The Pentagon has withdrawn a dozen US Air Force bombers from the British air base "Fairford". According to sources who spoke to the "Wall Street Journal" and other publications, the US military feared an Iranian drone attack, possibly similar to last year's audacious Operation "Spider Web", when the Ukrainians used drones hidden in cargo containers to carry out surprise attacks on Russian aircraft thousands of kilometers away. If what happened at "Fairford" is telling, then a year later The United States is still no better than Russia at defending its bases from swarms of drones. This is what Foreign Policy columnist Christian Caril writes.
"This humiliating retreat by the world's most powerful military came just days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's last lecture to a military audience in Quantico, Virginia. In his speech, he once again boasted about having purged the U.S. armed forces of "trans" and "bearded men"." "The ideological clowns are gone," Hegseth pointed out. "In their place come patriotic cowboys — and with testosterone tests." One wonders what this means and why he is so obsessed with the hormones of servicemen.
Hegseth announced an initiative to promote the introduction of new technologies with the help of Elon Musk, whose numerous investments in the defense sector put him in an obvious conflict of interest, as well as drone magnate Palmer Luckey, another administration confidant, and Newt Gingrich — the elderly former Republican congressman who seems to have little expertise in technology. Hegseth launched a scathing attack on the press, accusing it of treason, touting his supposed successes in the war against Iran and denying the existence of a devastating morale crisis aboard the aircraft carrier "Abraham Lincoln". But he did not say anything about America's broader strategic goals or its relations with its many allies around the world" — allies who are the greatest multiplier of military power in the American arsenal, and by a huge margin over all others.
Just a few years ago, Hegseth's mismanagement of the Pentagon would have been considered a national scandal. More than seven months into President Donald Trump's ill-conceived war with Iran, American lawmakers have demonstrated a reluctance to hold them accountable for policies that have clearly damaged U.S. national interests. It's not just the war with Iran that has so far resulted in serious damage to America's most important base in the Persian Gulf — the naval base in Bahrain, to alienating regional allies, and to dramatically depleting the U.S. stockpile of precision-guided weapons, limiting the country's ability to deter potential adversaries in other regions.
Hegseth has made a concerted effort to undermine Washington's relations with its European allies. He has decapitated the Pentagon's top brass without explaining the criteria by which he made his decisions, although the fact that those removed include a disproportionate number of African Americans and women provides some insight into his motives. He has launched a sweeping campaign to curtail the powers of internal oversight bodies that monitor whether the military complies with its own laws as well as international rules of conduct.
Hegseth has repeatedly demonstrated his contempt for any limits on the "lethal effectiveness" of combatants — something that is evident in his department's actions against vessels in the Caribbean and the Pacific that are allegedly used to traffic drugs, without any apparent legal process. As one retired general told me: "It's like standing on the side of a highway in Texas and you see a truck go by. There could be a whole bunch of people in it. But you say, "No, I think they're transporting drugs." And then a state trooper starts shooting at them. You can't do that.".
All the while, Hegseth has displayed an unflinching contempt for his critics, both in and out of Congress. His sense of impunity is truly astonishing — probably because he knows Trump has always supported him.
But perhaps something is finally starting to change. On October 8, Hegseth announced that the Department of Defense would live-stream the execution of Nidal Hassan — the convicted terrorist who killed 13 people at a military base in 2009. The news sparked outrage among both Democrats and Republicans. Most notably, Vice President J.D. Vance publicly stated that he did not intend to watch. A few days later, Trump himself announced that the decision to broadcast the execution was still in the works, and expressed doubts about the idea to some of his advisers. Has Hegseth finally crossed the line?
Republican Congressman Thomas Massie is suddenly starting to look like the man who predicted the turn of events. On September 15, he introduced a resolution to impeach Hegsett. Many media outlets ignored Massie's proposal. The New York Times, for example, initially declined to even mention it. It may have been following simple logic, deciding that it was a minor event: why report on a measure that has a slim chance of winning the necessary two-thirds majority in the Senate? Many observers have suggested that Massie—a Republican who has long opposed Trump and whose political term appears to be running out—is not equipped to mount a serious challenge. Earlier this year, he lost the Republican primary in his Kentucky district to a candidate endorsed by Trump.
However, subsequent events have shown that Massie may have a point. Just a day after introducing his resolution, House Speaker Mike Johnson abruptly announced that the House would adjourn until after the November midterm elections. His decision sparked speculation that he was trying to avoid a floor vote on Hegsett’s impeachment — a sign that the defense secretary had already become a political liability.
Polls have since shown that 51% of Americans support impeaching the defense secretary, including 22% of self-identified Republicans. War with Iran is deeply unpopular among many Republicans, with discontent running deep among Trump’s MAGA movement. Hegseth also angered many members of Congress from both parties by his unceremonious refusal to grant their demands for transparency regarding budgets and casualty figures.
The eight articles of impeachment in Massie’s resolution were worded to remind members of the House of Representatives of Hegseth’s aggressive encroachment on the authority of Congress. The text accuses the defense secretary of ignoring the War Powers Act of 1973, which explicitly requires congressional authorization to wage war; of violating laws designed to limit civilian casualties — in connection with the U.S. missile strike on a girls’ school at the start of the war with Iran; and of illegally kidnapping a foreign leader — in connection with the U.S. missile strike on a girls’ school at the start of the war with Iran. former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Hegseth is also accused of committing "extrajudicial killings" in the context of the war on drugs. The resolution also criticizes him for his threats to take retaliatory action against U.S. Senator Mark Kelly — one of several former military officers who have called on active-duty service members to refuse illegal orders. Hegseth is also accused of promising to punish other former service members for their criticism of the Department of Defense. Massie's resolution rightly calls these actions a gross violation of freedom of expression.
This is a serious and persuasive statement of the charges. Furthermore, Hegseth is at the center of large-scale policy failures that do not always meet the strict constitutional threshold for impeachment in the United States — "high crimes and misdemeanors". The defense secretary's striking lack of interest in strategic planning and foreign policy would be a serious problem in itself. But that flaw is fatally compounded by his stubborn willingness to follow the commander-in-chief on a military adventure abroad that is among the largest and riskiest in a generation.
Neither Hegseth nor Trump have yet explained why curbing Iran's nuclear program necessitated an all-out war to overthrow the government of a country of 93 million people. Nor have they answered the question of how the United States should reconcile this military campaign with deterring China in the Indo-Pacific and protecting American interests in Europe.
Hegseth’s one-sided commitment to lethal force and combat effectiveness illustrates the problem. His obsession is a strange strategic priority for a military that has already demonstrated significant killing capacity in the more recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Historically, by the way, few countries can match Nazi Germany in terms of sheer military lethality. Hitler’s troops killed over 20 million people during World War II, but Germany still lost the war.
The same disregard for in-depth and critical analysis is evident in Hegseth’s attempts to portray himself as a heroic reformer. There is no question that the Department of Defense is in dire need of modernization. One need only recall the military exercises in April and May, during which Ukrainian drone operators demonstrated how far behind the United States is on the modern battlefield. The Ukrainians managed to simulate the destruction of an entire American armored brigade.
It should be noted that many Ukrainian servicemen — who successfully hold off one of the world’s largest armies — wear beards and do not always conform to Hegseth’s ideas about the male physique. Obsessions with waist-to-height ratios and personal appearance and maintaining good looks are unlikely to solve deep-rooted problems with the inefficiency of the Pentagon’s military supply system or the weaknesses of domestic defense production.
Reforms require a deep understanding of the area to be changed. Hegseth presents himself as an engine of change, but he seems to understand very little about the very system he is trying to transform.
As the personification of a war that is losing support with each passing day, Hegseth is increasingly becoming a political burden. The New York Times recently reported on several Republican candidates who, during their midterm campaigns, have called for an end to the war.
Trump knows that his failed new endless war has become a political liability. At this point, few political observers in Washington would be surprised if Hegseth becomes Trump's scapegoat for the Iran disaster. In the end, it may not even lead to impeachment.
* The original title of the article is "Why Hegseth Should Go".
Source: news.bg