Is the military broken?

Retired General Stanley McChrystal is concerned about the “unprecedented purge of military leaders” for political affiliation

When you think about the key players in the military over the last two decades, retired General Stanley McChrystal certainly comes to mind. McChrystal is a distinguished four-star general known for transforming the joint special operations command into the organization that killed Osama Bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

As the military undergoes changes, we brought on McChrystal to reflect on today’s culture and leadership—which he says looks a whole lot different than it was during his time.

“During my entire service, when you were with your peers, you never talked about politics,” says McChrystal. “You didn’t know what officer was a Democrat or Republican or whatever they might be because it wasn’t considered appropriate to do that. And so we were an apolitical organization. And that was sacred because what you don’t want is a military that is identified as supporting one part of a political faction or another.”

McChrystal is concerned about whether the military can endure the sort of intensely partisan leadership we are seeing under Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“We’ve not had a test like this, at least in my lifetime, and anytime I can remember in American history,” says McChrystal. “There’s been an unprecedented purge of military leaders, not for incompetence or misbehavior, that’s always appropriate and required, but for political affiliation,” says retired General Stanley McChrystal.

“I think the military culture is strong, but I’m not convinced that it’s unbreakable,” he says. “I think that there’s every likelihood that we’ve weakened things and it will be difficult to repair it.

It’s been 52 years since Richard Nixon ended the draft, but McChrystal has long been vocal about the need to re-implement a version of that in the form of a national service requirement. This idea has floated around for a while—in fact William F. Buckley Jr. even wrote a book called Gratitude in which he proposes national service in 1990.

“If you are an actual investor in something, you care more about it. If you’re invested in the nation, you take more interest in it. And so I think that what we’ve done is we’ve shrunken down the opportunities,” says McChrystal. “And we have a lot of Americans who never have the opportunity to have contributed.”

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