Is Pete Hegseth out of his depth?

Back when Pete Hegseth was still just a television presenter, the former Army National Guard officer who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan explained how he returned to civvy street. “I separated from an Army that didn’t want me anymore,” Hegseth wrote in his book, The War on Warriors. “The feeling was mutual. I didn’t want this Army anymore either.” Fast forward two years and Hegseth finds himself at the Pentagon, trusted by President Trump to overhaul America's armed forces, the leadership of which he still does not seem to want. Twenty months after he was named as defence (now war) secretary, he undertaken a purge of top commanders that shows no sign of slowing, causing turmoil, anger and resentment among the US armed forces. Hegseth appears to be a man on a mission: to eliminate wokery and what he views as an obsession recruiting and promoting military personnel to meet cultural trends that have no place in the armed forces. The 46-year-old who is loyal to a fault to President Trump has sacked more top commanders than the combined total of his seven predecessors. More than 80 rising stars have had their promotions blocked, many of them black or women. The disruption to the leadership of the military has been so dramatic that some of the key appointments, including the chief of staff of the army, remain vacant, after the then incumbent, General Randy George, an officer with an impressive pedigree, was summarily fired after clashes with Hegseth. On September 1, Dan Driscoll, the highly regarded army secretary, the top civilian job in the service, resigned and went to see Trump to complain of the damage being done by his war secretary. At a time when the United States is at war with Iran and the two big-power rivals, China and Russia, are making their moves to exploit perceived American military weaknesses, the Hegseth revolution at the Pentagon has turned the second largest office building in the world upside down. Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina has urged Trump to sack Hegseth. “I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country,” he said in a social media post. Eric Edelman, defence policy chief at the Pentagon in the George W Bush administration, warned in a recent subscription-only podcast called Shield of the Republic of “the potential institutional damage that the poseur who claims he is the secretary of war is doing to both the uniformed military services and the department of defence more broadly”. “Much but not all of this personnel churn has been directed at the US army and so it was not surprising when the secretary of the army, Dan Driscoll, in the wake of all these acts of self-harm to the officer corps, resigned after warning the president about the damage being done to the fabulous military that he likes to tout which has left the army rudderless in the midst of a war,” he said. Despite the turmoil in the Pentagon, no one in the military can claim they weren’t given early warning. Hegseth’s personal mission was laid out in his 6,000-word address to more than 800 generals and admirals, summoned to hear what he wanted from them during an unprecedented gathering of top brass at the Marine Corps’ Quantico Bay base in Virginia on September 30. Overweight generals padding around the Pentagon corridors, fat troops struggling to train to the proper standards, gender-changing military personnel, beards and women in combat roles, all emerged as his pet hates. “We became the woke department, but not anymore. No more identity months, DEI [diversity, equity, inclusion] offices, dudes in dresses, no more climate change worship, no more division, distraction, or gender delusions, no more debris.” Hegseth told his stunned audience. Since then, Hegseth, the 29th defence secretary, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan as an infantry officer in the US Army National Guard, has sought out commanders who remind him of his wartime heroes, General Norman Schwarkopf who led the US and allies to victory in the 1991 Gulf War – the only US military victory in nearly 50 years – and General George Patton. of Second World War fame. However, General Chris Donahue, a commander who would appear to fit that bill, fell foul of Hegseth for reasons that have not been fully explained, and he was forced into premature retirement. Donahue who had spent much of his army career in the dark world of special forces missions had been put forward as the next supreme allied commander Europe (Saceur). But Hegseth blocked it. By all accounts Donahue was punished for being the last man to leave Kabul when all US troops were evacuated in a shambolic end to the war in Afghanistan. Trump who described the troop evacuation as “the most embarrassing moment in the history of the United States”, wanted heads to roll. Unlike two of his predecessors, Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, both regarded as distinguished secretaries of defence, Hegseth has had no experience of managing a large government department, let alone one the size of the Pentagon which is responsible for 2.8 million people, uniformed and civilian, and has a budget of nearly $1 trillion. Gates, 22nd defence secretary, and Panetta, the 23rd, were both formerly directors of the CIA. Panetta also served as the director of management and budget in the Clinton administration. However, Trump thinks Hegseth is “one of my best”. When the president secretly swapped planes in July from Air Force One via a catering truck at Ankara airport after a Nato summit following warnings of a suspected plot to assassinate him, he took only one cabinet minister with him: Pete Hegseth.