Pete Hegseth’s faux diagnosis of a crisis in America’s warrior spirit

This week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has convened a literally unprecedented meeting of most American field commanders from the level of one-star and up.

Several hundred military officers are involved.

Apparently, the secretary wishes to reinvigorate an ethos of warfighting in U.S. military leadership after a period when, in Hegseth’s mind, that ethos has weakened due to assault from political correctness and woke American culture.

He and President Donald Trump believe such trends largely explain the modern American armed forces’ struggles on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan in modern times.

They need to reassess.

To be fair, there is an element of truth in Hegseth’s and Trump’s concerns about trends in America’s military history.

Certainly, the first two-thirds of our history had fewer setbacks than the last third.

The history of battlefield prowess in the United States dates back to the American Revolution itself, then the 1790s half-war against France over shipping practices in the Caribbean, followed by battles against faraway Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean, the largely unnecessary War of 1812, hundreds and hundreds of battles against Native Americans until roughly 1890, the U.S.-Mexico War of 1846-1848, the hugely sanguinary Civil War, and the Spanish-American War of 1898.

The United States had a strong military track record throughout this period.

And of course, the United States was on the winning side in both world wars as well.

But since then, we have struggled in Korea and Iraq, lost in Vietnam and Afghanistan, and suffered setbacks in smaller operations like the Iran hostage rescue attempt of 1980, the Beirut Marine barracks’ bombing of 1983, and the Black Hawk Down tragedy in Somalia in 1993 (even as we had some significant successes too, for example, with the invasion of Panama in 1989 as well as Operation Desert Storm in 1991).

However, on balance, Hegseth’s concerns are misplaced.

While there may be areas where he, as a former soldier himself, can ask tough questions and change some policies for the better, the overall fighting spirit and capability of the U.S.

Armed Forces have not suffered due to a purported pursuit of political correctness or diversity for diversity’s sake.

Hegseth’s first instinct should be to follow the Hippocratic Oath and do no harm to a system and an institution that remain excellent.

The first point to make is that, of all the setbacks and frustrations since 1945 noted above, there were at least as many in the Cold War decades as in the last generation or so.

Yet it is in that last few decades that most of the changes in the American military Hegseth seems to like least—“don’t ask, don’t tell” under President Bill Clinton, women increasingly present in the nation’s combat units under Clinton and George W.

Bush, the full opening of all military occupational specialties to women under President Barack Obama—took place.

More likely, it is the complexity of missions that we have been asking our military to carry out since 1945 that explains the mixed track record, more than wokeness.

But here’s the real essence of the argument: we have seen clearly demonstrated excellence in virtually all elements of American military power in the course of this century alone.

Consider:

The way that American special forces and airpower combined to work with the Northern Alliance to defeat the Taliban in the fall of 2001, after the 9/11 attacks, was a remarkable combination of military entrepreneurship, excellent performance of special forces, and precision application of airpower.

The overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in three and a half weeks demonstrated excellence in maneuver warfare, combined with boldness in tactics and overall strategy.

The surge in Iraq in 2007, one of the greatest military comebacks in American history, showcased America’s ongoing excellence in infantry operations, among other things, and proved that, if conditions are right and commanders are sufficiently gifted, the United States actually succeeds in messy counterinsurgency campaigns.

The tracking and killing of much of al-Qaida leadership, culminating in the Navy SEALS’ killing of Osama bin Laden in May of 2011, were a testament to the diligence, tenacity, and lethality of American intelligence as well as special forces.

The defeat of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria from 2014-2019 by a combination of American airpower, coalition training of Iraqi military units, and Western special forces operations was another remarkable achievement.

The way that American logistics operations sustained our multi-decade efforts in the broader United States Central Command region, and then did so much to keep Ukraine afloat in the face of Russian attack since 2022, shows that the United States remains the world’s only truly global military power, able to project force and sustain operations thousands of miles from home territory.

Trump’s own decision to direct B-2 bombers to damage or destroy Iranian nuclear infrastructure this year also led to a very impressive operation.

Hegseth’s generation of military and political leaders, including Vice President JD Vance, who also bravely wore the uniform, is right to ask tough questions about where the United States is today as a superpower.

To be blunt, those of us in older generations have sometimes let their generation down, in terms of what we asked them to do and how we asked them to do it.

Trying to stabilize and rebuild fractured societies halfway around the world is very difficult in the best of circumstances.

But we should not confuse these broader strategic and political challenges with the technical and tactical combat capabilities of the American armed forces.

The latter remain excellent, and the wrong kind of reforms could easily do much more harm than good.

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