Gen. Michael Langley, head of U.S. Africa Command, greets Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at Kelley Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany, on Feb. 11, 2025. (Jason Johnston/U.S. Africa Command)
The Republican chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services committees pushed back Wednesday on the Pentagon’s reported plans to consolidate some of the nation’s combatant commands and cancel a plan to modernize the structure of U.S. Forces Japan.
“[W]e will not accept significant changes to our warfighting structure that are made without a rigorous interagency process, coordination with combatant commanders and the Joint Staff, and collaboration with Congress,” Rep. Mike Rogers and Sen. Roger Wicker said in a news release Wednesday.
Citing a Pentagon briefing document and an unnamed defense official, CNN reported Wednesday that the Pentagon is considering plans to shrink the U.S. military by consolidating combatant commands, eliminating a directorate overseeing joint force development and training.
The plans would also cancel the restructuring of command and control of USFJ to better integrate with Japan’s Self-Defense Forces.
The Defense Department maintains 11 combatant commands, which are composed of units from two or more service branches and are focused either on geographical area, such as U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, or function, as does the U.S. Transportation Command.
The plans call for the merging of European Command and Africa Command into a single command based in Stuttgart, Germany, CNN reported.
Closer to home, Northern and Southern commands would be consolidated into an entity called AMERICOM, the report said.
Africa Command became fully operational in 2007 and was created in response to America’s growing interest in the continent as China made serious economic and diplomatic inroads there.
Northern Command focuses on homeland defense and collaboration with Canada and Mexico.
Southern Command centers on the Caribbean and Central and South America.
The Pentagon briefing document said consolidating the four commands could save about $330 million over five years, CNN reported.
Rogers and Wicker questioned whether such small savings — in a defense budget that runs about $800 billion each year — are worth the risk.
“U.S. combatant commands are the tip of the American warfighting spear,” they said in the news release. “Therefore, we are very concerned about reports that claim DoD is considering unilateral changes on major strategic issues, including significant reductions to U.S. forces stationed abroad, absent coordination with the White House and Congress.”
Such moves “risk undermining American deterrence around the globe and detracting from our negotiating positions with America’s adversaries,” they wrote.
President Donald Trump has given Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, wide latitude in slashing personnel and spending throughout the federal government, including DOD.
“At the DOD, we’ve been working hand-in-hand with the DOGE team,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a video posted March 3 on the department’s website.
The Pentagon is aiming to slash 50,000 to 60,000 civilian jobs in an opening salvo of budget cutting.
Halting USFJ’s planned expansion with added personnel and upgrades to command and control could save about $1.1 billion, according to the Pentagon document cited by CNN. Late last year, the Army and USFJ surveyed potential sites in central Tokyo for expansion as part of the proposed restructuring, including the compound that includes Hardy Barracks and Akasaka Press Center, the home of Stars and Stripes Pacific.
During a July 28 news briefing in Tokyo, then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin touted the plans as “the most significant change to U.S. Forces Japan since its creation, and one of the strongest improvements in our military ties with Japan in 70 years.”
The overhaul is intended to “upgrade the U.S. Forces Japan to a joint force headquarters with expanded missions and operational responsibilities,” Austin told reporters.
