Why were U.S. military officers fretting about having to show up, on short notice, to a base in Quantico, Virginia, to hear a speech from the two civilians in the chain of command? “All hands” meetings like the one held this week, at which subordinates gather to hear from top leadership, are one of the oldest customs in the U.S. military—think “George Washington addressing the troops.” What made this meeting so notable is that today’s military is buffeted by an atmosphere of extreme partisan polarization, and neither political party is doing much to protect the military from its baleful effects. In such a moment, the long-term health of the American republic depends on the military safely walking an extremely narrow tightrope to uphold civilian control without becoming a partisan institution itself.

High-profile meetings such as the one in Quantico force the military to walk that tightrope in the full glare of the media and without the safety net of strong trust across the civil-military divide. The military audience managed to pull off that feat, but they can be forgiven for fretting about it in advance. The last military audience in that situation—the lower-ranking troops who heard a similarly partisan speech from President Donald Trump at Fort Bragg in June—failed the test, whooping and hollering as if they were the party faithful at a political rally. In that case, many of the “applause lines” were scathing critiques of the lawful orders their military oath had required them to implement barely a year ago.

In the United States, the civil-military balance depends on commanders in chief of either party trusting the military to obey lawful orders regardless of which party is in power. The risk represented by the gathering orchestrated by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the speech delivered by Donald Trump is that it threatens to leave military leaders with no choice but to become partisan actors or to violate norms of civilian control of the military. So far, senior U.S. officers have managed that dilemma reasonably effectively. But the more that civilian leaders treat the military as a partisan institution, the more the military will start behaving like a partisan institution—and the less it can be relied on to fight and win wars.

George Washington and the other great military heroes in American history excelled at delivering informative and inspiring remarks to the assembled troops. Civilian leaders have done this, too, although rarely quite so memorably. There have been........

© Foreign Affairs