On September 25, the Washington Post revealed that Pete Hegseth, secretary of the United States War, had convened about 800 generals and admirals around the world to return to the country and participate in a face -to -face meeting. The news, instead of transmitting security, lit signs of alarm. In a context where the United States is indirectly involved in large conflicts, from the war in Ukraine to Russian raids against NATO territory, through speculation around Donald Trump’s proposal to Gaza, the convening seemed to foresee a strategic deliberation of weight.
But it was soon realized that it was not at issue to reinforce military readiness. Many interpreted order as a test of loyalty, rather than as a response to any concrete threat. The September 30 meeting, at the base of the Marine Corps in Quantum, Virginia, confirmed this suspicion: far from substantive decisions, the meeting was staged as a public spectacle prepared for the cameras, where symbolism and inflamed verbism overpassed any real debate.
Hegseth’s speech sounded less like a state guideline and more as an ideological script for a television show. He called the Pentagon “Woke Department”, attributed institutional decay to diversity initiatives and proclaimed the end of politically correct leadership, with total rejection of policies for the LGBTQ+ community and gender equality. He said that women can serve as long as they meet unified physical standards, and if none qualify for combat functions, “patience, it will be so.” He put in the same bullet electric tanks, covid-19 vaccines and environmental policies, labeling everything as crasos errors.
Hegseth attacked the appearance of the military, declaring unacceptable “seeing fatty generals in the Pentagon corridors,” and vowed to end what he called a non -professional look, imposing “no more beardos.” It has announced that physical tests will follow male criteria, disguised as Gender-Neutral, and who to disagree that “please fly honorably.” He has defended layoffs already performed, such as that of a black military chief and an admiral woman, promising more cleaning and loosening anti-bullying and harassment rules, under the pretext that “people make honest errors” and mild infringements do not deserve registration.
It was a bravado show worthy of a Fox News studio, not a defense office. In a speech where fat generals arise as the true threat to national security – because apparently the weight in the balance is more dangerous than Russian or Chinese missiles – Hegseth has been able to turn the Pentagon into his personal stage, exchanging any military strategy for an ideology that disbeliefly the position he occupies.
The icing at the top of the cake was Donald Trump’s speech, repeating the habit of politicizing, traditionally neutral military environments in the US. It was not the first time: on June 10, in Fort Bragg, attacked Biden in front of uniformed soldiers and responded to protesters about immigration. On May 24, in West Point, it turned the graduation into a stage to praise cadets, to stretch rivals and boast of its military policies.
On September 30, he followed the script to the letter. He accused Biden of never saying that the US has the strongest armed forces in the world, ignoring the president’s repeated statements in 2023 and 2025. He reinvented the story by claiming the creation of the 2% NATO spending target, officially in the 2006 summit. It inflated the help to Ukraine to $ 350 billion, when official numbers indicate 135 billion allocated to June 2025 and less than 100 billion disbursed. He repeated the loose that Congo and Venezuela emptied arrests to send criminals, oversized the number of migrants to 25 million (against less than half in the actual data) and insisted on the fable of the 2020 stolen election, which, he said, allowed the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
If half of the speech was the usual distortion of the facts, the other was a dangerous flirtation with authoritarianism. Trump proposed transforming cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington into “training camps” to the Armed Forces, announced the sending of 100 National Guard members to Illinois, said he had already authorized military presence in Los Angeles and Washington and promised to repeat in Portland. He called the governor of Illinois incompetent, argued that the army should combat an “internal invasion” and spoke in a “domestic war.”
In proclaiming a “awakening of the warrior spirit” and ensuring full support for officers, Trump revealed his intention to subvert the historical role of the Armed Forces. Once a symbol of the American Hard Power in the global scenario, he seeks to turn them into an armed government of the US government, treating communities such as war targets and the army as a political tool of the White House.
Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump’s bravado is not just problematic but dangerously subversive. A secretary of defense, without any weight in the military hierarchy and with a history of leaking attack plans in applications such as Signal, brings together hundreds of officers just to affirm his authority with fanfarronice. Meanwhile, the president turns the event into a stage to demand unconditional loyalty and subservience. The Circus in Quantum did not reinforce leadership, but corroborated the perception of politicization of the Armed Forces, challenging its tradition of neutrality and fidelity to the Constitution, not to a party or the White House. What was seen was a clear attempt to import to the Pentagon the tactic already used in the Justice Department: intimidation, with the implicit message that disagreeing will be expensive. This staging is not just an affront to democracy, but to the very essence of US military institutions.
The show in Quantum was expensive, useless and flagrantly dangerous. An affront to safety and military efficiency. Generals and admirals were taken from critical responsibilities around the world, compromising strategic decisions and the prompt forces, all to staging subservience in a televised event. What sense makes the US military summit and the president in a single place, creating such obvious vulnerability? And what concrete gain justifies such a risk? The absence of plausible answers leaves the feeling that everything is summed up to the vanity of a government -obsessed government.
The War Department, reduced to propaganda stage, exposes the Trump government’s hollow theatricality. Let us remember the Army’s 250 -year -old military parade fiasco, conveniently scheduled for the president’s anniversary, which cost millions, served only for self -promotion and, in short, bumping the capital’s asphalt with tanks parading to the chambers. Can a government that boasts of efficiency and tried to promote cuts via the Elon Musk department to justify this grotesque waste? And can a secretary build credibility with such expensive staging? The feeling is of an artificial legitimacy, forged at any price because it is not born naturally. Those who vibrate with this circus are autocracies, who, without having to be accountable, watch with pleasure in the internal fragmentation of the largest military and geopolitical rival in the world.
