After the election last November, I traveled to NATO headquarters in Brussels as part of a Council on Foreign Relations delegation principally focused on NATO enlargement.
Of course, the topic du jour turned to Ukraine. With the election of Donald Trump. our group expressed grave apprehension that in his eagerness to make a deal in 24 hours, as he described it, Trump would pressure Ukraine into accepting a cease-fire in place without security guarantees. It was apparent to our group that rewarding Putin again for his invasion of a sovereign nation (Trump stood by in 2014 when he seized Crimea) would only allow him time to re-group his forces. We would have a Munich-style appeasement all over again. What would be next for Putin? Moldova, Poland, Finland?
As Churchill said of the Munich Pact of 1938, “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.”
I met with NATO officials, diplomats, intelligence people, and military members. Standing head and shoulders above the pack was Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield. She addressed our group, took probing questions, and expressed a commendable dispassionate understanding of the players: Europe, NATO, Ukraine, the U.S., and the Russians, whom she warned were not to be trusted. In an off-line, I had the chance to speak with her privately, and there was no mistaking that this was a dedicated military officer our country could be proud of.
I remember questioning whether she was critical of Trump’s judgment in his transactional approach to Ukraine. She responded: “I would never take issue, publicly or privately, with my commander in chief.”
The other day Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fired Chatfield as being on the “woke list” because she had expressed opinions favoring diversity in the military. The news was devastating. Officials said the firing was linked to comments Chatfield made that supported diversity. She had previously appeared on a list of senior military officers targeted as “woke” by the conservative research group the American Accountability Foundation. The Foundation openly lobbied Hegseth for Chatfield’s removal before the Senate narrowly confirmed him in January.
Chatfield is one of at least nine senior military leaders—and the fourth woman—removed since Trump’s return to Washington. With the firing of Chatfield, along with other top battle-seasoned military officers, Trump has made the nation shudderingly less safe, and there is no doubt of it.
Chatfield was no DEI token. A combat veteran in Afghanistan, she was a helicopter pilot and a decorated officer. She was the former president of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, a coveted position in the Navy. She was the only woman serving on NATO’s military committee.
Chatfield had served at NATO since 2023, after becoming the first woman to lead the Naval War College. She will be temporarily replaced by Brig. General Sean Flynn, an Army National Guard officer who had been Chatfield’s deputy at NATO. I met Flynn also. He’s a good man, but there is a disconnect. He doesn’t hold a candle to Chatfield in rank, stature, or experience.
Hegseth’s spokesperson said Chatfield’s removal was due to a loss of confidence in her ability to lead.” Who lost confidence, and why? Is her crime in endorsing diversity any worse than conducting a sensitive battle plan on an insecure app and allowing the editor of The Atlantic to listen in? Those who don’t think there is value in diversity in the military are out of step with the reactionary Supreme Court. In its no race-based criteria regarding college admissions opinion, the Court exempted the military academies because of the delicate considerations relative to national security. As the Chief Justice put it: “[…] the Court’s opinion today addresses the issue of race-based admissions in the context of civilian higher education institutions. It does not address military academies, in light of the potentially distinct interests they may present.”
Chatfield had made the unpardonable statement at a Women’s Equality Day celebration a decade ago that “our diversity is our strength” — a phrase Hegseth publicly denounced in February as the “single dumbest” in military history. There surely must have been dumber than that.
When she became president of the Naval War College in 2019 during Trump’s first term, Chatfield said that she wanted to see members of her team respect one another for their differences and diversity, which is no more or less dumb than the statement made by the Chief Justice.
There are no indications that Chatfield was unwilling to carry out the administration’s orders per the military’s long-standing tradition of officers remaining nonpartisan. After talking with her in Brussels, I was absolutely convinced of this.
The administration’s shake-up of military leadership had faced little pushback from Republicans in Congress.
In addition to Chatfield, officers fired since Trump’s return to the White House is Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the Navy’s top officer; Admiral Linda Fagan, commandant of the Coast Guard; and Lieutenant General Jennifer Short, senior military assistant to the defense secretary. All are expected to retire.
Men who were ousted include General Charles Q. Brown Jr., who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; General James Slife, former vice chief of staff of the Air Force; General Timothy Haugh, head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command; Lieutenant General Joseph B. Berger III, the Army’s top military lawyer; and Lieutenant General Charles Plummer, the Air Force’s top military lawyer.
Some Republicans may be waking up to our vulnerability.
A December Defense Department study found that women comprise 17.7 percent of the U.S. military—hardly evidence of preferential treatment for women. The percentage of women who become generals or admirals is in the single digits. With all the talk about diversity, there is still a glass ceiling for women in the military.
Chatfield’s firing happened days after Trump ousted Haugh and his civilian deputy, Wendy Noble, soon after a meeting with Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and conspiracy theorist who has Trump’s ear. Loomer also advocated firing several civilian advisers on the White House National Security Council after making the case that they were not loyal to Trump.
Should we be concerned about the experience lost and potential politicization of the nonpartisan armed forces? You bet we should.
“The silence from my Republican colleagues is deeply troubling,” said Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the Armed Services Committee’s top Democrat, defending Chatfield and calling her 38-year career “unblemished by President Trump’s behavior.” Reed noted that the Senate unanimously confirmed her for the NATO job in 2023 and portrayed the administration’s targeting of senior leaders as “a political loyalty test.”
“I cannot fathom how anyone could stand silently by while the President causes great harm to our military and nation,” he added. “… I urge my Republican colleagues to join me in demanding an explanation.”
Senator Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat, said he was “deeply disturbed” by the news of Chatfield’s ouster, contending the president’s “relentless attacks on our alliances and his careless dismissal of decorated military officials make us less safe and weaken our position across the world.”
Among the exceptions to the GOP’s muted response is Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate’s longtime Republican leader, who expressed exasperation with Trump’s personnel decisions after last week’s firing of Haugh.
“If decades of experience in uniform isn’t enough to lead the NSA, but amateur isolationists can hold senior policy jobs at the Pentagon, then what exactly are the criteria for working on this Administration’s national security staff?” McConnell said. “I can’t figure it out.”
I never thought I would say I’m with Mitch McConnell. The only thing we have in common is that neither of us is up for re-election, and we’re both octogenarians. But I think he got it right this time, as he did by opposing Hegseth’s nomination. I can’t figure it out either. As Edward R. Murrow used to say, “Good night and good luck.”
