Ready, fire, aim: Pentagon cut workforce with little analysis before or since

Pentagon leaders cut their department’s workforce by more than 10 percent with little regard for the effects—and still has no plans to assess them, according to a congressional watchdog report released on Friday. The department shed 78,000 civilian employees in 2025 through a mix of voluntary resignations, involuntary layoffs, and a hiring freeze that resulted in nearly 60,000 fewer new hires than in recent years.“But we found that DOD didn’t consistently analyze the