Here is What the Secretary of War Should Have Said to His General and Flag Officers
On October 6, 2025 Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth assembled the senior military leaders and senior enlisted advisors from across the US military at Quantico, Virginia to speak to them about his vision for the department and his expectations of US military personnel.
The Secretary had a good opening (with edits):
“Good morning and welcome to the War Department. . . . From this moment forward, the only mission of the newly restored Department of War is this: warfighting, preparing to win, unrelenting and uncompromising in that pursuit. . . to be strong so that we can prevent war in the first place. . . . [W]e owe our republic a military that will win any war we choose or any war that is thrust upon us. . . .Our warfighters are entitled to be led by the best and most capable leaders.”
What followed, unfortunately, was a pep talk better delivered to Colonels and Captains, not Flag and General officers and Senior Enlisted Advisors, who were crammed cheek-to-jowl in a stuffy auditorium for nearly two hours. What they got was a message intended for the previous two Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs and the appointed DoD civilian leadership of the past eight years.
It’s doubtful that Hegseth’s remarks had much of an effect. The assembled senior military leaders have heard similar talks as they rose through the ranks throughout their careers. Most have even given very similar talks themselves. Everyone in the military—from private to general—knows how to react to such mandatory formations: listen quietly, maintain some level of interest and attention, and wait for the order to be dismissed.
After asserting that warfighters deserve the best and most capable leaders, Hegseth should have addressed the audience as strategic leaders and practitioners of the operational level of war. Here, in my assessment, is what Hegseth should have stated:
“There is no more complex or unforgiving role in war than the ability to employ joint and combined forces at the operational level to achieve decisive and strategic results. I must rely on you leaders to provide me the most well-honed and most imaginative war plans that deliver decisive outcomes. I rely on you to command a joint force, or command a component of the joint force, or support the joint force to dominate the battlefield—air, sea, land, space, cyberspace, and the information sphere. No single component can do this alone; only the joint force is capable of synchronizing and integrating these capabilities effectively. This is our greatest strength—no adversary is remotely capable of conducting joint operations at the level and intensity that we have demonstrated. The commanders who can and must do this are in this room. It is a daunting and humbling task.
Nonetheless, I am worried about our current capability to conduct joint operations necessary to meet the contingencies that challenge our national security. Jointness is not natural; we have voluntarily joined the tribe that suit us best. We wear the symbols of our tribe with pride. All of you demonstrate that pride in the uniforms you wear today. But we must look at joint solutions to our challenges; we must think and practice and act as joint warfighters. This must be our dominant mindset. By thinking and planning as joint warfighters, we enhance our strengths and negate our limitations. It is imperative that the services embrace joint professional military education to provide the force with a continuous supply of joint planners and joint qualified staff. History has proven over the past 20 years that joint qualified officers and non-commissioned officers bring extraordinary value to operational staffs. By making jointness a priority, we become the instrument of power that allows me to give the most realistic and honest advice to the commander-in-chief in a crisis as he weighs the most difficult of decisions.
This is why I am asking President Trump to reinstate the US Joint Forces Command as the representative of the Chairman to provide the Secretary of War with joint solutions to warfighting issues, force management, and future requirements. The Commander of US Joint Forces Command will serve as the honest broker to manage competing or conflicting service requirements and examine resources that best suit war planning requirements. Jointness must be our touchstone. It is the key to future operational war, allowing us to integrate new capabilities and technologies and adapt quickly to new conditions that will define future war.
Because so much rides on your shoulders, I will seek to limit distractions and non-essential requirements that draw your attention away from your warfighting mission. I am looking to you to pass up recommendations to the Service Chiefs and civilian service secretaries to help me reduce unnecessary distractions. War planning and force readiness to execute those plans are the priorities. I want to know what you need and I also want to know what you don’t need.
I am also concerned for your personal well-being. I firmly believe that one reason we stumbled so badly in the aftermath of initially successful operations in Afghanistan and Iraq is that senior leaders and their senior staff officers were too tired to make good decisions. Between September 2001 and May of 2003, JTFs, CJSOTFs, and combatant commands were operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, running 12-to-18 hour shifts. I’m sure most of you in this room at one time or another were part of this meatgrinder. What it did over time was make everyone combat ineffective—as ineffective as if the headquarters was hit with an artillery barrage. Decisions were made that had no bearing on the reality on the ground; we lost our strategic and operational focus and drifted, hoping for the best. All of you, I’m sure, remember having to face the consequences of that drift.
We cannot let that happen again. Future war will be more intense that we can imagine, requiring enormous wells of stamina and resiliency. Every member of the joint force must, therefore, be physically ready for these challenges. Good health and fitness are the hallmarks of an effective fighting force, which will be stressed to the limit in combat and combat support operations. They are also the hallmarks of strategic leaders, who must be at their best and can manage the wear and tear mentally, morally, and physically that comes with the burden of command at the operational level of war. So, I will be looking closely at how you bring the joint force to the standards of fitness and readiness needed to fight the next war. You, yourselves, must set the example by meeting your service’s height and weight requirements and passing the physical fitness test twice a year. It is also a necessary goal that helps you to face the challenges you confront every day. The former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Harry Shelton, got up early to run every day before work. No fanfare—he just did it as part of his job. He is a good example for all of us to follow.
I will be providing a vision for the joint force that will encompass a warfighting mindset at the operational level and the steps the War Department will need to achieve that vision. I will consult with you and the service chiefs to help identify the essential components of this vision and I will redouble my efforts to give you all that you need to plan and execute the missions assigned to you.
Thank you for your time.”
[The President was not invited to speak, as it was an internal chain of command meeting.]
Conclusion
If warfighting is the Department of War’s focus, Secretary Hegseth should be clear about what kind of warfighting he means. He must explicitly and vigorously promote jointness as the method of warfighting.
Furthermore, if the leaders assembled at Quantico were to be admonished at all, it could have been about service parochialism. Service biases and the competition between services for ownership of mission sets cannot be acceptable. The services must approach warfighting through a joint perspective. By promoting joint warfighting, Secretary Hegseth had an opportunity to speak to his audience at their level by appreciating that these officers and senior enlisted advisors are fully responsible for the planning and conduct of global contingency operations.
Nevertheless, the assembled group of US military leaders certainly got a message. However, it needed to be the kind of message that directly addressed their strategic and operational responsibilities.
