Donald Trump had talked about firing senior military commanders on the campaign trail as far back as last summer. After the election, his transition team reportedly drew up a list of senior officers to be fired. Trump’s secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, had told a podcast just days before he was named to his position, “First of all, you’ve got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.”

Still, the Friday night massacre that befell senior US military leaders, came as a shock. Those fired include Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, Air Force Vice Chief of Staff James Slife, and the judge advocates general for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Hegseth’s top military assistant, Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short, was relieved on Saturday.

While Trump and Hegseth certainly have the right to assemble a team of military leaders they trust, the circumstances and timing of the purge raise troubling questions about whether the White House is seeking a military that’s motivated not just by the nation’s security, but also by the administration’s political agenda.

And the firing of the three top military lawyers alongside the senior commanders raises concerns that Trump and Hegseth may look to challenge longstanding principles around the laws of war and accountability in the ranks.

Trump had reportedly reconsidered firing Brown after a positive meeting in December, and lawmakers, including some Republicans, had hoped up until recent days that the administration could still be dissuaded from a move that could potentially mark a major shift in the relationship between the executive branch and the military, but to no avail.

Even critics of the decision concede that the president, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, was within his legal rights to replace these commanders.

“The president has the right to have military leaders he has confidence in, for whatever reason,” said Kori Schake, the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and a former White House and Pentagon staffer. “It doesn’t even have to be a good reason.”

Presidents have, of course, relieved military commanders in their posts in the past. Some of the most famous examples include Abraham Lincoln cycling........

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