WaPo (“Hegseth orders rare, urgent meeting of hundreds of generals, admirals“):
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered hundreds of the U.S. military’s generals and admirals to gather on short notice — and without a stated reason — at a Marine Corps base in Virginia next week, sowing confusion and alarm after the Trump administration’s firing of numerous senior leaders this year.
The highly unusual directive was sent to virtually all of the military’s top commanders worldwide, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the matter. The directive was issued earlier this week, as a government shutdown looms, and months after Hegseth’s team at the Pentagon announced plans to undertake a sweeping consolidation of top military commands.
[…]
There are about 800 generals and admirals spread across the United States and dozens of other countries and time zones. Hegseth’s order, people familiar with the matter said, 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. Typically, these officers each oversee hundreds or thousands of rank-and-file troops.
Top commanders in conflict zones and senior military leaders stationed throughout Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region are among those expected to attend Hegseth’s meeting, said people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to publicly discuss the issue. The order does not apply to top military officers who hold staff positions.
“All general officers in command in grade O-7 through O-10 and their general officer senior enlisted advisers are directed to attend within operational constraints,” the order states, according to one person who saw a copy. O-7 through O-10 refers to the military’s classification for all generals and admirals.
Not only is this unusual—quite possibly unprecedented—but it’s just odd. If the intention is to get feedback on some major policy change from his top commanders, it would seemingly make more sense to give them some a readahead or at least some broad notice as to the meeting topic in advance so that they can be best prepared to do so. If he simply wants to transmit an order to them for which no feedback is desired, then a written order would seem to suffice.
Naturally, the secretive, last-minute order is causing consternation:
None of the people who spoke with The Post could recall a defense secretary ever ordering so many of the military’s generals and admirals to assemble like this. Several said it raised security concerns.
“People are very concerned. They have no idea what it means,” one person said.
Others expressed frustration that even many commanders stationed overseas will be required to attend Hegseth’s impromptu summit, with some questioning the wisdom in doing so. “It will make the commands just diminished if something pops up,” a defense official said.
The Defense Department possesses highly secure videoconferencing technology that enables military officials, regardless of their location, to discuss sensitive matters with the White House, the Pentagon or both. Another person said ordering hundreds of military leaders to appear in the same location is “not how this is done.”
“You don’t call GOFOs leading their people and the global force into an auditorium outside D.C. and not tell them why/what the topic or agenda is,” this person added, using an abbreviation for general officer or flag officer.
“Are we taking every general and flag officer out of the Pacific right now?” one U.S. official said. “All of it is weird.”
Presumably, if it’s only commanders and their senior enlisted advisors being called in, their deputies, operations officers, and other competent leaders will remain in theater. And those flying to Quantico will presumably do so on aircraft equipped with secure communications. But, yes, there’s a reason this is unprecedented.
The orders come as Hegseth has unilaterally directed massive recent changes at the Pentagon — including directing that the number of general officers be reduced by 20 percent, firing senior leaders without cause and a high-profile order to rebrand the Defense Department as the Department of War.
Given how many senior officers have already been fired without calling an all-hands meeting, I’d be shocked if that were the purpose here.
Top administration officials also have been preparing a new national defense strategy that is expected to make homeland defense the nation’s top concern, after several years of China being identified as the top national security risk to the United States. Some officials familiar with the order to travel said they thought that may come up.
The draft was due to Hegseth almost a month ago. Whether it has been finalized and promulgated on the classified side remains fuzzy. I know a public version has yet to be released, although one is rumored to come very soon. Regardless, we have means of instantly transmitting these documents to senior leaders; there would be no reason to call a meeting for that purpose.
