U.S. military commanders around the world will be working to provide steady leadership after the bravado and bluster of Hegseth’s and Trump’s speeches.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (left) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Dan Caine listen as President Donald Trump speaks to senior military members at Marine Corps Base Quantico on September 30, 2025 in Quantico, Virginia. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
THE SPEECHES ON TUESDAY IN QUANTICO—by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, Secretary of Defense (or War, as he would have it) Pete Hegseth, and President Donald Trump—were over in just two hours. But for the generals, admirals, and senior enlisted who left that auditorium and started their long flights home to the Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East, those speeches were just the beginning. Because when Washington speaks—especially when it speaks with bluster, ambiguity, or hostility—it is the commanders who must translate to their troops, steady their units, and respond to the challenges of new orders.
I’ve been that commander. I’ve flown back overnight from Washington to Germany, walked into my headquarters in Heidelberg, and faced staff officers and soldiers who were waiting—not for a policy memo, not for another directive from the Pentagon, but for their commander to tell them what it all meant and to give them implementing instructions. After Tuesday’s meeting, they will want to know what things they will have to change, if their country still believes in them, if the oath they swore still anchors their service, if the mission they’re preparing for or executing still has clarity and legitimacy.
That will be the challenge for commanders around the globe, this week and into the future. While the nation’s news media has already largely moved on—shifting back to covering the government shutdown, ICE raids, and the elections coming up next month and next year—the shockwaves of the Quantico gathering are only now beginning to reverberate through bases in Europe, the Pacific, the Middle East, and beyond. Because when those commanders and their enlisted advisors returned to their posts, bases, air wings, or carrier strike groups, the questions began.
As the speech was being publicly broadcast, female soldiers living on theKasernes of Germany watching on the Armed Forces Network were asking one another:Does this mean our opportunities to serve in jobs we love are closing again? Will I still be allowed to compete fairly for assignments and promotions? Black soldiers, weary and wary of subtle slights and systemic hurdles, will wonder if the new emphasis on “appearance” and “discipline” means a return to the days when shaving profiles for painful and unsightly face “bumps” were treated as liabilities instead of as a need for legitimate accommodations. Sikh soldiers, who after long battles were only recently granted the right to wear turbans and keep beards as part of a commonsense accommodation for their faith, will now wonder if that right will again be questioned. For each of them, their unique individuality and love for service in uniform are inseparable.
And gay and transgender service members—many of whom finally felt able to serve openly over the last decade—felt the floor shift beneath them yet again.Do I need to start making plans to leave? one staff sergeant might quietly ask her first sergeant.Or do I just keep my head down and hope this storm passes? Keeping your head down is sometimes needed in combat when engaging with the enemy; it’s not something we want from our soldiers who are living theirArmy value of “personal courage.”
There will be broader, increasingly gnawing concerns for the staffs:Are we really being asked to prepare for missions inside our own cities? What happens if peaceful protesters are described as “enemies”? Where does that leave the oath we swore—to the Constitution, not to a man or a party?
These aren’t abstract policy questions. They will be whispered in barracks hallways, posed after hours in a motor pool, or texted late at night to a trusted squad leader. They are the lived reality of a military force watching politics intrude on their profession. And with each one, there is the question of degraded morale, an erosion of trust.
This is where commanders earn their pay.
Every officer and senior NCO knows their job is not just to train, supply, and deploy their forces. It is also to interpret—to give clarity when there is confusion, reassurance where higher headquarters issues confounding memos. Keep a positive demeanor when things seem grim. I was once told, “Leaders don’t have the right to have a bad day when they face their troops.” Yet, many of the directives given on Tuesday make it likely that many leaders will have some really bad days.
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WHEN I COMMANDED U.S. ARMY EUROPE, I knew that after every controversial statement from Washington my soldiers would look to me and my subordinate commanders. They didn’t need false promises, and they didn’t need defiance. They needed honesty. They needed to know that no matter what was said in the political arena, our bond as soldiers, our trust in each other—and our fidelity to the Constitution—remained intact.
It’s a tightrope. Commanders can’t contradictlawful orders. But they also can’t allow cynicism and despair to fester. They must find a way to reinforce trust in the chain of command while preparing their staffs to quietly sort out what is implementable, legal, and wise.
I guarantee the staff officers were already at work, even before their commanders returned to their base. In every headquarters touched by this week’s spectacle, operations sections were conducting mission analysis, preparing contingencies plans, waiting for their commander’s guidance to provide more clarity. Legal officers were parsing the precise language of Hegseth’s directives. Planners are sketching out courses of action—some of which they hope never see daylight. That’s what the military does.
But none of that matters much to a young private first class in Vilseck or a petty officer aboard a destroyer in the Mediterranean as the rumors swirl from a publicly broadcast event where they saw their senior leaders get a “counseling.” What matters to them is what they will hear in the face-to-face conversation with their leaders after the directives are put into plain speech, along with the quiet reassurance from a platoon sergeant who will tell them, “We won’t do anything dumb,” or the visible calm in a wing commander’s words at roll call. Those conversations will still be hard.
AFTER THE SMALLER ISSUES are addressed—the PT tests, the body-fat standards, the qualifications for combat arms roles—soldiers will then have more questions that are already echoing in the public sphere:Are we really supposed to see fellow Americans as adversaries? It’s one thing to prepare for combat against a foreign enemy. It’s another to be told, however obliquely, that protesters in Portland or voters in Philadelphia could be “threats.” Commanders will have to thread the needle between preparing forces for any legal mission—those tasks known as “defense support of civil authorities”—while remembering that the U.S. Armed Forces are not the action arm of law enforcement unless there is a true national emergency.
The first question if they do enter action—a question for later, but one service members are already thinking about now—will revolve around rules of engagement and the Laws of Armed Conflict. Every combat veteran knows that when those rules are unclear or confusing, it’s the soldier on the ground who will pay the price. If leaders in Washington blur the lines of what is permissible and what is a throwaway, who will protect the lance corporal who follows a shouted order in the heat of the moment? Commanders will be forced to remind their troops: International law still governs; the Uniform Code of Military Justice still applies; and unlawful orders will be questioned by commanders at all levels and then applied in guidance to the troops. That’s a heavy message for a 19-year-old rifleman to carry.
U.S. COMMANDERS IN NATO headquarters, Pacific airbases, and Middle Eastern coalitions will face a different challenge: explaining America’s confusing rhetoric to allies. After watching Tuesday’s broadcast, our partners will quietly ask:*Is America still the steady ally we’ve counted on? Or is it drifting into unpredictability?*I’ve already taken several of those calls from former multinational colleagues . . . and they are confused. A Polish colonel or German general doesn’t care about the nuance of Washington speeches—they care about whether American forces remain reliable partners. Ambiguity fuels hesitation, and hesitation is deadly for deterrence. That may not be important to those in the renamed “Department of War,” but it sure does contribute to stopping wars before they start.
I’ve lived this dynamic before. Early in my command of U.S. Army Europe, President Obama made an offhand announcement about a strategic “pivot to Asia.” To American ears, it sounded like a sensible strategic adjustment. But across Europe, leaders of forty-nine nations wondered if it meant America was downgrading its commitment to their security. I happened to be in Tbilisi, Georgia, on an exercise when the news broke. President Mikheil Saakashvili summoned me immediately, demanding to know if the United States was abandoning its nascent partnership with his country. That experience seared into me a lasting lesson: Even an innocent phrase from Washington can cause ripples of doubt, panic, or recalculation among allies. Adversaries are also always watching, eager to exploit the gaps.
COMMANDERS WILL STEADY THEIR TROOPS. They will walk theKasernes, tour the hangars, eat in the mess halls, and show presence. They will listen, reassure, and set a tone of professionalism. They will tell their forces,We still train hard; we still deploy; we still defend the Constitution.
But commanders cannot hold the line indefinitely against political chaos. Ultimately, soldiers deserve clear, consistent, and lawful guidance from the top. They also deserve leaders in Washington who see them not as props in a political rally but as guardians of the nation’s security.
Our men and women in uniform have given America their youth, their health, their families’ stability, and in too many cases, their lives. They deserve a military that is a shield, not a political tool. They deserve leaders who understand that words spoken in Washington ripple across the globe—to barracks in Bavaria, bases in Okinawa, ships in the Red Sea, and forward operating posts in the desert.
When Washington speaks, commanders must answer. But let’s not forget: Those commanders need a foundation of lawful, principled leadership to stand on, so they can answer the questions of individuals wearing their country’s uniform. Without all of that, we risk turning the world’s most trusted military into just another instrument of political theater. And that is a risk we cannot afford.