Compass Points - Key West 2.0?
New fiscal year begins
September 26, 2025
.
The final 24 hours.
The very last day.
As everyone knows, the federal government runs on a fiscal year. The federal fiscal year ends on 30 September and a new fiscal year begins 1 October. For many programs, funding runs out 30 September. When the fiscal year ends, some offices are closed and some people are fired. Every year in the federal government, big changes happen on 30 September.
Many news outlets are reporting that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is convening an enormous conference at Quantico including as many as several hundred flag and general officers along with their senior enlisted advisors. Secretary Hegseth could have scheduled the massive meeting on any date he wanted. But the date he selected for the meeting is next Tuesday, 30 September 2025, the final day of the fiscal year.
.
-------------------
-------------------
.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has summoned the military’s top officers – hundreds of generals and admirals – to a base in northern Virginia for a sudden meeting next week, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The directive did not offer a reason for the gathering next Tuesday of senior commanders of the one-star rank or higher and their top advisers at the Marine Corps base in Quantico. The people, who described the move as unusual, were not authorized to publicly discuss the sensitive plans and spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity.
-- Military.com
.
-------------------
-------------------
.
Perhaps Secretary Hegseth merely wants to get all the military senior leaders together, shake their hands, and tell them what a great job they are doing. No doubt he will thank them for their hard work on behalf of the Nation, but it is likely he has something bigger in mind, something that will shake up the military services. Secretary Hegseth may be convening Key West 2.0. It was that first crucial military meeting at Key West in 1948 that established the modern military roles and missions.
The senior leaders at Quantico this coming Tuesday should look carefully at the people standing with Secretary Hegseth when the meeting begins. If one of the people is Richard Hooker, get ready. The meeting is likely to be a tumultuous roles and missions meeting, where every service has to justify their programs, budgets, and their very existence.
Dr. Richard D. Hooker, Jr. is a Senior Fellow with The Atlantic Council and a Senior Associate with the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center. He previously served as The Theodore Roosevelt Chair in National Security Affairs at the National Defense University and as University Professor at NDU’s National War College. Dr. Hooker published an influential article just about the time Secretary Hegseth took office, Dr. Hooker’s article was, “It’s time for a new Key West agreement.”
In his article, Dr. Hooker has pointed words about the US Marine Corps.
.
------------------
------------------
.
Roles and missions for the U.S. military were laid down in 1948 at Key West at a conference chaired by James Forrestal, the first Secretary of Defense. Subsequently approved by President Truman, these accords have remained in place ever since, despite extraordinary changes in the national-security environment.
. . . In every major conflict since 1945, the Marine Corps has provided large formations that conducted sustained operations on land alongside Army divisions and corps. Similarly organized as their Army counterparts, Marine divisions with supporting armor and field artillery (as well as very capable organic air support) played major roles in land warfare. Beginning in 2022, the Marine Corps began to divest its tanks and tubed artillery to optimize as an island-based, Pacific-focused service that emphasizes rocket artillery and unmanned vehicles. (The Marine Corps’ “Force Design 2030” blueprint also eliminates one of the Corps’ eight active infantry regiments, six of 32 helicopter squadrons, all bridging assets and all four Marine Air Wing Support Groups.)
Criticized by experts as “custom-designed for distributed operations on islands in the Western Pacific [and] poorly designed and poorly trained for the land campaigns it is most likely to fight,” these moves fundamentally alter USMC capabilities, rendering the service unable to support major land campaigns and leaving it poorly suited for missions outside the Indo-Pacific region. Formerly praised for its flexibility and adaptability, the Marine Corps today can offer fewer options across a reduced mission set to the National Command Authorities.
-- R.D. Hooker, Jr. - Defense One - “It’s time for a new Key West agreement”
.
------------------
------------------
.
How sad that any informed observer would be forced to write about today’s Marine Corps, “Formerly praised for its flexibility and adaptability, the Marine Corps today can offer fewer options across a reduced mission set to the National Command Authorities.”
There is a new sheriff in the White House and new leadership in the Pentagon. The excuses and power point presentations of the past are not going to be enough. As the Secretary of War made clear in his original message to the force, he wants warriors.
.
------------------
------------------
.
Secretary Hegseth’s Message to the Force
It is the privilege of a lifetime to lead the warriors of the Department of Defense, under the leadership of our Commander in Chief Donald J. Trump. We will put America First, and we will never back down.
The President gave us a clear mission: achieve Peace through Strength. We will do this in three ways — by restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military, and reestablishing deterrence.
-- We will revive the warrior ethos and restore trust in our military. We are American warriors. We will defend our country. Our standards will be high, uncompromising, and clear. The strength of our military is our unity and our shared purpose.
-- We will rebuild our military by matching threats to capabilities. This means reviving our defense industrial base, reforming our acquisition process, passing a financial audit, and rapidly fielding emerging technologies. We will remain the strongest and most lethal force in the world.
-- We will reestablish deterrence by defending our homeland — on the ground and in the sky. We will work with allies and partners to deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific by Communist China, as well as supporting the President’s priority to end wars responsibly and reorient to key threats. We will stand by our allies — and our enemies are on notice.
All of this will be done with a focus on lethality, meritocracy, accountability, standards, and readiness.
I have committed my life to warfighters and their families. Just as my fellow soldiers had my back on the battlefield, know that I will always have your back. We serve together at a dangerous time. Our enemies will neither rest nor relent. And neither will we. We will stand shoulder to shoulder to meet the urgency of this moment.
Like each of you, I love my country and swore an oath to defend the Constitution. We will do that each and every day, as one team. Together we will accomplish the President’s mission to deter war, and if necessary, defeat and destroy our enemies. Godspeed!
-- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
.
------------------
------------------
.
Compass Points salutes both R.D. Hooker and the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth.
It is good to hear the military Secretary emphasize a renewed warrior ethos and a focus on warriors who will “deter war, and if necessary, defeat and destroy our enemies.”
Marines have always had a warrior ethos and have only ever asked for the opportunity to serve the Nation by being sent to a crisis, “to locate, close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver, or repel the enemy assault by fire and close combat.”
As Dr. Hooker is forced to observe, however, the Marine Corps in recent years has allowed itself to fall between two capability sets. Despite nearly six years of talk and presentations, the Marine Corps has not been able to deploy even a single operational missile unit off China’s coast. In the same six years, the Marine Corps has badly damaged its global combined arms flexibility by cutting back or eliminating combined arms units, equipment, and capabilities. If the new Secretary of War holds a Key West meeting this Tuesday to remake roles and missions, what will the Marine Corps say? Will the Marine Corps say, we are an Indo-Pacific force of missile units scattered off China’s coast. There are no operational Marine missile units deployed off China’s coast.
Or will the Marine Corps say, we are just as strong and capable global, combined arms, crisis response, force as we have been for many decades. That is not true either. Marine Corps crisis response capabilities have been severely divested, damaged, and destroyed. The Congress, the Naval Secretary, and the new Defense Secretary of War, at some point, are all going to take a hard look at the Marine Corps’ ability to serve the Nation. What are Marine Corps capabilities? What value does the Marine Corps bring to the Nation?
In decades past, the Marine Corps had an easy answer. The Marine Corps always provided more combat power per dollar than any other service. And the Marine Corps could arrive fastest with the most capabilities to any crisis around the globe. The Marine Corps today is living off its glorious history.
That glorious history can only carry the Corps so far. Is the Nation willing to pay to have Marines sit on islands off the coast of China? Extremely doubtful. The Army, Navy, and Air Force are ready to attack China ships with missiles -- they do not need the help of Marine missile units. What the Nation desperately needs and would be grateful to pay for is a global 9-1-1 force, that can arrive rapidly off-shore of any crisis, prepared to deter, assist, and fight.
Before the next Key West roles and missions meeting, whether on this Tuesday or some other day soon, the Marine Corps had better rediscover and re-embrace the 9-1-1 mission, before it is too late.
The US military fiscal year ends this Tuesday 30 September. What else will end that day? What else will begin?
.
- - - - -
.
Military.com - 09/25/2025
Hegseth Abruptly Summons Top Military Commanders to a Meeting in Virginia Next Week
By Konstantin Toropin, Emma Burrows and Ben Finley
.
- - - - -
.
Defense One - 01/24/2025
It’s time for a new Key West agreement
Airpower, air defense, Marines’ role—all need revisiting, three-quarters of a century after the seminal roles-and-missions pact.
By R. D. Hooker, Jr.
Dr. Richard D. Hooker, Jr. is a Senior Fellow with The Atlantic Council and a Senior Associate with the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center. He previously served as The Theodore Roosevelt Chair in National Security Affairs at the National Defense University and as University Professor at NDU’s National War College.
.
- - - - -
.
Defense.gov - 01/25/2025
Secretary Hegseth’s Message to the Force
When you are in a hole, quit digging. This is good advice that too often goes unheeded. Consider the following counsel that fell on deaf ears:
1, “Force Design 2030: Transforming to Irrelevance” by Colonel Michael Marletto, USMC (Ret). Published in The National Interest on November 6, 2022. You can read the article at: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/force-design-2030-transforming-irrelevance-205734?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=web-share
2. “Reduce the Risk to National Security: Abandon Force Design 2030” by General Charles Wilhelm, USMC (Ret) and General Terrence Dake, USMC (Ret). Published in The Hill on 12 December 2022. You can read the article at: https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3779378-reduce-the-risk-to-national-security-abandon-force-design-2030/
It’s time to quit digging and begin filling in the dark hole of strategic and operational irrelevance.
The age of empires is again upon us. Pax Americana as a global order is likely gone, with the world at least bifurcated between competing consortiums of the West + Asian Allies and BRICS+ - SCO - Global South. The rules of empire competition are different than a unipolar world, or even a bipolar world. Worst case scenario, we will fracture from Europe and our Asian Allies, and find ourselves as the American hegemon. The allure of money, and participation in the western economic system has--for decades--been the guarantor of relative peace and prosperity in the world. With Russia, China and their allies largely forsaking that system and accelerating the development of their own alternative, the ties that bind are breaking one by one, allowing for more base desires to compel open warfare. All this to say, we're going to need a much bigger Marine Corps, a much bigger Navy, and a much bigger air force. Whether we fight in Taiwan, Europe or not is immaterial--we will need these forces to defend our hemisphere at the very least.