President Trump didn’t attend the Sept. 30 Quantico summit of military brass just because the base includes a McDonald's. 

What mainland threats necessitated such an extraordinary assembly? 

The only agenda item revealed in advance was discussion of the new National Defense Strategy (NDS), prioritizing homeland defense over threats from China, Russia, and Iran.  

Has this eventuality been planned since before Trump’s inauguration?

Trump's 70-minute, highly partisan public speech ranks among his worst.  He droned on, and on, and on, through an endless stream of recycled themes more appropriate for political rallies. 

Trump’s early-morning appearance ensured his comments received minimal viewership. 

If the objective was to ensure minimal press coverage, it succeeded. 

He obviously sought to cloak the assembly’s real reason. 

Officers weren’t flown in for trite remarks or Secretary Pete Hegseth’s pep talk.  Anything significant would have occurred in closed sessions.  For all we know, attendees stayed in America for days, huddled with Pentagon staff. 

What is known is that soon after, dozens of aerial refueling tankers (sufficient to sustain extensive bombing runs lasting days or weeks) and fleets of bombers began repositioning to our Middle Eastern airbases.  F-22 Raptors were flown in from Virginia.  Heavy-lift aircraft transported munitions and supplies to bases in Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.  A carrier battle group entered the Mediterranean. 

The consensus view is that an American-Israeli attack on Iran is imminent as the Oct. 7 anniversary approaches. 

Maybe. 

Preemptively targeting al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan would seem a higher priority. 

Perhaps a multi-front conflict, including the Houthis, is planned.  Trump hosted Netanyahu on Sept. 29, normally resulting in a Middle Eastern kinetic response soon after. 

One Democrat congresswoman feigned alarm at Trump’s speech: “The president is unhinged.  He is unwell.  … Our enemies are laughing.” 

She apparently confused Trump with Biden. 

Trump preemptively downplayed the Quantico meeting’s significance. 

Anyone fluent in decoding Trumpese recognizes this indicated the session would be a Big Deal:

I love it, I mean I think it’s great.  Let him [Hegseth] be friendly with the generals and admirals from all over the world.  You act like this is a bad thing.  Isn’t it nice that people are coming from all over the world to be with us?

The interim NDS, finalized in March 2025, is classified.  Drafting began once the administration took office. 

In April, Gen. Joe Ryan, deputy chief of staff for Army operations, stated, “I can't leave out maybe the Number One priority theater today, and that's the homeland." 

Asymmetrical warfare is coming to a city near you. 

While the country is complacent 24 years after 9/11, Trump’s administration takes terrorism threats seriously.  The August clean-up of Washington, D.C. (denounced as racist by the Usual Suspects), essentially militarized the city. 

This may be retrospectively seen as a proactive effort to facilitate responses to potential terrorist attacks targeting the seat of government. 

Some NDS aspects are already implemented.  These include deploying 10,000 troops to the border — and more to certain cities, declaring a militarized border zone, and interdicting Venezuelan drug runners. 

The possibility of drone strikes on Venezuelan drug labs has been floated.  A full blockade may logically follow.  A blockade on drug exports already exists.  Venezuela not only poses a threat from drugs.  It represents Hezb’Allah’s and China’s Western Hemisphere forward operating base. 

Trump notified Congress on Oct. 2 that we are engaged in “non-international armed conflict” with Venezuelan cartels, i.e., against non-nation state actors. 

Military strikes can now legally proceed.  Maduro may receive the Noriega treatment. 

A symbiosis exists between Maduro and Hezb’Allah to facilitate drug trafficking, money laundering, terrorism, and arms smuggling.  Iranian propaganda has featured Maduro.  China functions as Venezuela’s sugar daddy, purchasing 90% of its oil and maintaining substantial investments in the nation’s infrastructure. 

Second only to oil, Venezuela’s leading export is spreading chaos throughout Latin America.  Venezuela maintains close ties with Cuba, which functions as the regional training camp for Maoist radicals such as Trantifa terrorists, New York City perennial agitator Manolo De Los Santos, or Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.  A reminder of Cuba’s criminality came with the Sept. 25 death of escaped terrorist/murderer Assata Shakur (a.k.a. JoAnne Chesimard), during her Cuban exile and asylum. 

Earlier this year, Trump dusted off the 1798 Alien Enemies Act and the Insurrection Act of 1807, paving the way to expedite terrorists’ removals and declaring military law, respectively. 

The Insurrection Act overrides the Posse Comitatus Act, allowing the military to conduct domestic law enforcement.  A guy named Lincoln once used it early in a war.  

Pentagon aides began talking up the NDS in September, although it was largely finalized six months earlier.  Trump envoy General Kellogg (a buttoned-down version of John Bolton’s bad cop act) just hinted that Ukraine and NATO could be greenlit to unleash direct missile attacks on Moscow. 

Strategic ambiguity lies at the Trump Doctrine’s core. 

Kellogg’s comments were likely intended to discourage (i.e., threaten) Russia from supporting any enemy responses to attacks the Pentagon may proactively unleash against terrorist assets. 

Combined with the “friendly” Quantico classified confab, everything adds up to the backfield in motion prior to the quarterback calling the snap.

Why the secrecy?  Doctor Strangelove wondered the same:

"Deterrence is the art of producing in the mind of the enemy the fear to attack.  …The whole point of the Doomsday Machine is lost if you keep it a secret!  Why didn’t you tell the world, eh?” 

The Soviet ambassador responded, “It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday.  As you know, the Premier loves surprises.”  So does Trump.

The 20-point Gaza peace plan was presented to Hamas on Sept. 29 as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.  A 6:00 p.m. Oct. 5 deadline to decide followed on Oct. 3. 

Otherwise, Hamas fighters would “be hunted down and killed.” 

The White House and Israel hatched a deal, endorsed on Sept. 30 by Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan, the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.  The kinda, sorta acceptance of the proposal by Hamas may prove a futile stalling attempt. 

Trump’s military actions alternate between strikes after threats fail, or surprise attacks, e.g., eliminating Iran’s nuclear program, or assassinating Iranian Gen. Soleimani, respectively. 

The backfield is in motion, with military assets flooding the zone of Central Command.  Peace through intimidation, first verbally, then militarily if necessary.  Whether the ostentatious deployment of military assets to the Middle East results in peace or conflict will soon become known.

The Nobel Peace Prize committee announces selections in early October.  Seeking excuses for not awarding Trump the prize, the committee may shortly acquire a big one.  The Quantico event preceded imminent multi-front and multi-hemispheric preemptive military action, with the military's readiness status likely increased to Defcon 3 for the first time since 9/11. 

A week when decades transpire in days just flew past.  

Douglas Schwartz blogs at The Great Class War, applying pattern recognition of historical cycles to place current events into context.