It is possible that the real story here is that even after the officer purges, Obama has realized he can’t bend the military completely to his will. So, make it smaller and weaker so that his “civilian military force” (TSA, SWAT teams in the Dept of Education, etc.) will outnumber the formal military when the time comes.
Except that the armed citizenry will always outnumber the military and the SWAT teams.