Several past defense secretaries have tried to cut the number of generals. Former defense secretary Chuck Hagel tried to reduce the number of general officers and civilians by 20 percent but wasn’t in the job long enough to make it happen. Robert Gates, the defense secretary during the peak of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, proposed eliminating 50 generals and admirals.

If Gates’s efforts succeeded, it is not obvious in today’s military. In addition to all those generals in the Middle East, there are dozens of others at U.S. Central Command in Tampa, which is in charge of the Middle East, and at the Pentagon who also support the U.S. effort in Iraq and Syria—so many that it is impossible to say just how many how many generals are part of the U.S. war effort.