The relationship between the future Secretary of Defense and the Pentagon promises to be, to say the least, explosive. Allegations have come to light against the host of the conservative television network Fox News Pete Hegseth, 44, proposed by Donald Trump to lead the most powerful army in the world that he sexually abused a woman and paid to settle the case . Suspicions of extremism have also swirled around him. He is a veteran against women serving in combat positions, staunchly opposed to inclusion policies in the Armed Forces and who plans to restructure his Department with the finesse of an axe. Hegseth lacks experience in military management, but he exudes the virtues that Trump prefers: a willingness to upend the established order. And, above all, a staunch loyalty to him.
Since Trump announced his appointment, it has come to light that in 2017 Hegseth was investigated for a case of alleged sexual abuse against a woman during a meeting of conservatives in California to which he had been invited as a speaker. The woman, who was 30 years old at the time, worked for the organization of the event. No charges were filed. He assures that the relationship they had was consensual. Washington Postpublished this weekend that the presenter paid a sum of money, the amount of which is unknown, to this person after she signed an agreement in which she agreed not to speak about her complaint.
Everything indicates that the president-elect — who has also selected as attorney general Congressman Matt Gaetz, whom the House Ethics Committee investigated for suspicions of child abuse — maintains his commitment to Hegseth. His communications director, Steven Cheung, responded: “He has strongly denied each and every accusation, and no charges have been filed. We look forward to your confirmation [como secretario de Defensa por parte del Senado]”.
In addition to that accusation, these days it has also been published that in 2021 he was part of the National Guard detachments that participated in the protection of Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20. But two days before he was separated as a possible extremist: he has a tattoo of a Jerusalem cross and the motto Deus vult (“God wants it”, in Latin). Both are ancient emblems of medieval crusaders, with a long history in Christianity, but more recently far-right groups have used them as a symbol of the fight for Western civilization.
In statements on his program, Fox and Friends Weekendin various podcastsof the hard conservative wing or in the book he published this year on the Armed Forces, The War on Warriors(The War Against Warriors), Hegseth has made clear his willingness to dismiss commanders who support minority inclusion policies. Starting with the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General CQ Brown, the highest uniformed authority in the country and an African American.
If one sticks to his statements, Hegseth considers that the biggest cancer of the institution is the application of anti-discrimination policies that have allowed homosexuals to openly integrate into its ranks and that women who wish to do so and meet the requirements can access combat positions. “Women should not be in those positions at all. They give life, they don’t take it away. I know many who are wonderful soldiers, who have completed their service. But they shouldn’t be in my infantry battalion,” writes the presenter. In an interview in the conservative Shawn Ryan PodcastHe insisted that “men and women serving together complicates the situation, and complications in combat mean that you end up with more deaths.”
Currently, women represent 17.5% of active military personnel and have demonstrated excellence in their duties, according to the Pentagon itself; They have reached the highest positions, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff. More than 4,000 are stationed in combat and special operations positions, including eight Green Berets.
Hegseth is preparing for a profound restructuring of the Pentagon that will get rid of a good part of the commanders who have supported these inclusion policies. “The next president should radically restructure the Pentagon hierarchy to better prepare us to defend our country and defeat our enemies. Many people would have to be fired,” he writes.
Concern in the Pentagon
The announcement of the appointment, one of the first that Trump announced for his new Administration last week, caused a huge surprise in the Department of Defense, where a name with a greater resume in the military sector was expected. The Pentagon had already received with concern statements by the Republican presidential candidate during the campaign in which he suggested that he would resort to the army for a campaign of mass deportations, or even against the “enemy within,” his political opponents and those who criticized him in the election. race for the White House.
Hegseth’s greatest experience as a team manager came from running a small non-governmental organization for war veterans. Something very different from the responsibility he will face as leader of a department with a budget of more than 800,000 million dollars (about 756,000 million euros) and almost three million people: 1.3 million active soldiers and 1.4 million of civilian workers, retired military personnel and others assigned to auxiliary corps.
The future Secretary of Defense faces serious problems in his portfolio. His appointment comes with two open wars in which the United States stakes its interests: those in Ukraine and Gaza and Lebanon. In the first, the Trump Administration will have to decide whether to maintain economic and military aid to kyiv against the Russian invasion. In the second, no one doubts that the unwavering support for Israel demonstrated by the current president, Joe Biden, will continue.
But, in addition, Hegseth will lead the Pentagon in the midst of strategic rivalry with China in the Asia-Pacific region, where the United States has woven a delicate web of military alliances. Internally, the institution has serious chronic difficulties: suicides in its ranks have been increasing for more than a decade; Recruitment problems continue, only partially alleviated by greater female incorporation. And the popularity of the military institution has taken a hit since Trump’s first term: from an approval level of 70% in 2017 it went to 45% in 2021 and 48% in 2022, according to an annual survey by the Reagan Institute .
The Pentagon, for now, has tried to put on a poker face for its future boss. “Here people work very hard, whether we are civilians or military, we are focused on our mission and we want to finish it, do everything in our power to achieve an orderly transition and that the new Administration has everything to be successful,” noted the spokesperson for the Department of Defense Sabrina Singh last Thursday.
But Singh also stressed, regarding the possibility of mass layoffs, that “when there is a lack of people, when there are not enough people to fill the positions, that has an impact on morale, on daily work and on results. Of course when there are not enough staff that causes stress on the system.”
Hegseth belongs to that generation of young patriots who were led by the attacks of September 11, 2001, to enlist in the army. A brilliant student – he graduated first from Princeton and completed his studies at Harvard – he joined the National Guard in 2003, where he reached the rank of commander and with which he was assigned to Guantánamo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Originally from Minnesota, he wanted to pursue a political career as a senator from his state, but after losing in the 2012 primaries he joined the Fox network in 2014. There he became an ardent supporter of Trump from the beginning of the first electoral campaign of the then rookie Republican candidate. He is credited with convincing the president, in 2019, to pardon soldiers guilty of war crimes against civilians in Iraq.
