
The decision could lead to upheaval at the Pentagon, which is preparing to dismiss civilian employees and carry out reforms to its budget, in addition to a change in troop deployments under Trump’s “America First” foreign policy, according to Reuters.
