The Most Bizarre Test of U.S. National Security Is Happening This Week
Or, how the Trump administration does not understand centralized vulnerability.
Anyone paying even a smidgen of attention to the news knows that the second Trump administration is very fond of taking unprecedented actions. Whether it is filing idiotic charges against former policy principals or ordering military forces into American cities or legalizing bribery or other tacky stuff, this administration is keen to foray into uncharted waters.
This leads us to what might be the Trump administration’s most bizarre national security move yet. The president’s team is assembling America’s entire military leadership into one place for no good reason whatsoever — thereby daring any U.S. adversary to do something about it.
Let’s start with the assembling of generals and admirals, an order that came from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for… reasons I guess. The Washington Post’s national security reporters are all over this:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered hundreds of generals to travel from around the world to hear him make a short speech on military standards and the “warrior ethos,” multiple people familiar with the event told The Washington Post.
Hegseth’s orders, which were sent earlier this week to senior generals and admirals worldwide, require anyone in a command position with the rank of one-star general or rear admiral and above, as well as their senior enlisted leaders, to be at Marine Corps University at Quantico, Virginia, on Tuesday….
The orders, first reported by The Post on Thursday, were delivered without any stated reason, sending staff, many of whom will be coming in from commands that are focused on the world’s global conflicts, scrambling to make travel arrangements. The directive comes in the wake of Hegseth’s firing of numerous senior military officers without cause, upending military norms and creating a culture of fear in the Pentagon, the people familiar with the matter said.
The Pentagon has declined to clarify the purpose or detail the agenda of the meeting and did not immediately respond to questions on the nature of Hegseth’s speech. Sean Parnell, a spokesman, affirmed in a statement that Hegseth “will be addressing his senior military leaders early next week.”
Some Pentagon officials questioned the wisdom of launching a relatively large gathering on short notice to hear Hegseth speak for a matter of minutes, and bristled at the idea that long-serving military leaders — a segment of whom spent years in combat earlier in their careers — needed instruction on how to fight….
The New York Times writeup suggests that the generals are going to have even more cause to be pissed: “Hegseth, who summoned the generals and admirals, is expected to speak about grooming and fitness requirements, and other aspects of what he calls a shift toward a ‘warrior ethos’ at the Pentagon.”
As the WaPo story notes, there are some logistical and fiscal concerns about this exercise:
The former defense auditing official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation, estimated the cost of travel alone in the millions of dollars.
“Spending millions of dollars to jerk the entire military’s leadership to a short speech seems wasteful unless it’s an emergency,” the official said….
The timing of the event has been of particular concern: The speech is set for Sept. 30, the last day of the fiscal year. If there is a government shutdown, it could leave key staff stranded in Virginia as military commands across the globe are juggling the security implications of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Israel’s renewed offensive in Gaza, new military operations in the Caribbean against drug cartels and the continued threat to U.S. personnel in the Middle East, where the Houthis and other Iranian-backed militias continue to fire missiles and drones at U.S. interests.
It’s not just wasteful — it’s also dangerous. If a risk-loving adversary really wanted to debilitate the ability of the United States to exercise military leadership, then all they would have to do is find some way of attacking Quantico while all U.S. generals and admirals were assembled.
The only way you could make the target more inviting is if the president were to participate as well and oh wait what is WaPo’s follow-up story saying?!
President Donald Trump has decided he is going to the last-minute global gathering of the nation’s top generals that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered last week, he said Sunday, setting the stage for a highly unusual meeting between the commander in chief and the U.S. military leaders.
Trump’s appearance at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia not only overshadows Hegseth’s planned address but adds new security concerns to the massive and nearly unprecedented military event, which has required some generals and admirals to travel thousands of miles. Trump cast the discussion largely as a pep talk.
“It’s really just a very nice meeting talking about how well we’re doing militarily, talking about being in great shape, talking about a lot of good, positive things. It’s just a good message,” Trump said in an interview with NBC News. “We have some great people coming in and it’s just an ‘esprit de corps.’ You know the expression ‘esprit de corps’? That’s all it’s about. We’re talking about what we’re doing, what they’re doing, and how we’re doing.”….
Notice went out to offices around the Pentagon that the decision will “significantly change the security posture” of the speech, set for Tuesday morning at Marine Corps University.
The addition of the president at Quantico will now put the Secret Service in charge of securing the event.
So Trump has decided to join this “very nice meeting,” thereby making the target even more inviting for a U.S. adversary. One could argue that adding Secret Service protection bolsters the security of the event. But the last-minute nature of the planning makes the hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World dubious of this claim. Little wonder that some senators are asking Hegseth some hard questions about exactly what the f**k is going on.
In all likelihood none of this will amount to much. No U.S. adversary that can mobilize quickly is likely to take such a big risk as an attack at Quantico. No doubt Trump and Hegseth’s speeches will be annoying, but the event will likely occur without incident.
Still, this is an awfully inviting target because of the centralization of America’s military leadership in one place at one time. So I guess we’ll see what happens.
There is also a small part of me that is convinced that Trump ginned up this whole enterprise after watching a bad movie late at night. One possibility is that he came across the wretched1985 Chuck Norris flick Invasion U.S.A.:
The big plot twist in that film is when the terrorists converge on what they think is a pivotal meeting of U.S. leaders — only to realize it’s a trap set up by Chuck Norris:
Another possibility, given his repeated attempts to consolidate presidential power, is that Trump watched G.I. Joe: Retaliation and wants to recreate some variation of this scene:
In any event, I hope my knowledge of truly bad films does not wind up being relevant this week.
Honestly, I think our adversaries are happy to just let us destroy ourselves. Think of the cost savings!
As a former DOD person my first thought was, why isn't this a VTC ? And on the eve of a probable shutdown, no less. On the other hand, the meeting will give general officers the opportunity to see for themselves that the commander in chief is mad as a hatter.