In an unprecedented purge of the military’s senior leadership Friday night, President Donald Trump fired the top US general just moments before his defense secretary fired the chief of the US Navy and the vice chief of the Air Force.

President Donald Trump’s Friday night purge of the Pentagon’s top officer and five other senior officials has thrust the institution into uncharted territory, with a retired general plucked from obscurity to serve as the commander in chief’s next senior military adviser and growing alarm among Trump’s critics about the encroachment of political warfare on an organization bound by the Constitution to remain nonpartisan.