As Our Generals and Admirals Fly Home, Our Adversaries Watch and Wait
Couldn’t Hegseth’s in-person meeting of all flag officers have been a secure conference call?
WHEN I SAW THE NEWS that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had ordered all U.S. military flag officers (generals and admirals) to gather at the Marine base in Quantico, Virginia, next week along with their senior enlisted advisors, my first response was disbelief. Not disbelief that the secretary of defense might want to deliver a strong message to the senior leaders of the force, but disbelief at the method.
In my forty years in uniform, I never saw anything like it. While senior leaders have been recalled to Washington to meet with the secretary of defense during all our wars, never once did a secretary summon all of the hundreds of one- to four-stars from each of the services, plus their top enlisted counterparts, from every corner of the globe to a single auditorium. Not during the Cold War, not during Desert Storm, not during the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not Rumsfeld, not Gates, not Panetta, not Mattis, not Austin.
They likely didn’t do it because it is disruptive. It is expensive. And it is unnecessary.
Even more remarkable, no one seems to know the reason for the meeting or what Secretary Hegseth intends to say. Normally, even when classified issues are in play, senior leaders have at least a broad sense of the agenda at a meeting of general officers and flag officers (GOFOs) and their senior enlisted advisors. Here, nothing. So, as you might imagine, speculation is running rampant.
And where speculation thrives, humor follows. A retired command sergeant major who once served at my side joked with me that maybe Secretary Hegseth just wants to give a “payday safety briefing.” That’s the talk small-unit leaders give their troops after payday: “Don’t drink and drive; stay out of trouble; don’t do dumb things; stay out of jail!” It’s absurd to imagine four-star generals being lectured on avoiding DUIs. But that again just brings us back to our speculation: If not that, then what could possibly justify such an expensive, disruptive spectacle?
There are a handful of possible explanations.
The global security environment is fraught with dangers, so perhaps the meeting has to do with a rapidly shifting national security strategy. Russia continues to press on Ukraine and Ukraine is answering with aplomb. China postures in the Pacific. The Middle East simmers. NATO feels strain both inside and out; currently, the United States and its allies are conducting a massive nuclear exercise in Europe. Perhaps Hegseth wants to frame a major shift in U.S. defense priorities—something so consequential he believes it must be done face to face.
Or perhaps, since the secretary has publicly floated proposals to shrink the number of general and flag officers, he’s ready to make an announcement to the assembled mass of senior leaders. Since he’s already fired a dozen generals, by summoning the entire group, he could be sending a warning shot: “You’re all on notice.” Since it seems Congress is mired in fights over defense spending and there are some doubts about a spending bill passing next week, Hegseth may want to discuss cuts, delays, or reprioritization of funds. The secretary may want to prepare the force for fiscal pain.
Hegseth has voiced anger over the leaking of classified, and even unclassified, information to the point that he recently quashed journalists’ ability to freely report inside the Pentagon. Perhaps he wants his commanders to echo that approach, or maybe he believes a closed-door confrontation with the senior ranks is the best, most efficient way to handle the issue.
Or maybe this meeting has as its primary goal the optics of power, the secretary reminding his senior troops that he’s in charge. It’s hard to picture that—every senior officer in the U.S. military corralled in one place, under his glare. I personally hope that’s not the reason for this gathering, as that’s power theater, not crisis management.
After addressing all these potential reasons, one thing that our media may not be considering: Adversaries and allies are watching. This sudden, global, emergency recall of America’s top brass is a flashing red light to them: Something must be wrong inside the Pentagon.
Even if one accepts that any of these issues—strategies, cuts, budgets, leaks, or priorities—demands immediate attention, the method is baffling and the cost will be staggering: millions of dollars in taxpayer money. And that’s before counting the opportunity cost of lost focus and readiness. To Quantico will come four-star commanders from Korea and Japan, Hawaii and Europe. Three-stars from the UAE, Qatar, Iraq, and other Middle Eastern posts. Two-stars and one-stars from Germany, Italy, and various NATO headquarters. Officers will literally disembark from aircraft carriers in the South China Sea or the Mediterranean to catch flights. Each will travel with aides, communications specialists, and security teams. All will require flights, hotel rooms, and transportation.
Every one of those leaders has an important mission. A combatant commander in the Pacific manages deterrence against China and North Korea as well as preparedness against other adversaries. A three-star in the Middle East balances fragile coalitions while countering Iranian aggression. A two-star in Europe helps oversee U.S. and NATO responses to Russia. Pulling them all out at once hollows out the top tier of global command. Deputies will cover, yes—but adversaries will notice the vacuum. This is not an abstraction. The United States is engaged in active deterrence across multiple theaters. Our enemies watch for seams. To disrupt the world’s most powerful military by having its leaders travel across multiple time zones to stage a mass meeting in Virginia is nothing less than operational malpractice.
THE IRONY IS that better options exist—and have been proven in practice. Secure video teleconferencing has been part of Pentagon life for decades. During the early stages of the War on Terror, President George W. Bush personally held secure VTCs with combatant commanders across the global footprint: Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa, Europe, the Pacific, Korea. The president of the United States could span the world in a single conversation, connecting directly with leaders on the ground.
As the U.S. Army’s operations officer and later as the commander in Europe, I sat in on secure video sessions with the Pentagon one afternoon each week from 2004 to 2011, except when I was deployed to Iraq. We spent hours every Saturday connecting with commanders from across the globe, sharing situational awareness, synchronizing planning, passing critical information, and executing global contingencies—all without flying hundreds of generals and admirals away from their posts.
That was wartime. That was crisis. And it was done virtually, securely, effectively. So why is it suddenly necessary to convene at Quantico?
Inside the force, this recall will be read as a show of power. It will be received less as We need you here and more as I can make you come. In private conversations, senior leaders will ask the obvious question: Why are we spending millions and creating global vulnerabilities for a meeting that could be done in an hour on secure video? As they say in baseball, it’s a long run for a short slide.
Leaders won’t ask it publicly. But the quiet skepticism will erode confidence and trust in civilian leadership. That erosion matters. In the military, morale is built not only on what leaders say but on whether they make sound decisions.
The troops on the ground may joke, as my friend did, about a “payday safety briefing.” The rest of us should recognize the deeper concern: In a moment when readiness is our greatest asset, the secretary of defense has chosen disruption, cost, and vulnerability to stage a demonstration of power.
It’s the wrong message, delivered in the wrong way, at the wrong time.
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