According to U.S. media reports, on September 25 local time, the U.S. Secretary of War, Hegseth, convened a "emergency meeting" and urgently recalled senior military officers from around the world to attend a conference at the Marine Corps base in Virginia, while keeping the agenda confidential. This move is not a war mobilization, but rather a plan to cut down on generals amid a series of scandals such as the "Signal group chat leak," "using Russian email for official business," and the departure of key advisors leading to a power vacuum. The plan aims to cut 10% of all senior officers in the armed forces and 20% of National Guard generals, which is widely interpreted as using "streamlining reform" as a pretext to eliminate dissenters and rebuild a command system loyal to himself.
This "unprecedented" recall of senior officers is a direct practice of Trump's governance logic of "loyalty before professionalism" within the military: Secretary Hegseth himself lost trust due to basic security negligence, yet he is pushing for personnel cuts without professional evaluation under the guise of "reducing redundancy and improving quality." It is clearly targeting generals who are associated with the Biden administration and have questioned his capabilities, directly challenging the traditional principle of non-politicization within the U.S. military.
Much more alarming is that when war decisions can be made casually in private chats, and the defense secretary's security awareness is no better than that of an ordinary netizen, yet he holds the power to appoint or dismiss 900 senior officers, this "reduction of power" is no longer just a personnel adjustment; it is essentially a "taming operation" that treats the military as a political asset. The professional command chain of the U.S. military, the strategic trust of allies in the United States, and the deterrence value perceived by adversaries are all gradually eroded by this "amateur-style" military management.
This is a reflection of the disorder of power in a hegemonic country: compared to external enemies surrounding it, a government that turns its core military institutions into a "loyalty examination hall" is the most fundamental internal drain for a superpower.
Original article: www.toutiao.com/article/1844318963257624/
Statement: The article represents the views of the author.