Or perhaps if enough colonel-ranked officers get fired and things are going to hell the colonels might stage a coup. There’s a good discussion of this at Reddit:
ETA: Quotes from the top answer:
Generals are inherently political creatures, and they are therefore close to the existing power structure the coup intends to overthrow. They got their position through connections, potentially through patronage, and they themselves enjoy powers of patronage and influence. They’re less likely to act against a system that works for them.
Conversely, those on the bottom of the military structure are young, inexperienced, and have few resources and connections. They have the numbers, but not the power to organize anything comprehensive or carry it out.
[snip]
That leaves colonels in the sweet spot – they have access to resources but are not on the top of the system. Therefore they have room for ambition. They may have failed to gain higher office, have resentments against those above them, but they’re sufficiently powerful to amass a base of support.
There is no union for generals. If the president wants you out you’re going to be out. If you have a couple of stars you don’t want an administrative review board to determine that your last rank satisfactorily completed was colonel because that’s what your retirement pay will be based on.
Any of those officers that are in this discussion have more than enough time on to retire.
I had heard that “firing” was to give an officer a FitRep that would ensure they would never move up that the firing was that they would not re-enlist. Is that not the same thing?
When Captain Brown ran the battleship Missouri aground in Chesapeake Bay in 1950 he was set so far down the promotion lists his career was effectively over. He was promoted Rear Admiral on the last day of his service before retiring in 1955 (a ‘tombstone promotion’, because that’s the only place it will be displayed).
[Moderating]
A reminder that this is Factual Questions, and thus speculation about what might motivate what groups of people to do what is beyond the scope of this forum. If people wish to discuss topics related to the factual question, they should do so in another thread, in an appropriate forum.
Officers don’t reenlist. There is no end date to their service. Some are required to serve a certain amount of time to pay back their education but that’s it. An officer can resign at any time during their career. I think most of the ways to get rid of an officer have been covered.
Well, as long as they didn’t just accept orders to a new duty station or report to the same. When I put in my resignation, I had to line it up first and foremost with the end of my incentive pay contract, and second with the end of my current tour. My current tour was actually supposed to end about 6 months before my incentive pay contract, so I actually had to agree to extend 6 months in a job I hated (the job that, ironically, drove me to submit my resignation, as a kind of final straw) just so I could get out ASAP.
But then of course I had a bit of a minor breakdown and ended up (1) having to stay in a whole 'nother year and (2) getting a medical retirement. I like to think of it as an ugly divorce where in the end I somehow managed to come away with alimony despite telling my ex to shove it.