The sudden departure of Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll, following months of tension with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, is a serious blow to American security. Worse, his resignation follows the forcing out of several top Army generals, including Chief of Staff Randy George, Vice Chief James Mingus and the highly regarded combat commander of U.S. Army Europe, Chris Donahue.

The leadership of the U.S. Army is being eviscerated right in the middle of a war with Iran.

Driscoll was widely admired and supported by the top Army leadership. He had taken a leading role in efforts to modernize the service using the lessons learned on the battlefields of Ukraine. He is a decorated combat veteran who led a cavalry platoon in Iraq and is also a graduate of Yale Law School. Just as was the case with those high-ranking uniformed leaders, no explanation for his departure has been given.

Service secretaries are critical links in the basic functioning of the Pentagon. They are political appointees at the heart of the big decisions on personnel, budgets, new technology, training and the warfighting ethos. These are not simply ceremonial jobs.

While the positions are not highly visible to the general public, I know how vital their role is to maintaining a healthy Department of Defense: I spent two tours on the staffs of two different secretaries of the Navy — one from each party.

The first was Sean O’Keefe, a Republican who later became administrator of NASA and the chancellor of Louisiana State University. I served under him from 1992–’93, a turbulent period following the egregious Tailhook sexual-assault scandal. As his special assistant, I watched him steady the ship; develop a new maritime strategy called “… From the Sea”; and oversee in a fair and sensible way the adjudication of charges against senior aviators resulting from Tailhook.

In the late 1990s, I served for two years under a Democrat, Navy Secretary Richard Danzig. Another Yale Law School graduate, Danzig was instrumental in developing new IT strategies, challenging attitudes and personnel practices left over from the conscription era, and making the service more responsive to sailors and Marines aboard ship. (A real concern today given the reported logistical and mental health troubles aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.)

Both of these secretaries worked closely with the chiefs of naval operations and Marine Corps commandants despite occasional differences — O’Keefe was skeptical of the role of aircraft carriers in modern war, for example. The essence of any service secretary job is to work hand in glove with the four-star leadership. Both secretaries for whom I worked did so with grace and empathy.

At the risk of mixing a nautical metaphor: The Army is now effectively rudderless. While the uniformed deputies, political undersecretaries and assistant secretaries will do their best and guide the massive 1.2-million-person department (active duty, National Guard, reserve and civilian) with its $200 billion budget, the Army is going to drift in terms of purpose and effectiveness. There was a troubling report last week that Christopher LaNeve, the vice chief, ordered an Army unit in Europe to stop specializing in drone warfare.

The challenges are magnified by broader personnel problems. With no Senate-confirmed permanent Army chief of staff or vice chief of staff, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Dan Caine doesn’t have anyone at the war-council table with the full authority and gravitas to contribute a ground-combat perspective.

Hegseth may have individual reasons for the departures of so many senior leaders across the services — he has also forced out the chief of naval operations, Admiral Lisa Franchetti, and Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, among many others. And he has sapped morale by denying the advancements of younger officers who had been selected for promotion to one-star admiral or general.

But this latest damage to a major department in the middle of combat operations is stunning. Clearly, Hegseth needs to nominate a stable team of new Army leaders, get them confirmed by Congress and give them steady support. He simply cannot try to run the massive department himself — that is too heavy a lift for a secretary of defense even in peacetime.

In the military, big lessons can be learned from smaller examples. When I was a commodore of a squadron of destroyers 25 years ago, I had a commanding officer working for me who kept firing people. First, it was a young division officer; then a senior department head; and then a seasoned master chief. He had reasons for each dismissal, but they seemed increasingly thin as the weeks went on. I was displeased but supported him, as I was expected to do within Navy’s personnel system.

He eventually started laying the groundwork to fire his supply officer, someone I knew well and respected. I called the captain to my flagship and said in a nutshell, “This is a disturbing pattern that is unsustainable. You need to work with the team you are given, not simply fire the ones you can’t seem to work with. The bottom line is that the next person leaving your ship … will be you.” He took the advice and went on to a successful tour.

The same lesson applies to the Army. It deserves not just high-quality leaders but also steady and consistent leadership. Our soldiers deserve it. And our nation needs it.

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Stavridis is dean emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is on the boards of Aon, Fortinet and Ankura Consulting Group.

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This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

James Stavridis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, a retired U.S. Navy admiral, former supreme allied commander of NATO, and vice chairman at Carlyle.

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