• Donald Trump has chosen Pete Hegseth as his defense secretary at a crucial moment in the war in Ukraine.
• The military veteran and Fox News commentator has largely aligned himself with Trump on Ukraine.
• Last week he said in a podcast that he did not want US intervention to force Putin’s hand.

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday announced Pete Hegseth, a military veteran and Fox News host, as his pick for defense secretary — a move that surprised many.

The choice of Hegseth raised questions about the American approach to the war in Ukraine under a second Trump administration.

In an episode of the “Shawn Ryan Show” podcast last week, recorded before Trump’s announcement, Hegseth considered a scenario in which Putin wins in Ukraine.

He said he would reject the argument that Ukraine would be just the beginning of a deeper invasion of Europe, and doubted Putin would go “much further” than Poland’s border.

Poland is a member of the NATO alliance, whose members are obliged to respond to attacks on each other.

Hegseth’s comment contrasts with American orthodoxy, which views NATO territory as inviolable: Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recently pledged to defend “every inch” of NATO land.

Hegseth also said he did not want any hypothetical American intervention to push Putin to the point where he would consider nuclear weapons.

“I don’t want the American intervention to go deep into Europe and make him feel so on his heels that he has to – because he talked about nuclear weapons early on,” he said.

Hegseth added that the US had “burned two decades of money” in Afghanistan and Iraq, and was “tempted to do it again” in Ukraine.

Hegseth on Ukraine

Hegseth has long reflected some of Trump’s key positions on foreign policy and Ukraine.

In 2022, Hegseth defended comments Trump made just before Putin’s massive invasion of Ukraine. Trump had called Putin’s recognition of the independence of the Ukrainian breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk “genius” and “great.”

Trump’s comments shocked onlookers at the time. But Hegseth argued on ‘Jesse Watters Primetime’ that Trump was only trying to ‘troll’ the US media who had turned Putin into a stooge.

Two days later, Putin invaded Ukraine.

Speaking on Fox News in March 2022, Hegseth also criticized both Putin as a “war criminal” and President Joe Biden’s administration for not equipping Ukraine quickly enough.

In particular, he said Putin sees every ceasefire as “an opportunity to reload.”

“What is at stake is the removal of an authoritarian who is basically saying, ‘I want the Soviet Union back, I want Ukraine back, I want Kiev back,’” he said.

Critical of NATO

Hegseth has also been critical of the US’s NATO allies. He said in the same Fox interview that the US should act if Putin’s aggression spread to Eastern Europe, but that as the most vulnerable countries it should take the lead.

However, Hegseth’s rhetoric on NATO has steadily sharpened in recent years, calling US allies “outdated, outgunned, invaded and powerless” in his book The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,'” according to Reuters.

Trump has long complained that NATO countries are not meeting their target of 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) spent on their militaries, going so far as to encourage other countries to invade countries that not getting that.

A smaller role?

Still, military analysts who spoke to BI said they do not expect Hegseth to play a major decision-making role in policy toward Ukraine, or in any decision to cut aid.

During his time in office, Hegseth would join a group of senior Trump officials with influence over the direction of the war, although Trump would have the final say. His National Security Advisor, Michael Waltz, and Vice President, J.D. Vance would also likely be key votes, as would Trump’s pick for Secretary of State, which several media outlets reported would likely be Senator Marco Rubio.

Vance has previously criticized U.S. support for Ukraine, saying, “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.”

Alexander Libman, a professor of Russian and Eastern European politics at the Free University of Berlin, said that “Trump selects members of his administration primarily based on their personal loyalty.”

This means their own opinions “may not matter that much – it will depend on what Trump wants them to do,” he added.

Libman said he expects Trump to make significant efforts to stop the war early, and that his Cabinet members will be in line.

Anton Barbashin, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Riddle Russia, an online magazine covering Russian affairs, told BI that he does not expect Defense Minister Hegseth to scale back aid to Ukraine as a peace deal between Putin and Trump is unlikely in the near term.

Instead, he said the U.S. could actually increase aid to Ukraine if peace talks fail.

“So far the signals are quite opportunistic – Trump nominates hawkish people, so Kiev can count on more support,” he said.