Dan “Razin” Caine Nominated for Joint Chiefs Chairman
The retired 3-star National Guard officer is an unorthodox pick.
Defense Department (“Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Statement on General Officer Nominations“):
This evening the President announced that he intends to nominate Lieutenant General Dan “Razin” Caine, USAF, for the position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, and the principal military advisor to the President, Secretary of Defense, and National Security Council.
General Caine embodies the warfighter ethos and is exactly the leader we need to meet the moment. I look forward to working with him.
[…]
Under President Trump, we are putting in place new leadership that will focus our military on its core mission of deterring, fighting and winning wars.
Inside Defense (“Trump fires Brown, picks Caine for Joint Chiefs chairman; CNO, AF vice chief to be replaced“):
The Pentagon announced this evening that President Trump intends to nominate retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, replacing Gen. CQ Brown, who has been fired. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti and Air Force Vice Chief Gen. James Slife are also being replaced.
[…]
Trump said Caine, a retired three-star, was “instrumental” in defeating ISIS in his first term, alleging that he had been passed over for promotion in the previous administration.
“Despite being highly qualified and respected to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the previous administration, General Caine was passed over for promotion by Sleepy Joe Biden,” Trump wrote. “But not anymore! Alongside Secretary Pete Hegseth, General Caine and our military will restore peace through strength, put America First, and rebuild our military.”
Reuters (“‘He’s a real general’: How Trump chose Dan Caine to be top US military officer“):
Dan Caine may not have been on Washington’s radar before Friday night. But President Donald Trump’s fascination with the retired three-star general, his surprise pick to become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appears to go back to their first meeting in Iraq in 2018.
Caine, then the deputy commander of a special operations task force fighting Islamic State, told the president that the militant group could be destroyed in just a week, Trump recalled during a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2019.
Since then, he has retold the story about how he met “Razin” Caine multiple times – and the praise has only grown more effusive.
“He’s a real general, not a television general,” Trump said in Miami on Wednesday, two days before his Truth Social post catapulted Caine from retirement to a nomination to be the most senior active-duty officer in the U.S. military.
If approved by the Senate, Caine will take over a military that is reeling from change in the first 30 days of the Trump administration and will inherit a Joint Staff rattled by Trump’s surprise firing of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown.
Caine, a retired F-16 pilot, will be promoted to four-star general, and then have to undergo a potentially grueling Senate confirmation process to get a four-year term as the uniformed head of the nation’s military.
[…]
Caine held a number of posts in the capital from 2005. He was as a special assistant to the secretary at the Department of Agriculture and then policy director for counterterrorism at the White House’s homeland security council.
According to his official Air Force biography, Caine was a part-time member of the National Guard and “a serial entrepreneur and investor” from 2009 to 2016.
He was most recently the associate director for military affairs at the Central Intelligence Agency, before his retirement late last year.
But it was his time in Iraq from 2018 to 2019 that helped him gain Trump’s attention.
Caine will be under particular scrutiny to ensure that he is apolitical, a concern that was heightened by the Friday night firing of Brown, a four-star general. Uniformed military officials are supposed to be loyal to the U.S. Constitution and independent of any party or political movement.
A senior U.S. military official who has worked with Caine for more than a decade said he would seek to keep the military out of politics.
Caine “puts the mission and troops above politics. He is not a political guy,” the official said.
How far Cain can keep the military out of politics may largely depend on Trump – who in the past has dragged the military into partisan issues.In a recent re-telling of their first meeting in Iraq, Trump said that Caine was in the hangar where service members started putting on “Make America Great Again” hats.
“They all put on the Make America Great Again hat. Not supposed to do it,” Trump said during a speech last year.
“I said, ‘you’re not supposed to do that. You know that.’ They said, ‘It’s OK, sir. We don’t care.'”
NYT (“Dan Caine, Trump’s Joint Chiefs Pick, Had Unusual Path to Top Ranks“):
In President Trump’s telling, Dan Caine, the retired Air Force lieutenant general whom he wants to be his next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made an impression on him when the two men first met in 2018.
The general told the president that the Islamic State was not so tough and could be defeated in a week, not two years as senior advisers predicted, Mr. Trump recounted in 2019.
And at a Conservative Political Action Conference meeting last year, Mr. Trump said that General Caine put on a Make America Great Again hat while meeting with him in Iraq. (General Caine has told aides he has never put on a MAGA hat.)
[…]
An F-16 pilot with 150 combat flight hours, General Caine’s career took him on an unusual path for a future Air Force general.
He was a White House fellow at the Agriculture Department and a counterterrorism specialist on the White House’s Homeland Security Council under President George W. Bush. He served in several highly secretive intelligence and special operations assignments, some in the United States and some overseas.
According to his military biography, General Caine was a part-time member of the Air National Guard from 2009 to 2016 and “a serial entrepreneur and investor.”
He was also an associate director for military affairs at the C.I.A. from 2021 to 2024, serving as the principal liaison to the Pentagon and working with the military on several highly classified programs and operations, former colleagues said.
Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., a former head of the military’s Central Command, described General Caine in an email as an “exceptionally talented officer.” General McKenzie said he worked closely with the general in his C.I.A. assignment, and that he was “very effective in that job.”
WaPo (“Who is Dan Caine, Trump’s pick as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?“):
President Donald Trump on Friday said he would appoint retired Air Force Lt. Gen. John Dan “Razin” Caine as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, replacing Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., a Biden appointee.
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Caine reached the rank of lieutenant general in 2021, and his most recent government role was associate director for military affairs at the CIA.
The three-star ranking is unusual for an appointee to one of the top jobs in the Pentagon. Every previous appointee for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff since 1949 has been either a general or an admiral. Brown led the Air Force before he was appointed, and Gen. Mark A. Milley, his predecessor, had been chief of staff of the Army.
Though, if confirmed, Caine would be promoted to general — and become the highest-ranking officer in the U.S. Armed Forces — while holding the position.
Before joining the CIA, Caine was director of special-access programs at the Pentagon from 2019 to 2021 and a deputy commanding general in the fight against the Islamic State, based in Baghdad in 2018 and 2019. He was commissioned in 1990 and served in various roles in the Air Force over more than two decades, including as a fighter pilot. He has also served in the National Guard.
The nomination is, to say the least, unorthodox.
Nominees for Chairman, by law, must not only already be four-star generals or admirals but they must be serving as head of one of the services or the combatant commands. (A 2018 change that extended the Chairman’s term from two to four years precluded the Vice Chairman from being elevated, as Richard Meyers and Peter Pace had been.) Then again, the law also specifies that a Secretary of Defense must not have been an active duty flag officer in the last seven years and Trump nominated Jim Mattis and Biden nominated Lloyd Austin, anyway, and both were confirmed.
It is also highly unusual for a retired officer to be recalled to active duty and placed in one of the top roles. It is not, however, unprecedented. Off the top of my head, Maxwell Taylor was recalled by President Kennedy to serve as Chairman and Peter Schoomaker was recalled by President George W. Bush to serve as Army Chief of Staff.
Far and away the most unusual issue, though, is that Caine is an Air National Guard officer who apparently owns several businesses on the side. I haven’t fully pieced this together since I was only vaguely aware of him until last night but he served 19 years on active duty and took the unusual (I have literally never heard of it) step of moving to the Guard rather than staying 20 and retiring. He then spent several years in the private sector, apparently doing quite well for himself, before essentially becoming a full-time general officer. (That part is not unusual; Guard and Reserve general and flag officers are often full-time.)
Despite all of that, he will almost certainly be confirmed. While my strong preference would be that a Chairman serve in one of the traditional four-star billets first, Colin Powell, who I consider one of the best ever to serve in that billet, did not. Indeed, he had only held four-star rank four a few months before being nominated to the top job. And, despite the unorthodox detour to the Guard, he has served in quite a number of top billets across a wide swath of the Defense, Intelligence, and other interagency sectors:
- August 2005–September 2006, White House Fellow, Special Assistant to the Secretary, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.
- October 2006–January 2008, Policy Director for Counterterrorism and Strategy, White House Homeland Security Council, Executive Office of the President, Washington, D.C.
- January 2008–July 2008, J3 and Commander, Joint Special Operations Task Force – Air Directorate, Balad, Iraq
- July 2008–November 2010, F-16 Instructor Pilot/Mission Commander, 121st FS, Andrews AFB, Md. (July 2008–March 2010, Special Tactics Air Liaison Officer, 24th Special Tactics Squadron, Joint Special Operations Command, Pope AFB, N.C.)
- November 2010–June 2012, Director of Operations (A3)/Deputy Director of Joint Operations (J3), Joint Force Headquarters, District of Columbia ANG, Washington, D.C.
- June 2012–June 2014, Commander, 113th Maintenance Group, Joint Base Andrews, Md.
- June 2014–May 2016, Director of Joint Operations and Training (J3), Joint Force Headquarters, District of Columbia ANG, Washington, D.C.
- May 2016–June 2016, Deputy Commanding General, Air, Joint Force Headquarters, District of Columbia ANG, Washington, D.C.
- June 2016–May 2018, June 2016–May 2018, Assistant to the Vice Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command, Special Operations Command Washington Office, the Pentagon, Arlington, Va. and Assistant Commanding General, Joint Special Operations Command, U.S. Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, N.C. (concurrently)
- May 2018–September 2019, Deputy Commanding General, U.S. Central Command Special Operations Component and Deputy Commanding General – Special Operations Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (Iraq) (concurrently)
- September 2019–September 2021, Director, Special Programs and Director, Special Access Programs Central Office, Va.
- September 2021–November 2021, Special Assistant to the Chief, National Guard Bureau, Washington, D.C.
- November 2021–December 2024, Associate Director for Military Affairs, Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C.
Highlights mine. He has spent a whole lot of time in the National Capitol Region. While highly unconventional—and not really possible anymore for an Active Duty officer—it’s actually pretty strong preparation for the Chairmanship.
That Caine’s path to nomination was making a favorable impression on Trump in the field is amusing but not all that unusual. It’s how Lloyd Austin, who was on nobody else’s radar to be the next Secretary of Defense, got the job. He’d impressed then-Vice President Biden and there was apparently a bond.
Some are making a big fuss over the story about Caine and others in his command wearing MAGA hats and pledging their obsequious fealty to Trump. Caine has denied it. I suspect that the ever-changing tale, which is apparently a staple of Trump speeches, is substantially embellished.
Any officer who accepts the job under these circumstances is without honor.
Special Tactics ALO with the 24th, and later deputy CG of JSOC. So definitely very experienced in the special operations arena.
I guess we’ll be seeing some special operations troops going after Mexican cartels.
General Caine sounds like an excellent pick. Good Luck in your new position General.
Since the CJCS is an advisory position not a Combatant position (I wonder if Trump or Hegseth understand the difference yet), the breadth of experiences may be value added. We shall see.
Trump is bragging that Caine told him,”I’d kill for you, sir.”
Never met him, but there is a certain skill in deciphering bios. Services are talent hoarders, so when you see a General/Admiral (below 3-star) getting a lot of time in Joint positions and Special Operations (unless, they started in Special Operations) it usually means they are considered middle-of-the pack.
Also, I disagree that this would necessarily be a strong resume for Chairmanship (not that many Chairman have had what I’d consider a well-rounded resume) They are almost always Fighter or Infantry guys who have limited experience in Planning or Acquisitions. DOD tries to supplement Generals/Admirals with supplemental training in these areas but they should have actual jobs, no later than 1-Star, where they are responsible for strategic planning and weapons/technology systems procurement. It’s one of the reasons the Defense Industrial Base is able to rip DOD off continuously and why our war plans are often short sighted.
The guys that fly the jets or take the hill do not understand, experientially, how the technology they rely on to do those jobs got in the cockpit or in their rucksack. Nor have they been graded on building a combat approach to execute over 12 months. The officers that have these experiences and later move into the General Officer ranks–top out at 2-3 Stars.
The question is not whether Caine would kill for Trump. In some sense, that’s a soldiers job.
The question is whether Caine would choose the Constitution over Trump if/when push comes to shove. I have no reason to think he wouldn’t, but does Trump?
@Jay L Gischer:
I think Trump feels Caine’s loyalty will be to Trump first and only. That’s why he chose Caine.
I also should add that the magic of our ‘planning’ of defeating ISIS was motivated Kurds and Iraqis who wanted these degenerates out of their lands. We did what we always do with Air Support but ISIS had to be shot in the face to be extracted–and you don’t do that from the sky.
Keep in mind that almost every General or Admiral are extraordinary at their jobs. They distinguish themselves from 1000s of peers to make that rank. The selection rate from O6 to O7 is about 2% Anyone that beats out 98 other Colonels is pretty damn good. The downside is sometimes people with psychological flaws but OCD for their jobs slip through i.e Flynn. I’ve know a handful over the years who were mildly on the Spectrum in my opinion–but the OCD made them extremely effective.
You won’t last in Special Operations or CIA if you display and psych issues so it’s probably a good bet that Caine will be OK in the technical parts of being Chairman. But everything else surrounding the job “Advising” Trump will be a shit show.
@Jim X 32: It seems to me that “advising Trump” has always been a shit show from day one. Probably back to Trump’s days in real estate. There’s no reason to expect that The Donald would have been anything other than “the other kid” who just had some job (somewhere) had his brother not been alcoholic.
@Jim X 32:
Hehe. The good people of Ukraine would like a word.
Shitshow = mission accomplished for these guys.
Per Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth:
Makes you wonder what “the moment” is that requires “the warfighter ethos.”
If the mission is deterring war, ought Trump not capitulate to the aggressor Putin in Ukraine?
If Trump was the “candidate of peace,” as JD Vance told us during the campaign, what wars are we intending to fight and win? Boots on the ground in Gaza? An invasion of Ontario?
@CSK: True, I think Trump thinks that, too.
However at this point Trump is an easy read. I think everyone knows what kind of things to say to him to get his approval. Which means I don’t really trust them. If Trump does, he’s a fool.
Does Trump seem like an excellent judge of character to you? Have his personnel choices always worked out well for him?
@Jay L Gischer:
I think Trump is a lousy judge of character, since his only criterion is the extent to which people flatter him.
Trump met Caine in Iraq in December, 2018. ISIS had already been comprehensively defeated, clinging to a last few square miles of territory in Syria which the Syrians captured within a few months. The story about Caine telling Trump how to beat ISIS in a week when all the other generals told him it would take two years is preposterous bullshit.
MAGA propagandists are forthright about the real reasons for the changes.
‘Trump Ousts Leftist Joint Chiefs Of Staff Chair, Other DEI-Pushing Military Officials’ – The Federalist.
‘Brown is obsessed with race-based diversity quotas. He signed a memo stating his “goal” is to reduce the number of White Males in the Air Force.’ – Libs of TikTok.
‘Friday Night DoD Massacre at the Woke-Kay Corral’ – Hot Air.
‘Military Maneuvers: Trump Fires U.S. Navy Admiral Lisa Franchetti in Wokeness and DEI Purge’ – Twitchy
‘Trump Fires Gen. Charles ‘CQ’ Brown as Joint Chiefs Chairman, Who Pushed DEI in Air Force’ – Breitbart
The only “warfighting” going on is of the culture variety. MAGA people are beside themselves with excitement at all their “winning”.
Being willing to work for a Trump is bad enough, but a douchey nickname should be disqualifying.
I would happily accept a Dan “Raisin” Caine, however.
@CSK: I agree. Which makes me suspect people who suck up to him with flattery as being insincere in that flattery. You would think he would suspect it, too.
Will this guy be serving chicken fingers at his confirmation?
Also, without more detail, “serial entrepreneur and investor” just means unemployed.
@Gustopher: It’s an aviator call sign, typically “awarded” toward the end of flight school although I gather it can sometimes be changed at the unit level. It’s usually based on some embarrassing foul-up but it is often a play on one’s last name as well. I had a student years ago whose last name was Halpert. His call sign was “Fat.”
I’m looking forward to the confirmation hearings when senator after senator asks him “Did you put on the MAGA hat?”, which he’ll again deny, followed up with “Are you lying to us, General, or is the President of the United States lying? Which is it?”
Of course, no such exchange will happen because the Democrats are toothless and the Republicans are sycophants.