My historian colleagues might correct me, but I do not think anyone at least in recent history has done what Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is about to do: put all of the American generals and admirals from around the world into a single room (next week, in Virginia) just to say something to them.

There is no practical reason to do this: he has easier and more secure ways to communicate with the commanders. And there are obvious risks: the entire armed forces of the United States, spread around the world, will be without its leaders. Given that the government could well shut down the next day, the separation of commanders from their command might be indefinite.

And if Hegseth has his way, those generals and admirals will all be in one site, announced in advance, which means that the entirety of the American command structure will be more vulnerable, physically, than in any conceivable military scenario, including nuclear war. There is no scenario other than this one in which they would all be in the same place at the same time.

So why might Secretary Hegseth do such an extraordinary thing? Only four solutions to the puzzle come to mind.

He has some trivial thing to say and does not understand the risks.

He wishes to endanger the lives of the generals and admirals.

He will stage a purge, perhaps involving a loyalty oath or something similar that requires personal presence.

He will tell the commanders that henceforth their assignment will be to oppress American citizens (“homeland defense”). This could be combined with the third scenario: those who refuse will be fired.

Perhaps others can think of other possibilities, but I am afraid that I cannot.

One might wonder why no effort was made to keep this secret. Perhaps Hegseth wants the senior officers to worry. Perhaps the news was shared because reasonable people in the Pentagon fear that the meeting is part of a plan to remake the American military as a domestic political police force. This would be in conjunction with other efforts, such as yesterday’s terror memo, to pursue regime change in the United States. Making known that there will be such a meeting is the one way to begin a conversation that might prevent its taking place, or at least alter its purpose.

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PS News outlets: please do not publish heroic portraits of Hegseth or of others in connections with articles about this and related subjects. Doing so undermines reporting and naturalizes the transition to authoritarianism.

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