Australia and the World Past and Present

In September Pete Hesgeth summoned the U.S. military’s top brass to a meeting in Qunatico, Virginia.

Generals flew in from near and far.

That such a gathering took place at all was widely criticised.

Couldn’t a memo have been sent out? Were top generals being called off crucial projects so that they could attend?

The reason for the meeting was kept under wraps.

When all were present, the Secretary of War laid out his vision for the U.S. military.

Certainly in terms of language, the U.S. military is more aggressively postured than ever before.

The Department of Defense has been renamed the War Department and Hesgeth says that its only mission is fighting.

He said, “the only people who actually deserve peace are those who are willing to wage war to defend it.”

Presumably that means that countries that don’t have strong armies don’t deserve peace.

There is a lot of talk about warriors in Hesgeth’s War Department.

It is acknowledged that drones and AI have become very important in war. Expect to see large investments in those areas.

We have already seen the wide use of drones in the Ukraine-Russia war. Drone technology is attractive to military forces all around the world. Drones can be produced in large numbers at relatively low cost. They can put personnel further from the battlefield, and out of harms’ way. They can strike deep inside enemy territory without risk to ones own soldiers. Many armies around the world are even struggling to recruit personnel in the first place.

The new Secretary of Defense has no doubt that when you change your leadership, you change your culture.

“If I’ve learned one core lesson in my eight months on the job, it’s that personnel is policy…for too long, we’ve promoted too many uniformed leaders for the wrong reasons, based on their race, based on gender quotas..we became the woke department…no more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses.”

One interpretation of Hesgeths reforms is that he is attempting to get back to the basics of fighting. He is trying to remove everything that he sees as superfluous to preparing for war. He believes that trendy political movements have infiltrated the US military and have corrupted it.

Another interpretation is that Hesgeth is an unrelenting culture warrior who hell bent on removing programs that, over the last few decades, have made the military more diverse and inclusive. The military is not the easiest environment for a woman to enter and navigate. The U.S. military has to deal with recruiting. They are constantly encouraging more Americans to sign up for service. Women make up around 50% of the U.S. population. Furthermore, not all roles are combat roles. So how do you make best use of your people? Do you create a military that welcomes women and sees them willing to sign up? Or are you creating a situation in which women will be reluctant to join?

There have been different physical standards for women, but Hesgeth says “Standards must be uniform, gender neutral and high”.

The Secretary of Defense also has clear ideas about personal hygiene. “Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops. Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals in the halls of the Pentagon…no more beards, long hair, superficial individual expression…No more beardos.”

In a way, Hesgeth is a product of the very military he now leads. He has been through basic training and drilling. He went through the process in which the individual is broken down and remade as part of a group. He has internalised this and now champions it.

However, four-star generals are usually not on the field of combat. It is really such as issue if a general at the Pentagon, in his 50s or 60s has a little paunch? It the best use a General’s time 2 hours on the treadmill everyday? Or is it the matter between their ears that matters more?

Hesgeth has set himself a bar against which he may be judged in the future. Bodies do change as they get older. And the body that one has at 20 or 30 is much harder to sustain at 50 or 60.

Still, what comes across is Hesgeth’s desire for basic standards, group conformity and a striving for perfection.

He wants to see promotion based on merit and nothing else.

For him “war does not care if you’re a man or a woman. Neither does your enemy, nor does the weight of your rucksack.”