Pete Hegseth schedules meeting that should have been an email

An omnipresent problem with authoritarian regimes is that they are uniformly incompetent and uniformly malevolent, but the incompetence and malevolence is typically so overlapping and all-encompassing that you can never quite be sure whether any one given action is because some regime dumbass doesn't know how doorknobs work or if it's prelude to some new national apocalypse that will someday have entire books and college seminars devoted to its description. It could be one; it could be the other; it's usually some mix of both.

You can take your pick, when imagining which particular current doorknob apocalypse I might be referring to with that statement, but in this particular case I'm talking about Pete Hegseth. Yes, the day-drinking former Fox News host with the white nationalist tattoos who now sits as the Trump administration's chosen Secretary of Defense, the one rampaging his way through the military's top ranks and urging officers to commit domestic and international crimes, is making news again. Goodie.

On Thursday we learned that Hegseth has ordered "virtually all" of the nation's top military commanders, no matter where in the world they might be, to assemble in Quantico, Virginia next Tuesday for an in-person meeting about ... well, the commanders haven't been told what it's about.

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, each of these officers oversees hundreds or thousands of rank-and-file troops. [...]

Each commander typically travels with his senior enlisted adviser and a few lower-ranking military aides, meaning the total group of people traveling for the summit could seemingly exceed 1,000. It’s unclear how the military will house them or transport them.

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.

To say such an assembly is unusual is an understatement, and by a lot. The U.S. military has among the most secure communications systems on the planet, and if the a defense secretary needs to convey information to top generals stationed on bases around the planet there are numerous ways to do that that does not involve airlifting every general and admiral to an in-person meeting so that the secretary can announce that thing in person.

So this is either a case of Pete Hegseth not knowing or caring how military comms works or it is an unprecedented crisis that can only be spoken of using non-electronically-enhanced mouth-to-ear sound waves, and living under a fascist government means having no clue as to which it might be.

The predominant reaction both within the military and among national security analysts appears to be bewilderment. It is a nonsensical command; merely gathering such a large number of top officers presents real national security risks for no apparent gain. That's led to a great deal of speculation over just what monstrous upcoming event can only take place after delivering each of the nation's top commanders to Hegseth's presence. From CSIS:

There is lots of speculation about what the meeting will concern. The flag and general officers are bringing their senior enlisted personnel, so it is unlikely that this will be some purge of general officers, as some have feared. One possible topic is a discussion of the National Defense Strategy, which the secretary is reportedly about to publish. It has been widely reported that this strategy will emphasize homeland security, and Hegseth may want to express that directly to his commanders. It would be a substantial change from recent strategies, which focused on China and Russia. It is also possible that he will announce consolidations of organizations. For example, there have been rumors of combining European Command and Africa Command as well as Southern Command and Northern Command. Finally, Hegseth may want to rally the troops and make a point—get onboard or leave—that is implied in much of his guidance. [...]

Security at Quantico will be a nightmare. Such a gathering of military leadership would be a target for terrorists and protesters. The base is large, with thousands of inhabitants and workers. The base may give up on trying to conduct its normal training and education activities and just close for a day or two. Be glad you are not Colonel Jenny Colegate, the base commander who will be in charge of administration, logistics, and security.

Gaps in command worldwide are potentially dangerous. Although there will be acting commanders still in place, the large number of absentees might open a vulnerability.

It is not clear why this could not have been done in a classified VTC meeting rather than bringing everyone physically to Washington.

Indeed: As Sun Tzu is alleged to have written in a footnote cut from later transcriptions of The Art of War: What the f--k?

That brings us to the question we started with. There are two reasons why the United States Secretary of Defense might summon a large portion or "virtually all" of the nation's top generals and admirals to an urgent in-person meeting with no defined topic.

1. All hell is about to break loose.
2. Pete Hegseth is an incompetent but pompous buffoon, a self-regarding idiot who enjoys wasting everybody else's time with random displays of Very Stupid Authority.

If you have at any point in your life worked in an industry that had "meetings," you almost certainly can remember at least one company manager who was, to put it as kindly as possible, an insufferable waste of oxygen and a pox on all those around them. This is a creature known in some circles as the business idiot, a creature that rises in power and prominence purely through the art of bullshitting superiors while sabotaging underlings. The nation is currently suffering from an epidemic of these types, because while they may be poisonous when it comes to getting anything actually done, the United States is currently overflowing with very rich people who need their asses kissed at all hours of the day and night, and who are willing to pay handsomely for anyone who can do that ass-kissing, and so now most large organizations are filled with long, tightly coiled chains of highly paid know-nothing ass-kissers running from top to at least the midranks, making corporate organizational charts look like strands of unraveling DNA.

Think back to the worst manager you ever knew. Think back to the meetings they had. The Worst Manager You Ever Knew almost certainly was a master of the regular, attendance-mandatory meeting that consisted of as much of the company as could be mustered all assembled to sit quietly and listen to 30 minute stretches of This Gigantic Asshole ad-libbing their Stupid Business Thoughts at everyone, very little of it actionable, the vast majority of it useless, and every bit of it intended solely as a power maneuver meant to emphasize that Gigantic Asshole could waste enormous amounts of time and money putting on their little Business Improv Play in front of an audience that they had the power to get rid of if everyone didn't sit there and pretend they were brilliant the whole time through.

There is a standard rule of business that applies, in such situation. If a manager holds a meeting in which nobody else is expected to contribute anything, that is not a meeting. That is called a memo. You are all attending an in-person memo.

Now that I've primed you all to remember what office life is like, and probably sent at least 5% of you into PTSD just thinking about the most insufferable dishonest backstabbing know-nothing ass-kissing meeting-having money-wasting dumbass you have ever known: Which would appear to be the more likely event, when Former Fox News Host Pete Hegseth has been put in charge of the entire U.S. military?

Does the meeting foretell an apocalyptic purge of disloyalists in upper military ranks, one that will be so confrontational and dicey that the Trump administration feels it must separate those officers from the pointy-shooty parts of their military commands before bringing it up?

Or is Pete Hegseth, a fascism-backing day-drinking war crime-promoting know-nothing jackass, holding this wildly expensive, operationally useless, and national security-threatening get-together so he can strut around on a stage for an hour blowing smoke up his own asshole while the most accomplished leaders the U.S. military has to offer are forced to sit there and watch?

Yeah. Yeah, I think at this point we're all quite clear on what makes Pete Hegseth tick. And today new reporting has emerged that suggests "blithering idiot holds meeting that could have been an email" is exactly what's going on here, and all of this is just another episode of the Trump Administration being filled with people with utterly no skills other than unbounded self-admiration.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered hundreds of generals to travel on short notice from around the world to hear him make a short speech on military standards and the “warrior ethos,” multiple people familiar with the event told The Washington Post.

Hegseth’s orders, which were sent earlier this week to senior generals and admirals worldwide, require anyone in a command position with the rank of one-star general or rear admiral and above, as well as their senior enlisted leaders, to be at Marine Corps University at Quantico, Virginia, on Tuesday. [...]

“It’s meant to be an eyeball-to-eyeball kind of conversation,” one person familiar with ongoing discussions said. “He wants to see the generals.”

And crap, hundreds of top military leaders are now thinking. He's f--king summoning us to a f--king seminar. I have to cross eight time zones for this sh-t.

Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that Hegseth couldn't break major news during this meeting that should have been an email. The man lacks self control, we've seen no particular evidence that suggests he's given up his alleged Fox News habit of doing his job while buzzed, and we've all seen that Hegseth's version of "warrior ethos" consists almost entirely of firing non-white non-male military leaders while demanding that remaining leaders back illegal orders and war crimes.

Deploying the military against civilian boats in international waters, engaging and murdering unknown persons on thin accusations that they were engaged in civilian crimes, is an illegal act both in the United States and worldwide—for example. Deploying the standing army against protesting civilians at home: flatly unconstitutional, no matter what blubbering a now hopelessly corrupt Supreme Court majority might attach to it.

So we'll definitely hear all about what Hegseth said in this secret get-together, once it's over, because many military leaders reportedly have contempt for the man and his Nazi-adjacent ideas on what a "warrior ethos" should look like. Like Trump, he is both ignorant and malevolent; like Trump himself, he seems determined to display both of those traits in all situations and at all times. Like Trump, this means he is always one burped-up phrase away from instigating a new international crisis that nobody saw coming, every single time he opens his mouth.

But the reason for the meeting itself appears to be the deeply stupid one: Pete Hegseth is bored, and Pete Hegseth hasn't gotten to lord his newfound power over military leaders for several weeks now, and Pete Hegseth thinks so f--king highly of himself that he thinks he can chug a few beers, admire his white nationalist tattoos in the mirror for a moment, and then step onstage to tell the collected careerists of United States military all about "military standards" and the "warrior ethos."

And so every top commander in the military has got to schlep from across the globe to hear him give this "short speech" in person. Not because it's some urgent emerging crisis, not because of some wider authoritarian plan, but because Pete Hegseth has given up on figuring out how to send emails and is now making that everybody else's problem.

Whatever the top brass thought of Hegseth when he was appointed to the position, I can guarantee you they're going to be steaming over being hauled in and stuffed in a conference for the sole purpose of hearing him talk for an hour. We're disrupting the entire military chain of command for this?

Not a way to make friends, Pete! So ... keep it up, I guess?

UPDATE: Oh, lord...

President Donald Trump has decided he’s going to the last-minute global gathering of the nation’s top generals in Quantico, Virginia, that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered last week.

Trump’s appearance not only upstages Hegseth’s plans, but adds new security concerns to the massive and nearly unprecedented military event.

Trump apparently decided he was going on Saturday, presumably because he thought Hegseth was stealing his spotlight.

“It’s the mother of all photo ops,” said Eugene R. Fidell, a military law expert at Yale Law School. The potential for the event to be politicized, and add to the politicization of the military, “is tremendously concerning and should be tremendously concerning to the American people.”