When Pete Hegseth summoned hundreds of the US military’s top brass from around the globe to a special meeting in Virginia last week, “rumours ran wild”, said Eliot A. Cohen in The Atlantic. Was the Secretary of Defence about to purge the ranks, or demand that these leaders swear fealty to the president? No, it turned out the former Fox News host wanted to lecture them on the “warrior ethos”.
Hegseth said he was fed up with “fat troops” and “fat generals and admirals”. All soldiers would have to be in good shape, and clean-shaven: “no more beardos”. Diversity and inclusion is out: there would be “No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses,” he declared, “no more climate-change worship... we are done with that shit!” Training should be “scary, tough and disciplined”. Sergeants must be allowed to “instil healthy fear”, to “put their hands on recruits”.
Risk takers
What was remarkable about Hegseth’s lecture, said The Wall Street Journal, is that it “probably needed to be delivered”. The Biden-era focus on identity politics did indeed erode standards in the military.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Hegseth was also right to argue that the military needs to be more open to “risk takers”, allowing those who make honest errors to continue their careers. Reagan’s navy secretary, John Lehman, has warned that none of the fleet admirals who won the Second World War would make it past the rank of captain in today’s one-mistake navy. Ingenuity and creativity really matter in warfare – “see Russia’s battlefield floundering in Ukraine”.
Modern battlefield
Hegseth’s speech, and the rambling address by President Trump that followed it, were ultimately both exercises in “military nostalgia”, said David Ignatius in The Washington Post. Hegseth, a former National Guard officer, wants to revive a sort of gung-ho, “hard-ass” approach that would be well suited to staging another landing on Omaha Beach, but is less relevant to a modern battlefield dominated by drones and AI.
Trump talked of bringing back battleships, a fighting platform that became obsolete in the 1940s. He also repeated his desire to use the military for domestic law enforcement, to fight “the enemy from within”, which is ominous, unconstitutional – and “just dumb” at a time when Russia and China pose a growing threat. A preoccupation with “woke” culture and internal enemies “won’t prepare the military for the hi-tech demands of 21st century war”.
-
El Paso airspace closure tied to FAA-Pentagon standoffSpeed Read The closure in the Texas border city stemmed from disagreements between the Federal Aviation Administration and Pentagon officials over drone-related tests
-
Political cartoons for February 12Cartoons Thursday's political cartoons include a Pam Bondi performance, Ghislaine Maxwell on tour, and ICE detention facilities
-
Arcadia: Tom Stoppard’s ‘masterpiece’ makes a ‘triumphant’ returnThe Week Recommends Carrie Cracknell’s revival at the Old Vic ‘grips like a thriller’
-
The fall of the generals: China’s military purgeIn the Spotlight Xi Jinping’s extraordinary removal of senior general proves that no-one is safe from anti-corruption drive that has investigated millions
-
US, Russia restart military dialogue as treaty endsSpeed Read New START was the last remaining nuclear arms treaty between the countries
-
What happens now that the US-Russia nuclear treaty is expiring?TODAY’S BIG QUESTION Weapons experts worry that the end of the New START treaty marks the beginning of a 21st-century atomic arms race
-
Which way will Trump go on Iran?Today’s Big Question Diplomatic talks set to be held in Turkey on Friday, but failure to reach an agreement could have ‘terrible’ global ramifications
-
Syria’s Kurds: abandoned by their US allyTalking Point Ahmed al-Sharaa’s lightning offensive against Syrian Kurdistan belies his promise to respect the country’s ethnic minorities
-
EU and India clinch trade pact amid US tariff warSpeed Read The agreement will slash tariffs on most goods over the next decade
-
China’s Xi targets top general in growing purgeSpeed Read Zhang Youxia is being investigated over ‘grave violations’ of the law
-
Ukraine, US and Russia: do rare trilateral talks mean peace is possible?Rush to meet signals potential agreement but scepticism of Russian motives remain
