General (United States)

In the United States military, a general is the most senior general-grade officer; it is the highest achievable commissioned officer rank (or echelon) that may be attained in the United States Armed Forces, with exception of the Navy and Coast Guard, which have the equivalent rank of admiral instead. The official and formal insignia of "general" is defined by its four stars (commonly silver and in a row).

The rank of general ranks above a three-star lieutenant general and below the special wartime five-star ranks of General of the Army or General of the Air Force. The Marine Corps and Space Force do not have an established grade above general. The pay grade of general is O-10. It is equivalent to the rank of admiral in the other United States uniformed services which use naval ranks. It is abbreviated as GEN in the Army and Gen in the Marine Corps, Air Force, and Space Force.

Since the higher ranks of General of the Army and General of the Air Force have been reserved for significant wartime use only (in modern times were recreated for World War II), the rank of general is usually the highest general officer rank in the modern forces.

Formally, the term "General" is always used when referring to a four-star general. However, a number of different terms may refer to them informally,^{[clarification needed]} since lower-ranking generals may also be referred to as simply "General".

The United States Code explicitly limits the total number of general officers (termed flag officers in the Navy and Coast Guard) that may be on active duty at any given time. The total number of active duty general officers is capped at 219 for the Army, 64 for the Marine Corps, 171 for the Air Force, 150 for the Navy, and 21 for the Space Force. No more than about 25% of a service's active duty general or flag officers may have more than two stars (for the Space Force, the ratio is instead one-third), and statute sets the total number of four-star officers allowed in each service. This is set at eight Army generals, two Marine generals, nine Air Force generals, two Space Force generals, six Navy admirals, and two Coast Guard admirals.

Several of these slots are reserved by statute. For example, the two highest-ranking members of each service (the service chief and deputy service chief) are designated as generals. For the Army the chief of staff and the vice chief of staff are generals; for the Marine Corps, the commandant and the assistant commandant are both generals; for the Air Force, the chief of staff and vice chief of staff are generals; and for the Space Force, the chief of space operations, and the vice chief of space operations are generals. In addition, for the National Guard, the chief of the National Guard Bureau is a general under active duty in the Army or Air Force.

There are several exceptions to these limits allowing more than allotted within the statute:

Finally, all statutory limits may be waived at the president's discretion during time of war or national emergency.