# Dan Caine Gen. **John Daniel "Razin" Caine**, USAF (b. August 10, 1968, Elmira, N.Y.) — the 22nd **Chairman of the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]]**, nominated by [[Donald Trump]] on February 21, 2025 after the abrupt firing of Gen. CQ Brown, confirmed by the Senate **60–25 on April 11, 2025**, and sworn in **April 14, 2025**. A career [[National Guard]] officer — on September 11, 2001 he was weapons-and-tactics chief of the D.C. Guard's 121st Fighter Squadron and flew combat air patrol over Washington — he later commanded a special-operations air task force in Iraq (2008), ran special-access programs, and served as CIA Associate Director for Military Affairs (November 2021–December 2024) before retiring as a lieutenant general. He is the first Guard officer to hold the chairmanship. ## Why he matters here - **He is the first Chairman who never served as a four-star officer before his nomination.** A retired three-star F-16 pilot and former CIA associate director for military affairs, Caine was recalled to active duty and jumped over the entire serving four-star cohort. Trump had spoken admiringly of him for years — dating to a 2018 encounter in Iraq — and the selection made **personal rapport with the president a qualification for the job**. - **His installation came out of the February 21, 2025 purge** of the military's senior leadership (Brown, CNO Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Air Force Vice Chief, and several services' top JAGs). The purge is the clearest signal of the second term's project to subordinate the professional officer corps to loyalty. - **The Chairman does not command.** Under the [[Goldwater-Nichols Act]], he is the principal military *adviser*; operational orders run President → Secretary of Defense → combatant commander, bypassing him entirely. See [[Combatant Commands Map]]. That structural fact cuts both ways: it limits the damage a compliant Chairman can do, and it limits the check a principled one could impose. - **The Trump story and the hearing.** Trump has said for years that Caine, at a December 2018 meeting in Iraq, pledged loyalty, put on a MAGA hat and promised ISIS could be beaten in a week. At his April 1, 2025 confirmation hearing Caine said he had "listened to those tapes" and believed "the president was actually talking about somebody else," and pledged to give his best military advice "even when the president may have different feelings about it." The exchange is the record against which his later conduct is read. - **Operations he has fronted.** He gave the timeline briefing for the June 22, 2025 strikes on Iran's nuclear sites (Operation Midnight Hammer) — measured where [[Pete Hegseth]]'s rhetoric was not — and, on January 3, 2026 at Mar-a-Lago, announced the capture of [[Nicolás Maduro]] and Cilia Flores: "months of planning," more than 150 aircraft, a night raid on Caracas, no U.S. casualties, the two "gave up and were taken into custody by the Department of Justice." - **The Iran war and the advice question.** In February 2026 the *Washington Post* and Axios reported that Caine had warned Trump an attack on Iran risked a prolonged conflict, American casualties, thin munitions stocks and unreliable regional basing. Trump called the reports "fake news" (February 23) — "He only knows one thing: how to WIN" — Caine briefed options on February 26, and the [[Iran War 2026]] opened on **February 28, 2026**. Reporting since has cast him as looking for an "off-ramp" and resisting regime-change objectives. Under Goldwater-Nichols the Chairman advises and does not command; the war is the test of whether that advice was heard. ## See also - [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]] · [[Combatant Commands Map]] · [[Goldwater-Nichols Act]] - [[Pete Hegseth]] · [[Donald Trump]] - [[Department of Defense]] · [[Armed Forces Hub]] · [[National Guard]] - [[Iran War 2026]] · [[Iran War 2026 Timeline]] · [[Nicolás Maduro]] · [[Mark Milley]]