Who’s minding the store?
The Department of War(?) head Pete Hegseth in an extraordinary development has summoned top U.S. military brass stationed around world by the hundreds for an impromptu tête-à-tête. They’ll gather at Quantico Marine Base in Virginia on Tuesday. No one knows why. Nobody’s talking. You should be worried.
The order “applies to all senior officers with the rank of brigadier general or above, or their Navy equivalent, serving in command positions and their top enlisted advisers,” the Washington Post reports. That’s over 800, although it’s unknown how many must attend in person.
Newsweek adds:
Vice President JD Vance said Thursday the gathering is “not particularly unusual.” Asked about it during an Oval Office appearance, President Donald Trump appeared unaware of the details and said, “I’ll be there if they want me but why is that such a big deal?”
I can imagine apocalyptic reasons why it could be a big deal: a ham-fisted, Trumpy version of the Night of the Long Knives, the Katyn forest, or the Ba’ath Party Purge. But nobody in the Trump administration has the stomach for that, not even Stephen Miller.
What else? In-person loyalty oaths? “I pledge allegiance to Donald Trump and to the Monarchy for which he stands”? In an administration otherwise inclined to fire people by social media post, could an in-person purge of the military be in the offing?
Greg Williams, the director of the Center for Defense Information at Project on Government Oversight, tells The Hill:
“It begs the question of why [Hegseth] would do something on such short notice and require so many people to show up in person,” Williams told The Hill. “The absence of public justification for something so unprecedented is in and of itself, a sort of concern.”
He added that the military normally doesn’t require such large, in-person meetings for a whole host of different reasons, including the disruption of ongoing operations, security and “just the sheer safety concerns of having that large a fraction of our military leadership all in one place,” calling it “really concerning.”
USA Today brings readers up to speed on the former Fox News Weekend host’s Trumpy Pentagon makeover to date:
In February, he fired Air Force General C.Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of U.S. military leadership.
Last month, Hegseth fired the head of the Pentagon’s intelligence agency and two other senior military commanders.
In May, Hegseth ordered a 20% reduction in the number of four-star officers. In that May memo, Hegseth said there would also be a minimum 20% reduction in the number of general officers in the National Guard and an additional 10% reduction among general and flag officers across the military.
“More generals and admirals does not lead to more success,” Hegseth said at the time.
Now, many of those generals and admirals will be in the same room.
Now, isn’t that a rather glaring strategic vulnerability? All the military’s top leadership away from their posts “in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns”? What must be going on in the minds of Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping while U.S. generals from around the globe are engaged in a team building (or team eviscerating) exercise in Virginia?
Rumor has it that Hegseth is soon to publish a new defense strategy. That in itself should send shivers down our collective spine (and NATO’s and Ukraine’s). Might top brass be asked to sign on to the U.S. pulling back from strategic defense of key allies and trade routes or else find themselves purged as well?
Worst-worst case? Preparation for Trump invoking the Insurrection Act and declaring martial law, suggests podcaster Jack Hopkins, former Republican. It’s the first time I’ve run across this guy, so take it with a grain of salt, but here’s what he recommends to watch out for:
- Post-Meeting Talking Points lean on “civil order” and “homeland security.”
- National Guard federalization ramps up…governors sidelined.
- Rules of Engagement quietly shift to allow “crowd control” language.
- JAGs excluded from the meeting. (Lawyers in the room = legal brakes. Lawyers out = no brakes.)
And the guest list? “Any White House faces present? That’s an alarm,” warns Hopkins.
No problem. I’m already alarmed.
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