Members of the military attend a meeting convened by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Quantico, Virginia, U.S., September 30, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Don’t be fooled. The only people undermining the American military’s chain of command are the president and his secretary of defense.

How?

Specifically, by blaming the admiral who was in charge of the boat bombing in the Caribbean in September. More generally, by lying and acting cowardly. Leaders who stand by their decisions and take responsibility for them tend to inspire trust. Those who don’t don’t.

According to the Post, Pete Hegseth gave the order to “kill everybody.” Now, however, he’s now scapegoating Admiral Frank Bradley. That suggests that Hegseth is well aware of the truth – that the bombing was illegal, that the follow-up bombing of survivors was illegal, and that killing alleged criminals without due process of law is murder.

Donald Trump is now helping him run from criminal consequences.

The president wants us to believe that six Democrats who made a video urging military personnel to refuse illegal orders are “sowing distrust and chaos in our arms force,” according to the Pentagon, and “putting military servicemembers in harm’s way by telling them to disobey their commander-in-chief,” according to the White House.

Asking servicemembers to act honorably never hurt them. Reminding them to act lawfully never sowed distrust. But leaders commanding subordinates to murder and then throwing them away? Forget about disobeying illegal orders. Hegseth is making it so no one obeys any.

The focus now seems to be on the second strike and whether it was legal. The question is of consequences – should a “secretary of war” who commits a “war crime” in the absence of war still have his job?

That seems overwrought. There is no war. There are no war crimes. Hegseth wanted to pretend, because “war” makes good TV and makes his daddy look strong. But when playtime was over, and he realized he was in trouble, Hegseth decided that the principles of the “warrior ethos” weren’t worth it. It was better to save his own skin. Yesterday, he said the “fog of war” prevented him from seeing the September bombing survivors. He repeated that killing them was Bradley’s call.

Whatever the facts of the bombing are, and they will be determined by a forthcoming congressional investigation, they are secondary to the facts of Hegseth’s behavior afterward. That behavior is more devastating to the military than his command to kill everybody.

“The ‘kill everybody’ chest-thumping only works as long as he never has to own the moral and legal weight that actual soldiers carry,” an authority on military strategy and civil-military relations told me.

He went on:

“The moment accountability enters the picture, he backpedals and shifts blame onto the uniformed military. That’s precisely the kind of cowardice that professionals, people who live in a world where responsibility is inseparable from lethality, find contemptible.”

Contempt.

Once it’s sunk in, there’s no going back.

The authority I’m quoting here goes by the name of Secretary of Defense Rock. I asked for his real name, but because Trump is the president, he declined. He publishes History Does You, a newsletter about “the complex dynamics between military and civilian spheres.”

In the interview below, he explains why Trump’s critics are missing the big picture. “The White House’s willingness to validate Hegseth’s narrative is setting up a collision course between the president and the military, and the only open question is how far the brass will go in quietly distancing themselves while still providing him political cover.”

Hegseth seems to be saying that Admiral Bradley made the call to kill survivors of the September boat attack. The White House seems to be backing him up. What's going on here from your perspective?

It increasingly looks like the military is being positioned as the fall guy. With the House and Senate now pledging bipartisan investigations into the strikes, the uniformed side, bound by its "apolitical" posture, won’t publicly contradict the president, but senior officers will almost certainly push back through background briefings. The real story is that the White House’s willingness to validate Hegseth’s narrative is setting up a collision course between the president and the military, and the only open question is how far the brass will go in quietly distancing themselves while still providing him political cover.

It seems to me Hegseth has triggered a crisis of leadership. I mean, the Democrats want military personnel to refuse illegal orders. Hegseth is creating conditions in which people might refuse to obey any orders. If you can't trust the leader, then cover your ass, right?

Hegseth is effectively manufacturing a leadership crisis by eroding trust in the chain of command and civil-military relations. Democrats are focused on the narrow issue of refusing unlawful orders, but Hegseth’s framing invites something far more destabilizing: a worldview in which service members doubt the legitimacy of any orders from senior commanders. Once you introduce the idea that the commander might be lying or covering up war crimes, the instinct becomes cover your ass rather than execute, and that corrodes the very foundation of military discipline.

It should be said that Hegseth is demonstrating cowardice. "Kill everybody, but don't blame me.” That seems to expose the falsehood behind his whole "warrior ethos" position -- that there's no actual warrior there, just a cardboard cutout of one. I can't imagine that going over well with people with a sense of honor. Thoughts?

It cracks me up that he went to hang out with SOCOM, where they allowed him to ride on a little-bird helicopter, and cosplay as a warrior, and is now throwing them under the bus months later. The “kill everybody” chest-thumping only works as long as he never has to own the moral and legal weight that actual soldiers carry. The moment accountability enters the picture, he backpedals and shifts blame onto the uniformed military. That’s precisely the kind of cowardice that professionals, people who live in a world where responsibility is inseparable from lethality, find contemptible. It clearly exposes his “warrior ethos” as theater, not a character trait, and that gap will be evident to anyone who has actually worn a uniform or taken real risks, the more he continues to backpedal and blame others.

A warrior without honor is just a thug or the kind of man who would try telling us that murder is actually a heroic act of war worthy of praise. That seems to be missing from the debate so far. All the focus is on the second strike. But the first strike is clearly illegal, as in: America is not at war. What are we focusing on this and not that?

I kind of presume it’s because the American political system and the media ecosystem around it is always drawn to the spectacle around an action rather than the legality at the core of it. You’re right that a warrior without honor collapses into mere thuggery, and that is exactly the type of figure who reframes killing as valor while disowning responsibility. But the public debate isn’t grappling with that deeper moral question, because everyone has fixated on the second strike, the sensational story, the alleged order, the human drama. It is easier to fight over personalities, blame-shifting, and who said what than it is to confront the uncomfortable foundational issue that the first strike, and the strikes over the last few months, may have lacked a clear legal basis because the United States is not formally at war.

Focusing on the second strike lets politicians argue over process, mistakes, and optics without questioning the mission's legality. It's particularly safer for Republicans because it avoids forcing a reckoning with whether the president of their own party authorized an act of war without proper authority.

Hegseth survived the Signal scandal. He's clearly a national security threat. He will become more so over time. Is there impeachment in his future in your view? Perhaps if Mark Kelly leads the charge?

I have a hard time believing Republicans are going to make a serious effort, even though there is a lot of infighting. I think it's going to boil down to how successful Democrats are in the midterms, and if the leadership thinks that's a worthwhile use of political capital. I think there will be a clear case for impeachment, especially if uniformed military personnel testify about the strikes and point the finger at Hegseth. It already sounds like, behind the scenes, the administration is thinking of changing out Hegseth, but he wants a golden parachute. I think Mark Kelly certainly has the credentials as a centrist Democratic veteran for impeachment. Again, it's really going to boil down to elections and what the military says happened.