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    • Trump picks Fox News host Pete Hegseth to lead the Pentagon
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    Trump picks Fox News host Pete Hegseth to lead the Pentagon

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    Forcing abrupt changes to the Pentagon, its 2.3 million troops and civilian workers, and a $900 billion annual budget have eluded former defense secretaries with more experience. Will it work this time?

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    WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of Army veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Defense secretary breaks the long tradition of Pentagon chiefs with long careers in government, industry and the military.

    That appears to be Trump’s goal: a Washington outsider who will shake up what he sees as a hidden institution that didn’t always do what he wanted during his first administration, according to military experts and current and former defense officials. Hegseth has laid out markers on his agenda for running the Pentagon: firing generals who promote “woke” military policies, eliminating combat roles for women, and loosening the reins on troops’ behavior in combat.

    But forcing abrupt changes on the Pentagon, its 2.3 million troops and civilian workers, and a $900 billion annual budget has eluded former defense secretaries with more experience.

    “The job of the secretary of defense is much more difficult than people realize,” said Peter Feaver, a Duke University professor and expert on civil-military relations. “There are management challenges with a budget that dwarfs the GDP of many countries and a payroll that dwarfs all but the world’s largest companies.”

    The defense secretary is also accountable to a “board” of 435 members of Congress and the president, Feaver said. The head of the Pentagon must stay abreast of developments in military technology and deal with inevitable foreign crises.

    “There are challenges in strategy and policy, with adversaries doing their best to thwart your efforts,” Feaver said.

    Trump said Hegseth is the right man for the job.

    “Pete spent his life fighting for the troops and for the country,” Trump said in a statement. “Pete is tough, smart, and truly believes in America First. With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice: Our military will be great again, and America will never back down.”

    More: Statistics show that military sexual violence is declining for the first time in almost a decade

    War against the ‘awakened’ army

    Hegseth said in a podcast interview last week that the Trump administration should fire anyone in the Pentagon involved in “woke” and “DEI” policies, diversity, equity and inclusion.

    “You need to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs,” he said. “Any general that was involved, general, admiral, whatever, that was involved with any of the DEI woke sh** needs to go.”

    Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke about racism in the military and society following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020. Brown, then Air Force chief of staff, was appointed to that position by Trump. President Joe Biden has nominated Brown, who is Black, as the military’s top officer.

    The issues Hegseth raised, while receiving significant attention, do not take up much of the military’s time, resources or effort, according to a senior military official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official pointed to policies on transgender troops and reproductive health care funding. Trump had issued a military ban on transgender troops; Biden revoked it shortly after taking office. Trump’s ban, after legal challenges, had imposed a ban on service troops needing gender-affirming care. The Palm Center, a think tank focused on issues involving LGBT troops, estimates there are about 14,000 transgender troops on active duty and a reserve force of 2 million.

    Another target for conservatives is the Pentagon’s policy that allows time off and travel for reproductive health care, including abortion. It applies to troops and their dependents in states where this is not available. The Pentagon only pays for abortion if the mother’s life is in danger or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.

    Dig deeper: Culture Wars: Republicans in the House of Representatives attack the Defense Department for ‘woke’ social policies

    Women in battle

    Hegseth has also said that women should be eliminated from combat roles in the military.

    “It hasn’t made us more effective, it hasn’t made us more lethal and it hasn’t made fighting more complicated,” he said.

    Lory Manning, a retired Navy captain who served for more than 25 years, disagrees.

    “He’s completely wrong,” she said.

    According to Manning, women in service positions must meet the same requirements as men. Replacing the roughly 17.5% of women on active duty from 2022 could require extreme measures, she said.

    “I don’t know where he would get enough men to replace them all,” she said. “You’ll have to bring back the design, I expect.”

    More: Statistics show that military sexual violence is declining for the first time in almost a decade

    Apologize for war crimes

    Hegseth is credited with consulting directly with Trump to push for the pardon of several service members convicted of committing war crimes and killing innocent civilians abroad.

    After Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL, was convicted by military prosecutors of posing with the body of a teenager who fought for the Islamic State in Iraq, Hegseth lobbied hard from his desk at Fox News for Gallagher’s pardon. Gallagher was also charged and found not guilty of fatally stabbing the teenager and murdering two other Iraqi civilians.

    Hegseth also urged Trump to pardon Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance, sentenced to 19 years in prison for ordering soldiers to open fire on unarmed Afghan civilians, killing two, and Major Mathew Golsteyn, accused of murdering a man suspected of making bombs in Afghanistan ordered after his release.

    After Trump had several direct conversations with Hegseth, he pardoned all three in 2019, according to the Washington Post. He reversed Gallagher’s demotion and reinstated his salary and rank.

    When Trump pardoned four Blackwater contractors convicted of massacring 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians in 2007, Hegseth said on Fox News: “God bless the president for having the courage, which many other presidents wouldn’t, to kill those men to grant pardon.”

    Aid to Ukraine

    Amid questions from the Biden administration about whether Trump will follow through on his statements about cutting aid to Ukraine, it is unclear whether Hegseth would be in line with Trump’s Ukraine policy.

    Dan Rice, president of the American University of Kyiv and a former U.S. military officer and adviser to the Ukrainian military, who said he is a friend of Hegseth and has appeared with him many times on Fox, said Hegseth’s comments about the airwaves “are a reflection of Fox News, not the Trump administration.”

    “We will have to wait to see his views,” he said.

    Shake up the army

    Implementing Pentagon reform has been difficult even for experienced hands. At 44, Hegseth is one year older than the youngest ever Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld, however, had already served in Congress, headed the Office of Economic Opportunity and been White House chief of staff when he first became Pentagon chief in 1975. Both were graduates of Princeton University, while Hegseth earned a master’s degree from Harvard. Rumsfeld led the Defense Department for the second time under President George W. Bush from 2001. Rumsfeld promised to make the ministry leaner and more agile. Then the September 11 terrorist attacks struck and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq pushed the reform agenda aside.

    “Hegseth comes from an elite university background and has served honorably in a combat environment,” said Feaver of Duke University. “But otherwise he does not have the kind of experience you would expect for this most difficult cabinet post. His most impactful defense policy involvement was convincing President Trump to intervene in the Gallagher case and ultimately pardon personnel guilty of war crimes. “

    Feaver noted that these types of positions are “the kind of positions an outside partisan activist might take.” But the defense secretary is supposed to be the custodian of civilian control and, along with the chairman and chiefs, help set the tone for military professionalism. That role is very different from the role Hegseth has played so far.”

    But ultimately, trust may be the key ingredient for Hegseth to achieve Trump’s goals. “Trump trusts him, trust is the foundation of any relationship, and I think trust is a very big issue and a necessity for Trump right now,” Rice said.

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