If you're the new Secretary of Defense and you've never held a rank anywhere near a military General, you need to spend about 12 hours a day 7 days a week, with real active Generals for a lot longer than this before making any bold moves.

Anything less is certainly dereliction of duty.

The Secretary of Defense is a civilian position intended to be independent of the active-duty leadership so as to prevent coups. In practice, many prior SecDef’s had to get waivers to serve.

How does that prevent coups? Like the reason a military coup works is because the military has a shitload of weapons. How does having the secretary of defense not able to be in on a military coup prevent a military coup?

At that point they’re bringing an org chart to a gun fight.

Probably to stop the personality. Coups are often driven by "soldiers loyal to...". Having a civilian in the role would pre-empt that.

OTOH a waiver undoes all of that. It shows how much of democracy depends on people following conventions and traditions.

Ok, that's what I always must have thought there was no match for.

I've been more wrong before . . .

This thread is misunderstanding the job of Secretary of Defense. They aren't interns learning from the generals how to lead an army or plan logistics. They're project managers who ensure the generals are aligned with the President's goals.

I would say that they oversee the Pentagon and ensure that the military stays in civilian control. In the past, theories from war games percolate through the Joint Chiefs, who meet with SECDEF before presenting options to the President.

I was surprised Hegseth even desired a side channel that had the potential downside that he could accidentally text the coordinates of a carrier. Stuff like that gets Generals relieved immediately.

Equally bewildered as there is no real upside to this and the other folks on the line dont have any purpose of knowing prestrike information.

I am not as educated in these manners but this type of information seems to be of the type you don’t text on commercial applications and would be on a need to know basis. Maybe you can communicate the idea that something is planned to happen but not timelines of the specific assets.