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Editor | L.Y.
Preliminary
At the end of September 2025, the U.S. Department of Defense suddenly launched a "big move"-all senior U.S. military generals from around the world went home, whether you were on the Asia-Pacific front line or in the Middle East desert.
As long as the military rank is high enough and the position is important, you have to attend this meeting, and the most unthinkable place is what the meeting is about?
The order temporarily stalled military operations in several key theater zones. The forward commander of the U.S. Central Command in northeastern Syria is coordinating the final handover of forces with the Kurdish armed forces. According to the plan announced by the Pentagon in April, the troops here will be reduced from 2000 to less than 1000, and the evacuation plan has just entered the implementation stage. The Commander of the Eighth Group Army of the United States Army in South Korea just completed the replay of the "Free Shield of Bishop Bishop" with the Joint Staff Headquarters of the Korean Army, and on the table also stood unsigned fire deployment adjustment documents.
The commander of the 7th Fleet in Yokohama, Japan, interrupted coordination with the Self-Defense Force's anti-submarine exercises, and his staff contacted the Pentagon overnight to confirm the order's authenticity. A naval colonel unwilling to name revealed that some of the generals had to activate military specialty aircraft due to temporary changes in routes, with 12 C-40 transport aircraft in the Asia-Pacific battle area alone. According to data from the U.S. military personnel system, the total number of generals and aides recalled this time is about 1,100, covering 18 major military bases around the world.
The White House and the Pentagon.
"I didn't know about it until I watched the news in the morning." On the afternoon of September 25th, when Trump was pressed by reporters on the South Lawn of the White House, he spread his hands and made an unexpected expression, claiming that the meeting might involve "equipment procurement review", but he "has not yet received a formal briefing." Vice President Vance further downplayed the situation in subsequent public activities, stressing that "the Secretary of Defense has the right to convene military meetings", but avoided the question "Why didn't the White House be synchronized in advance".
This understatement is in dazzling contrast to the tense atmosphere at the Pentagon. At noon that day, in the corridor of the War Ministry building, officers checked the list of participants in front of the electronic announcement bar, and someone continued to refresh the internal communication system to try to find the hidden agenda of the conference.What is more noteworthy is that Secretary of War Hegseth neither held an inter-departmental coordination meeting nor submitted a briefing to the White House National Security Council as usual, and closed the information on the grounds of "military internal affairs" throughout the process.
This operation continued his style of conduct since he took office: when Brown was fired from the Chairman of the Confederation in February, the White House Office received a notification only 15 minutes before the fired statement was issued; when the Pentagon intelligence chief was fired in August, he even skipped the communication process in front of Congress. An anonymous official close to the Confederation revealed that speculation had spread in the general group that “this was another round of cleansing” and was privately compared to the rally as a “continuation of the February fired tide.”
power surge
The emergency recall was driven by a wave of upper-level turmoil across the U.S. military in 2025. Earlier in February, the Trump administration dismissed Coalition Chairman Charles Brown — an African general with 130 hours of real-world war experience — on the “cleaning list” for pushing for military pluralism and inclusion. Also dismissed was Navy Commander Franchetti, the first female top naval commander in U.S. history. Her resignation triggered a joint condemnation by five former defense chiefs, calling the move "instrumentalization of the military."
A series of actions by Heggers were more radical. In May, the "General Officer System Optimization Plan" he submitted proposed to reduce the number of four-star officers by 20%, and planned to reduce the total number of active generals from 800 to 640; in July, he led the establishment of a "Military Effectiveness Evaluation Committee", led by retired Lieutenant General Dan Kane-this Trump confidant was appreciated for "promising to eliminate IS in a week" and was specially approved at the beginning of the year to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Mark Montgomery, senior researcher at the U.S. think tank Fund for the Defense of Democracy, pointed out that the gathering may be to “press the face” and force the general to accept further personnel adjustments, after all, “the chaos period before the government shutdown was the window period for promoting controversial policies.”
Strategic shift
In addition to the adjustment of power, the ground deployment of the new edition of the National Defense Strategy has a deeper meaning.According to a draft summary released in September by the Political Journal, the U.S. military will completely restructure the global deployment framework: the European station will be reduced from 90,000 to 60,000, closing the three operational squadrons of the German Ramstein Air Force Base; the Middle East station will be reduced to 250,000, focusing on retaining the logistics center of the Udeid base in Qatar; and the Asia-Pacific direction will transfer part of the U.S. military functions in Okinawa to the Japanese Self-Defense Force, reducing the size of about 3,000 people.
In response to this shrinkage and the strengthening of domestic defences, Hertz orders 500 naval troops to be “deployed at the first level” in June to respond to Los Angeles’ immigrant protests, when the California National Guard had deployed 300 troops into the city.
In August, the Southern Command sent three more destroyers to the Caribbean waters, carrying P-8 anti-submarine aircraft and "Standard-6" missile systems to approach Venezuela. Commander Horsey bluntly stated that this move was to "defend the energy security of the Western Hemisphere."Analysts believe that this general gathering is most likely to convey concrete implementation plans: how to coordinate the link between the withdrawal of overseas troops and domestic defense, how to invest the saved resources in southern border control, all of which need to be confirmed in front of the war zone commander.
conclusion
The emergency gathering is not the first in the history of the U.S. military, but the specificity lies in the operation mode of "obtaining the Supreme Commander". Back in 2017, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Mattis convened overseas generals to meet, a week in advance to submit the agenda draft to the White House; in 2020 to participate in the global deployment adjustment meeting of Chairman Milly, is also opened by Trump's self-government.
This strong style stems from the Trump administration’s traditional “de-politization” shock on the military. Since last year’s campaign, Trump has repeatedly claimed to eliminate “leftist thoughts” in the army, and the “committee of warriors” formed by his team has screened more than 260 officers who support the policy of pluralism. Brown’s resignation is a typical case —— the general who had been appointed by Trump as Chief of Staff of the Air Force, after signing a memorandum to raise the proportion of minority military officers in 2022, and was eventually labeled “politized”. Today, the sudden convocation of Hertzess has raised public concerns that this political screening will spread to the level of global war zone commanders.
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