Newton’s third law meets the military

History offers a sobering reminder of what can happen when political and military power gather under one roof. In June 1937, Joseph Stalin summoned the Red Army’s high command for what was billed as a defense meeting. Instead, it became a showcase of terror. Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and several senior officers were accused of treason mid-session, dragged away by the secret police and executed days later. Their downfall was less about guilt than about demonstrating Stalin’s absolute authority.

Hitler staged a similar spectacle during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934. Mao turned party meetings into “struggle sessions” where even his second-in-command was humiliated and destroyed. In 2013, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un shocked his own inner circle by arresting his uncle during a Politburo meeting and later executing him. The pattern is clear: when people in power summon large gatherings of leaders, it is a flex of muscle and invitees are wise to pay attention.

On Tuesday, America witnessed its own version of a mass political-military convocation—though of a very different character. Secretary Pete Hegseth assembled hundreds of generals, admirals, and senior enlisted leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico. Nearly every O-7 and above not assigned to staff duty was in attendance, a concentration of power and responsibility that few nations can muster.

Hegseth set the tone immediately: “Good morning, and welcome to the War Department, because the Department of Defense is over.”

The secretary said the purpose of the gathering was to “restore the military’s warrior ethos” and root out what he called decades of political distractions. He argued that under prior administrations, the military had been “forced by foolish and reckless politicians to focus on the wrong things.” “The topic today is about the nature of ourselves,” he told the assembly. “No plan, no program, no reform will ultimately succeed unless we have the right people and the right culture.”

Hegseth’s rhetoric was blunt, but his reforms were concrete. He announced ten new directives ranging from fitness and grooming standards to training and personnel policies. All combat troops, male and female alike, will now be required to meet a uniform male fitness standard with a passing score of 70 percent. Two fitness tests per year will be mandatory for every service member, generals and admirals included and daily physical training will become a requirement for active-duty units. Beards, long tolerated under waivers, are now banned outright, with only limited medical exemptions allowed under a one-year corrective plan. Other changes include narrowing definitions of hazing, bullying, and cutting back on mandatory online training in favor of field and technical exercises and reforming equal opportunity and personnel policies. “It’s unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon,” Hegseth declared. “You need to meet the height and weight standards.”

Newton’s third law tells us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That may have been true in 1687 physics, but in 2025 politics we have learned that every action produces not an opposite reaction, but an opposite overreaction. The Biden administration leaned hard into climate initiatives, diversity programs and new immigration frameworks, prompting many to agree that the pendulum had swung too far. Now the pendulum swings back under Hegseth, away from “identity months” and toward a stricter culture of warfighting.

Whether this swing restores balance or not, history tells us the arc is never stable. The pendulum always goes too far, and even when it swings in our desired direction, we would be wise to remember that it will not rest there. It will return, it will be opposite, but it will not be equal.