Rumours abound in Washington over why Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s Secretary of War, has taken the extraordinary step of summoning hundreds of top commanders to a secret, “must-attend” meeting at a military base in Virginia on Tuesday.
Last week, hundreds of generals and admirals serving the Pentagon worldwide were all suddenly ordered to up sticks and return to Washington, an instruction for which there is no modern-day precedent.
Theories spread like wildfire suggesting various possible reasons for the meeting, to be held at the highly secure Marine Corps base in Quantico. Some suggested the top brass would all be required to pass “loyalty tests” before being sent back into the field.
Others speculated that efforts would be made to demand their support for plans to use active duty military personnel on the streets of American cities to halt protests against the President’s mass deportation efforts.
Another rumour doing the rounds postulated that Trump would seek buy-in for his ongoing efforts to engage in the maritime, extra-judicial killing of alleged drug smugglers from Venezuela, with the commander-in-chief reportedly now planning to authorise direct military strikes on Venezuelan soil itself.
On Sunday, Trump sought to dampen the speculation down. He told NBC News that he wants personally to address his military commanders in what he portrayed as nothing more than a glorified pep talk. “You know the expression ‘esprit de corps’?’” he asked. “That’s all it’s about. We’re talking about what we’re doing, what they’re doing, and how we’re doing … it’s just a good message”.
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Notwithstanding the President’s remarks, it is still unclear why – as he put it – “a very nice meeting talking about how we’re going militarily” requires the costly and strategically risky decision to bring at least 800 senior commanders with one-star rank or higher all the way home.
When the order’s existence was made public last week, it stunned some veteran military observers who argued that America’s global foes would have become immediately aware that forces will be operating in theatres worldwide without their commanding officers, a vulnerability that some US enemies might seek to exploit.
Hegseth, who issued the order, is expected to address the commanding officers about the “warrior ethos” that he is implementing at the Pentagon, and to underscore the philosophical moves behind the Trump administration’s decision to return the Department of Defence to its pre-1947 name, the Department of War.
CNN reports that Hegseth will discuss new readiness, fitness and grooming standards for the forces’ senior leaders, but cited one official warning that the meeting is “about getting the horses into the stable and whipping them into shape”. The source claimed the burden of Hegseth’s message will be: “get on board, or potentially have your career shortened”, which sounds rather less warm and fuzzy than Trump’s description of the gathering.
The generals and admirals attending Tuesday’s session will have arrived in Washington fully aware that the Trump administration is proposing a more aggressive military stance at home and abroad.
The attacks on at least three high-speed boats that the Trump administration claims – but has not proved – targeted drug traffickers connected to the Venezuelan gang ‘Tren de Aragua’ has been condemned by the government in Caracas and many of its regional neighbours. Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, had his visa to the United States revoked last week, after he addressed a crowd of pro-Palestinian demonstrators in New York and urged serving members of the US military to disobey orders handed down from the Oval Office.
At home, US military commanders know they may soon face a choice either to obey Trump’s orders or to refuse to deploy troops under their command on the streets of American cities. With Trump now flooding National Guard troops into Portland after falsely claiming that the Oregon city is “war-ravaged” by protesters trying to halt Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) operations against illegal immigrants, he is also intensifying the presence of masked Ice agents on the streets of Chicago.
Hundreds of people were arrested there over the weekend, and amid a notable uptick in their activity, a top border official was filmed telling a local TV reporter that his agents are actively engaged in racial profiling.
Gregory Bovino, commander at large of the Border Force, told a WBZ-TV reporter that “the particular characteristics of an individual, how they look” is used to guide his masked men and women. “How do they look, compared to say, you?” he told the white reporter.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Trump and Hegseth may face unwelcome questions from commanders about precisely what activities the military may be required to undertake. In Washington DC, where a National Guard deployment remains underway to deal with a purported crime wave, the troops have so little to do that they are spending their days collecting rubbish and manicuring grass verges. As of Saturday, they had cleared 1,099 bags of refuse, spread 1,045 cubic yards of mulch, painted 270 feet of fencing and pruned 400 trees, according to official data gathered by Reuters.
In the ranks, that kind of activity by trained personnel is described as “boredom-inducing annoyance”. The generals and admirals who have traipsed to Virginia may well question Trump and Hegseth about where the “lethality” lies in beautification and landscaping.
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