Hundreds of generals and admirals will gather at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va., as part of a rare in-person conference of the most senior leaders in the U.S. military, the Washington Post first reported.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called the meeting, which will require the generals and their staffs to fly in from all corners of the globe – raising questions about security and logistics.
Alex Horton, a national security reporter for the Washington Post, is part of the team that broke the news about the meeting. He spoke with Texas Standard about why it’s happening. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Well, I guess the big question is why? Why have a meeting like this at Quantico?
Alex Horton: Well, you know that joke, “this could have been an email?” Well, commanders all over the world have access to secure video teleconference technology so they could talk about the most sensitive strikes and the most sensitive military operations in the world – whether that’s a SEAL team rescuing hostages or the bombing of Iran nuclear sites.
As you mentioned, there was this talk after we reported it because our first initial report was it’s going to happen, but it’s unclear why, and so the speculation started to run rampant – it was planning for a big strike. Perhaps it was something to do with China or ramping up of the narco terrorist mission down in the Caribbean.
There was a whole host of reasons, but it came out to be this is going to be a talk less than an hour about the warrior ethos and professional standards within the military.
I think there are a lot of questions raised about operational security for the military. You have all of these top-line generals and admirals gathered in one place.
Is there a concern, a significant or legitimate concern, about the vulnerability that this perhaps poses for national security?
Yeah, I mean, I think the viewpoint depends on where you sit.
You know, if you’re critical of something like this, you can say, well, having these decision-makers away from their staffs, away from their daily reports, what happens if those first bombers start heading towards Taiwan, for instance? Are there enough contingencies in place where people can make decisions in their absence? Are they able to reach people in DC depending on the time zone change?
Those are all legitimate questions, and there’s also the question of the counterintelligence problem – you know, all the spies and spooks and all the other people who would like to gather information on generals and admirals and people close to them. You know, you don’t have to target a general to learn about them. You can target the lieutenant colonel who’s carrying his bag.
Getting all those people in one place, I mean, it’s a goldmine for spies to sort of try to track people, try to vacuum up any information. That’s the other issue there that some people in the know were saying, you, know, it’s not the gravest risk in the world as will be done in a military base, but you want there to be a good trade-off. You want the meeting and the gathering to be of substance. Risk-reward balance.
And, you now, they said, well, maybe this is out of step with how they would have done this in any other place. But you have to remember President Trump and Secretary Hegseth, both on Fox News regularly before the administration and during the administration. They are both one for theatrics and optics. So that does seem to have won out.
Say more about President Trump being there. I guess, over the weekend, we got word that he planned to make an appearance at this meeting. What’s the significance of that?
That’s right. Well, you know, the first time he was asked about it in the Oval Office after, you know…
Didn’t seem to know about it. It was really strange.
That’s right. He seemed kind of caught off-guard. You know, there was speculation that he misheard the question.
And so, you know, we broke the news over the last couple days that he was going. That amps up the security posture there. And then also when you talk about the telegenic defense secretary who likes being on camera, likes having the flare, and he had this all to himself… And now you have the president coming to sort of overshadow all of that.
Alex, you mentioned the warrior ethos seems to be the focus of this meeting. I was talking a little bit earlier about the change of the name to Department of War, returning it to its pre-1949 nomenclature, not official yet. But are these in some way connected?
Yeah, I think so. You know, Pete Hegseth has talked about returning to the warrior ethos, which is internally, that’s just the way that the professional military thinks about fighting and winning wars and their dedication to that. And Hegsath feels that the department has strayed too far from that.
So he wants to go on to a more aggressive posture and aggressive footing, to think about the military as a fighting force. But of course, you know, everyone in the military… This isn’t the Peace Corps. They’re there for a reason. So they have already got that memo.
