Bulwark Takes - Why is the Trump Admin Purging Our Military’s Best? (w/ Mark Hertling)

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

Bill Kristol and General Mark Hertling discuss the wave of senior military officers forced out under Trump, the redeployment of forces toward Venezuela, and growing signs of unlawful or politically driven military actions that threaten alliances, strategy, and the rule of law. Read Joe Perticone in The Bulwark, "SCOOP: Trump Swaps Decorated Admiral With 33-Year-Old DOGEr": https://www.thebulwark.com/p/scoop-trump-replaces-admiral-office-naval-research-rothenhaus-riley-doge

Hi, Bill Crystal here, editor at large of the bulwark, and joined by my colleague, I think, official colleague now, Mark Hurtling, who has been doing so much with us already, of course. We discussed just two weeks ago, the retiring of the commander of Southcom, Admiral Hosey, and I've got a big audience, I was going to say, and I think it was very helpful and informative to our viewers and listeners. So, Mark, first of all, congratulations, or thank you for joining us, and congratulations on joining us, and congratulations on your new book, which I think is out just today. Is that right?

It's listed today on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but it won't be available until the beginning of the new year. But I'm really excited about it. It was a year-long effort, and it was a lot of fun to write. Say a word about what it's about. Yeah, it's called, If I Don't Return, Bill. And it came from Desert Storm was the origination of it. I wrote a journal because I know this is hard to believe going back to Desert Storm days. But when we were first deployed from Europe, we were told we were going to lose 50%.

of our unit. And so thinking that I was going to be a coin toss on whether or not I returned home, I started a journal for our two young sons to teach them about life and gave them. The first part of the journal is really about friendship and emotions and love and those kind of things. But then when it got into the war, I started writing at the end of the war, at the end of the very short war, I started writing my recollections of what happened. And then after the war as well, well our youngest son unbeknownst to me took that journal about a year ago and typed it up and gave it to me for a Christmas present last year and said okay dad we we've read this my brother and I have read this and we realize that what you were trying to do is prepare us for life if you didn't come home but now you've lived 30 more years now you're going to prepare our grandchildren for additional ports of life so I took all the journal entries and and provided later reflections of what I've since learned since I wrote the journal in 1991, and it came out to be sort of a catharsis of writing about not only war and combat and the military, but also about faith and emotion and family and love

and that kind of stuff. So it's going to be fun. And a couple of my colleagues have read the manuscript like Admiral McRaven and General Dempsey and a few others, and they all think this is a story that needs to be told about the American military and how we work as a family. So I'm excited about it if I don't return is the name of it. That's great. Okay, I look forward to reading it and people can start ordering it. And we'll discuss it, obviously, once it comes out here and I'm sure on many other platforms as well. So big, let's just go through so much news about what's happening at the Defense Department.

And you were, as I say, so helpful two weeks ago and explaining the possible meaning and significance of Admiral Holsey's departure as head of Southcom. And so this morning we learned from CNN, Brigadier General McGee has been replaced as director. of plans, strategy, and policy, I think it's called, that the joint staff, a very important position. So explain what the position is, but again, explain why, do you know General McGee, I believe, and explain what the significance of this is. Well, first, if you don't mind, I'll correct you, he's a lieutenant general. He's a three-star general. And he was one of our battalion commanders when I was commanded in the first armored division in Iraq. He was a young lieutenant colonel then stationed in the area in

him around Samara in Iraq where the civil war started between the Shia and the Sunni. And he had a really tough area. And truthfully, Bill, he was one of the top three of 27 commanders that I had within the task force. And I've watched him as he's gone on to do other things. He commanded the 101st Airborne Division just a few years ago. He was put on the joint staff first as the vice director of operations, which watches worldwide deployments and things for all services. And Then he was just nominated a few months ago to be the director of plans and strategy, which both of those jobs, the J3 and the J5, are what the military called Kingmaker's job. So he would have been a four star. He probably, knowing J.P, he goes by J.P. instead of Joe, but knowing J.P, he would have been probably a key candidate for either a combatant command position or the chief of staff of the Army.

He's that good. And by the way, this also goes in line with another guy that retired recently, a guy named D.A. Sims, who is the director of the joint staff, also a three-star Army general, who reportedly was not seen in the favor of Secretary Hegeseth. So both of them were asked to resign. And truthfully, the two of them, more than any other generals I know in the Army, were probably the future of the United States Army and the military. They are that good. Smart, educated, savvy. tactical, just unbelievable that they were asked to retire for whatever reasons. I think I know part of the reason, if I can comment on this. How rare, I mean, these are very important positions. This is very rare, right? I mean, this does not happen often that you're. It is not rare for a general to retire early because of misgivings or whatever. But so far in the Trump administration, we've had almost two, well, almost 20 of them who have been asked. to leave, of all different ilks. And some of the ones that were asked to leave or retire were some

of the very best and brightest. And you can't see where they've done anything wrong. It's just disagreement. And disagreement, as we learn in the military, is not disrespect. The other thing that I'd say, one of the Army's seven professional values is personal courage. And that's just not personal courage on the battlefield. It's personal courage in terms of speaking up. and offering your advice because that's what military folks were asked to do. And I think in both of these cases, they gave their advice. And it was so counter to what the Department of Defense is trying to do right now that instead of, you know, saluting and driving on,

they were told you don't belong in this organization anymore, so you need to retire. Oh, that's really pretty extraordinary. And you were about to say, I think, kind of what the nature of that advice was that maybe cut against what the Trump and President Trump and Secretary Hexeth want to hear or want to do? Yeah, it's my understanding that there's quite a few senior officers who are saying we shouldn't, we as a nation should not be a one-trick pony.

And what I mean by that is, okay, it's okay if you shift resources around. But if you totally ignore alliances in Europe or the Middle East or the Indo-Pacific region and only focus on one or two threats. And in this case, it looks like the threats are evolving to be Venezuela and counter narcotics and perhaps eventually China, you know, any military person will tell you you can't sequence your threats because stuff happens every day. And so I think what all of these individuals were probably doing, and this is conjecture on my part, and I admit it, I'm a little bit biased, but they were basically saying, hey, it's good to have allies, it's good to portray our values around the world, and doing some of the things we're doing just do not contribute to any of that. And we're seeing it on a daily basis, some of the things that are happening that seem to denigrate our allies and really focus on only the closeness of Latin America and maybe inside the United States. Yeah, no, and I guess what I was thinking when I said how aware it is, and great that you clarified it too, is that, I mean, people are used to disagreements about these things and people disagree pretty vociferously within the Joint Chiefs, I'm sure, with OSD.

with people in the White House and the State Department asking people to leave who have otherwise had extremely distinguished and impressive careers and there's no allegation of anything that, you know, anything inappropriate or improper is different, I would say, I really don't recall. I mean, there were times when people had such stark, I guess, disagreements they were asked to leave, but it's, that's, there's no evidence of that in this case, right? I mean, I think it's Well, yeah, and having spent two years as a director on the joint staff, I will tell you there are vehement disagreements continuously on different things. And truthfully, when you're in that kind of senior role, you realize that what you're really looking for is the best idea wins. And you want that collaboration and maybe disagreement, but it's never seen as disrespect.

The last person I remember who got in trouble for disagreeing to this level with the administration, was a Marine three-star general director of operations, Greg Neubold, during the incursion into Iraq while we had the Afghan war going on. So those are the kind of disagreements you want, I think, as an administrator and as a civilian leader, who may not know the intricate details of how military operations are conducted, but it doesn't seem like those are required or requested in the current administration. Our Joe Perticoan reported this morning that Rear Admiral Rothenhouse, I gather very well-respected director of the Office of Naval Research, has been replaced by a 33-year-old, someone who worked

with Doge and with no, I believe, naval experience. And that's an important position, too, I believe, right? It is. And what that Rear Admiral does is basically look at the future of the Navy in terms of acquisitions and equipment. It's a small, unknown office other than in the Navy itself. but it is their futures directorate. They look at weapon systems, they look at what's going on

in terms of all over the world conflict. They're looking at constantly, how do we incorporate new acquisitions from the business community and turn them into weapons or types of approaches to combat for the Navy. When I heard about this yesterday, I looked up online some of the projects they're doing.

A lot of AI-generated activity, a lot of drone and submersibles, collecting and collaborating and different weapons systems for the future, the use of, well, I already said AI, but the use of artificial intelligence in terms of targeting. They're really doing some interesting things. They have about 25 or 30 projects on the deck to use a naval expression with over a couple of billion dollars worth of funding. And it's a little known agency outside the Navy, but they are the futures, and they're looking at weapons systems. So it seems odd to me that they would take an experienced Navy guy with a PhD and replace him

with a 33-year-old Wonderkin from Doge to look at programs for future combat for the U.S. Navy. But this is also an office study that gives out contracts, which presumably bid on for studying these things. I suppose that. And Doge is connected to Mr. Musk, who has a lot of those contracts. So it is not only a little bit strange, but also a little bit suspicious. Yeah. Yikes. I want to get back to the Western Hemisphere, which I think is presumably underlies a lot of these, a way, it's underlies a lot of what we're reading about in the news for the blowing up of the small boats and the aircraft carrier coming to the, to the Caribbean and so forth, which you've written about for the weekly standard. that shows me for the bulwark.

But very well. But less reported, I think, were developments in Romania, which you played a big role in I believe when you were in command in Europe. Yeah, if I can address the Romanian one first. When we were U.S. Army Europe, when I was a young, I spent 10 of my last 14 years in Europe doing transformation after Secretary Rumsfeld told my boss, a guy named General Bell to reduce the size of the force from 90,000 to 30,000 soldiers in Europe, which he did. Part of that plan was to have a rotational brigade from the United States to supplement the

force that was already in Europe as we got to the 30,000. That rotational brigade was planned to be in what's called the M.K. Air Base, and I can't pronounce this, Mikhail Gonekochi Air Base outside of Castanta in Romania on the Black Sea. specifically for the reason that it was on the Black Sea, and Romania was a former Soviet Republic and requested presence there. So we were going to put part of a brigade there, another part of a brigade in Bulgaria, another part of that brigade in Western NATO countries like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, which are there now. And just to be clear, Romania is part of NATO, obviously now. So this is part of the NATO plan, right?

And that's an important point, too. The reason Romania, was one of the key areas was because first it was on the Black Sea. Secondly, it was right next to Moldova, which is not part of NATO. But inside of Moldova, there is a frozen conflict in an region called Transnistria. And that region is right next to Ukraine. It borders Ukraine. So you're talking about a very strategic position in the Black Sea area. And Romania became one of the better partners within NATO, providing troops for Afghanistan and Iraq and their partner, my partner in Romania, a guy named Iatania, Nitsu, who is their chief of the general staff, was a phenomenal NATO ally. And Romania, for anyone who knows, has continued to have election interference by

the Russians and continued efforts to try and sway them away from the NATO sphere. So it is a critically important country, but you combine the fact that the announcement was made yesterday that Secretary Hegg says wants all of the U.S. troops out of Romania as the first blow to NATO, which followed a previous blow, and that was the redeployment of the USS Ford Carrier Strike Group from the Mediterranean Sea to Venezuela. And if you're any one of the 32 NATO countries, you're saying the U.S. is leaving. I mean, that is the message that it sends. When we were first developing the plan to reduce the size of the force from 90 to 30,000 back in 2004 through 2008, I would happen to be in the state of, in the nation of Georgia, received a call

from their president to come to his office to explain to me how the pivot to Asia was going to affect European nations that were still fighting for their freedoms. And I had to explain and what I thought was going on, and President Obama at the time changed the terminology from the pivot to Asia to the rebalance to Asia, to assuage the NATO partners. Well, we don't seem to be assuaging anybody right now. We appear to be, in their eyes, and I've talked to quite a few of my former colleagues over there, abandoning them. That is the message that is going through the NATO alliance right now.

Wow, that's big. No, no, I didn't, the Romania, you know, sorry, didn't get that much play here. There's so much else going on. And I've got to say, from my just layman, totally layman's point of view, I mean, and not knowing that much about it, deploying an aircraft carrier, okay, they can be redeployed, right? So in a certain way, you could say there's a crisis. I don't know if they're really, I'm not convinced there's one, but let's just say the president thinks there's a crisis in the Western Hemisphere. So the aircraft carriers going there, it could be back in the Mediterranean in two months, you know.

But that's not true if you close a base, right? I mean, this base was unproblematic. I mean, in the sense that there were no issues, there were no. No issues whatsoever. The Romanians loved us. They wanted us to be there. And, you know, to your point about redeploying an aircraft carrier, that's relatively easy. It takes a couple of weeks. But we used to have an expression in U.S. Army Europe that you can't deploy trust. You've got to have people on the ground to connect with the people on the ground. And what's fascinating about this whole thing, I thought the way it was spun by the Department of Defense, they said, well, even with the troops leaving Romania, there's still the same amount of permanently forces in Europe. But they missed the point. These folks that were rotating in and out were never permanently stationed there. They were rotating in and out, but keeping a presence there for the trust issue and for the cooperation with the allies. So yeah, we have the same forces in Europe today if they leave than we did right before the Ukrainian war, but we also now don't have

that rotational force, which was always part of the strategic plan. And Romania was just on the political side, really under the gun from Russia. They had to rerun their presidential election, if I'm not mistaken, because of Russian interference. Woldova is really, really, really under the gun from Russia. And Romania's been a big, I believe, you know, stalwartin trying to help them from the NATO side. So this is really, if you were looking for things that seem to give just a victory to Putin for no reason at all, I feel like this would be pretty high on the list. It would be. All of these things together, especially during a time. when the president is proclaiming that he's trying to force Putin to the peace table, which

doesn't seem to be happening still. Yikes. Okay, let's finish with another yikes thing, I think, which is Venezuela and so much going on there. But you've written about this, also the deployment of the aircraft carrier there. Is there, I mean, what's the reason for doing that? And what do you think lies behind it? Well, I think the strategy is connected to deterrence. But again, I can't connect the strategy with the tactics because if you're talking about deterring counter-narcotics operations, there's nothing that I can think of on board of an aircraft carrier other than their strike aircraft, which are pretty intense if you talk about those kind of kinetic operations. To strike small boats doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

So it is a ends-means disconnect. You know, if you've got a strategic end state of deterrence of something that might be connected to counter-narcotic operations, continually attacking small boats is not going to claim an operational victory in that kind of war because the cartels are much greater than the 14 small boats that have been engaged and destroyed by whatever they've been engaged in. and destroyed by. And I'll process a little bit of a conspiracy theory. I'm not 100% certain that these are naval aircraft or even military aircrafted or strike in these small boats. It could be something else from an intelligence agency. And again, I don't know, but that has happened in the past in Afghanistan and Iraq where an intelligence agency was capable of using drone strikes to destroy targets. And I would think that if, If I were in command of a naval operation unless I had 100% complete intelligence of what I was

striking and a war had been declared in international waters, I would not obey an unlawful order to strike a boat that was going through that territory. So it is, as many people have said, has the potential for extrajudicial killing. So that might have something to do with Admiral Holsey's decision. And yeah, that's very interesting, but also chilling. Yeah, I mean, and anyway, we're striking these boats without having the test the air force carrier the aircraft carrier theirs right we don't need the aircraft carrier it seems like to blow up these little boats and i can't believe we would even use those planes to do that so i mean do you think it's possible that we're contemplating the actual use of these aircraft for strikes on bases which we would then i suppose say maybe truthfully

that are or drug cartel headquarters or something in venezuela itself i mean well there have been mention of regime change inside of Venezuela by various members of the current administration. When you're talking about regime change, first of all, I'd caveat anything I'm going to say is we haven't been too good at regime change over the last 20 years. So when you're talking about regime change, it requires not only kinetic strikes from military capabilities, but also diplomacy, information, and economy. The elements. of national power, as you well know. So what else is going on? You can certainly use the 75 aircraft that are on the USS Ford to strike targets, but then the next question would be either so what or

then what? What are you getting from this? Are you looking to decouple the Madero regime from the citizens of Venezuela? It's possible. But what is the strategy that would drive a campaign plan or the operational design of to do that and get us into a war into a Latin American nation. In addition to that, what I'd add is there's a lot of countries on Venezuela's borders that have varying degrees of trust in the United States. And just going after Venezuela with this kind of power would certainly raise the ears of some of the other countries in the region like Colombia, Guatemala, under, I mean, you could go through the litany of very tenuous relationships with some Latin American and South American countries,

which would be negative affected by something like this. And which would probably negatively affect the attempt to stop them from cracking down on drug smugglers, if that's really what you're concerned about. Yeah, and to say nothing of the fact, it's so obvious that one almost doesn't mention that whatever one thinks again of Afghanistan and Iraq, those were, there were authorizations for the use of military force. They were debated, considerable, well, Afghanistan was decided very quickly, but Iraq was certainly debated a considerable length, voted on in Congress,

much criticizing, obviously, and second-guessing, but not just second-guessing, much debate within the administration and with experts outside about what we should be doing and how, and did we have, we turned out maybe not to have enough troops and all this, but there's nothing here, right? This is, so far, there's almost no public, I mean, literally, the president hasn't given a, he's mentioned it, but has he given a speech about it, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, to my knowledge, I haven't testified about it. I mean, I just, the degree to which this is, we're possibly tiptoeing up to something pretty close

to a war, you know, without, without any public. I think it's already gone over that. Maybe without any public discussion or debate. I mean, that's pretty. Well, and you go back to the discussion we were having before we started, and it has to do with what is our national strategy. What are we trying to do? because that's what drives the national military strategy of what they're trying to do.

And when you talk about the legalities of executing combat operations, not under authorization of use of force, the president can request a lot of things. The Secretary of Defense can execute those plans by giving orders. And while the president's immune from criminal activities and the Secretary of Defense might get pardoned, the individuals who are actually pulling the triggers are giving the orders that kill people are the military folks, and they are not only under requirements of U.S. law, but in this kind of situation, they're under the international law and the law of land warfare, so they could potentially be tried as war criminals if this turns out to be crimes as opposed to legal actions

committed during conflict. So there's a whole lot of legal activities, and certainly I'm sure in the White House they have provided some legal justification for doing what we're doing. We've heard that that's happened, but does that absolve the military commanders from giving orders that might later be considered illegal orders because they weren't executed during a time of war or they were executed in international waters without authority? So all of that, you know, I'm not a lawyer, but it seems, I know I'd be questioning if I was in command of any of these organizations right now. And it sounds as if the Jags, the people you would be asking this question to, if you were in command, are, have been, I don't know, cut out, marginalized.

And we know that the top ones were removed at the beginning of the top administration. So, yeah, that seems, is that what your sense is, too, that the sort of, are the Jags as involved? in the, you know, okaying these decisions as much as they want to, well, we don't know, I guess. I can't say, but it sure doesn't seem so. I mean, we also heard Secretary Heggseth at the meeting of the general saying, forget about rules of engagement. We don't play those political games anymore. That's a very dangerous statement to make. And I know that many in the audience took it as that. Interesting. Because rules of engagement is what gives moral authority for pulling a trigger. And it really is something that commanders depend upon.

to limit the kind of actions they take. What I'd say is we have a very informed and thinking military force. We don't do things just because we're ordered to do them. We think through them because we know the implications of killing fellow human beings, even though they might be our enemies. So this all plays in to the discussion on what does a military commander do and how do they do it. I mean, if you have lawyers at the top, and I understand Secretary Heggseth has a former lawyer by the name of Parleteer as his main advisor in legal actions, if that lawyer tends to skirt or doesn't consider some of the things that those on the ground have to do, it can turn into a tenuous situation. Yikes.

No, that's, and I do think the speech is like, yikes too many times. I know, I know, it's like, well, it's a mild term, you know, it's a conceals by the extent of my actual alarm. The degree to which, and we'll let people go here and let you go, but I do think we should return at some point and discuss the speeches by Secretary of Hexeth and President Trump to the senior officers at Quantico. I think we all discussed it at the time and analyzed at some, but there are things in there that were lurking, so to speak, or said for just a paragraph or two, that I think could really come back to be real indicators of where they sort of thought they were going and where we may be going, and probably worth really dwelling on some of that.

Yeah, and a couple of those were, first of all, like I just mentioned, the rules of engagement. Lumping everything into the wokeness or political correct category is dangerous because I still don't think they define what that means. The third area is we are going to potentially use military forces on the streets of our city. And in fact, the president has reinforced that a couple of times. over the last few days where he's brought up, you know, I can do this. And truthfully, you can, I've heard a lot of people on the media saying, well, he can't do that. It's illegal.

Well, that's not quite true because he has mentioned the use of, quote, his quote, the act. He has never called it the insurrection act, but that's what he's talking about that gives a president power to use active duty, military force anywhere he wants if he feels there's an insurrection. But first, you have to kind of show there is an insurrection, and no one has done that yet. And then the last category falls into the blanket statement of, if you don't think you can do these kind of things, you need to walk out the door now. That was said in terms similar to that by both the secretary and the president. And again, it brings us back to what we were talking about at the very beginning in terms of disagreement is not disrespect.

And what you're talking about in the professional military, these senior leaders, both officers and senior NCOs that were in that meeting in Quantico, are very different from any business or any government. And the reason I say that, when you have a new administration come in, they have the experience of what they've seen in politics or in government, and it's usually limited. as compared to a 30 or 40-year career in what some might call the military business. So all of the folks in that room have been wearing the uniform for 30 or 40 years, they have 20 years of experience in two wars or maybe more,

and they kind of know what they're doing and they know how to control and command and lead their soldiers. So when you're told to do things that run contrary to what the experiences are that these folks bring into the room, it becomes very troubling. And I think most of, I won't speak for all of them, but I have spoken to a few that were in that room, and they were troubled by what they heard. And they're afraid of how it's going to affect the American people at the same time. What do our citizens feel about what the military will do, should do, can do? You know, there are a lot of our fellow citizens who say or who tell me, hey, why don't you guys do

something about this? Well, that's not what we do. You know, we obey the orders of the civilian authority unless they're illegal. And we don't interfere potentially in politics. So all of those things play a part of truthfully what the military does, who we are, that a lot of people don't understand and how we conduct operations. And many of the things we've been hearing in terms of strategy and operations and what we're being asked to do are contrary to what we see as the values and the ideologies of our nation. Yeah, that's so important and so interesting, but also worrisome, but so helpful to have you really explain the meaning of these things that those to us who haven't served, and even many who have, I imagine, don't necessarily have visibility

into and don't understand the implications of. So, Mark, thank you for joining me today, and we'll do this many times in the future. I don't think these issues are not going away, right? And these questions are not. So anyway, thanks so much for joining today. It's a pleasure to talk with you, Bill. Thanks for having. I appreciate it. My pleasure. And thanks for being not just an unofficial, but a totally official member of the Bullwark team. So thanks for that. You got it. Thank you all for joining us.