00:00Something of this size is, as far as I can tell, it's pretty much unprecedented.
00:05And of course, it's got everybody wondering, what is the reason why?
00:09Usually something of this magnitude, I kind of think it's going to have something to do with war preparation.
00:14Hi, my name is Hal Kempfer. I'm a retired Marine Corps intelligence officer.
00:19I'm a national security analyst and the host of the Strat podcast.
00:22Secretary of Defense or Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has called an extraordinary meeting
00:27where he's going to have all the general and flag officers worldwide convened next week
00:33in Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, which is a base that's just about 30 miles south of Washington, D.C.
00:39This is going to be over 800 flag officers or general officers from around the world, one star and above,
00:48although I have heard there's a couple of exceptions that they may have for general flag officers on staffs,
00:55but it is amazing to pull that many senior commanders, senior leaders of that level all at the same time back to Washington, D.C.
01:06Smaller meetings like that happen, but something of this size is, as far as I can tell, it's pretty much unprecedented.
01:13And of course, it's got everybody wondering, what is the reason why that he's calling this meeting?
01:19What is the purpose of it? And he has not said. It's been very vague.
01:24President Trump has alluded to. It's good for the Secretary of War to get to know, you know, the leaders or commanders out there.
01:31It's good you act like this is a bad thing. Isn't it nice that people are coming from all over the world to be with us?
01:37It's not particularly unusual that generals who report to the Secretary of War and then to the President of the United States
01:43are coming to speak with the Secretary of War.
01:44It's actually not unusual at all. And I think it's odd that you guys have made it into such a big story.
01:49I heard I heard Vice President Vance saying this isn't unusual.
01:53Yes, it's unusual. All right. I don't know where he where he came up from that.
01:57Now, the secretary talking to all these generals and admirals, that is not necessarily unusual.
02:02To have every Brigadier General, Admiral, Rear Admiral, Lower Half, 07 and above, globally fly to one base to meet the Secretary of War or the Secretary of Defense.
02:16That is unusual. And frankly, I've been looking around to see if anybody else can point to when something like this has happened before.
02:25And really, nobody can. Now, there's a lot of reasons have been stated why it could happen.
02:32Secretary Hankseth has talked about a 20 percent cut in senior general and flag officer ranks.
02:39That's pretty significant. That could be something where he starts saying who that's going to be and really delineate what that is.
02:47But the question is, why do you have to bring them all back?
02:49And frankly, all of these commands everywhere where these general and flag officers are located globally have secure video telecommunications.
03:01They have the ability to hold meetings in a virtual style, kind of like we do with various types of commercial software.
03:09They can do that very easily. The secretary can talk to all of them very easily.
03:13The secretary could have meetings with each one of them very easily in a virtual fashion.
03:17So there's a lot of questions as to what this is about. What is the urgent need?
03:22Now, there are some things in the background we have to consider.
03:25There's been a number of estimates saying that China is getting ready to go to war in the South China Sea to basically invade Taiwan.
03:34And most of those say that sometime between now and maybe 2027 or 2027, they'll be ready to do so.
03:41Well, 2027 is coming up fairly soon.
03:44And if that happens, I don't know if you want to call it World War III, but that would be something that would have global impact.
03:51And so that might be something that the secretary would want to talk to all of the general and flag officers collectively to say,
03:59hey, look, we're going to have to get on a war footing.
04:00That's speculation, though. Again, we don't know.
04:04We don't know why he's doing this.
04:06But what I will tell you is it's very expensive, very cumbersome.
04:11It's incredibly disruptive.
04:13You're talking about not only every general or flag officers.
04:17You have their aides, key staff, communications, security personnel.
04:22Well, all of them have to converge in Northern Virginia.
04:27And if you look at just the military bases and you look at distinguished visitor quarters where they would stay,
04:32you wouldn't have enough to host this many general and flag officers from around the world in Northern Virginia,
04:38let alone at Quantico at the Marine Corps base.
04:42So where they're going to stay, the logistics of getting them in and out.
04:46And of course, the concern is that it's a vulnerability.
04:49We have all these senior leaders that are in key positions globally that are going to be in one place at one time.
04:56Certainly, there's concerns about terrorism or maybe some sort of hybrid warfare type attack or things along those lines.
05:04Even though it's on a Marine Corps base, just having that many key individuals, key leaders in that place at one time is a huge concern.
05:14And so we're going to find out what it is.
05:16And hopefully we'll have better visibility next week.
05:19But as of right now, it's still kind of vague as of this morning.
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