Ideas | Pete Hegseth is the Defense Secretary we deserve

First, let me answer you with some facts:

• The Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, said that the West is not ready for the challenges that will come during the next five years and it is time to “move to the attitude of war.” Kori Schake, who directs the study of foreign and security policy at the American Enterprise Institute, writes that although World War III has not yet begun, “a major war is approaching.”

• America’s recent defense strategy has been based on the optimistic assumption that we only have to fight one war at a time. But closer cooperation between China, Russia, Iran and North Korea makes for a more coordinated attack, meaning we may have to fight three or four regional wars at once.

• A weak American industrial base sapped American resilience. China’s shipbuilding industry has over 230 times the capacity of the United States. When experts recently ran a war game with China, the US ran out of anti-ship missiles in three to seven days.

• The Chinese are building giant spaceships of the type they will use to attack Taiwan. They have developed powerful micro-weapons that have the strength of a nuclear explosion and can disrupt or destroy the electronic components of our weapons systems. Former national security adviser HR McMaster recently said, “I think China is laying the groundwork for a nuclear first strike capability against the United States.”

• In 2023, the RAND Corporation released a report on US military “power and influence”. It opened as follows: “American defense strategy and behavior have become uncertain. The work that the country expects to be done by its military and other elements of the country’s power in the international arena is more than the tools that can be used to do these jobs. “

Now, if you’re holding a briefing for the future secretary of defense, you might think you might want to ask him about these pressing issues. Or you might ask another serious question: How will drones change warfare? How will artificial intelligence change the nature of war? How do we transition from a security policy based on counter-terrorism to a policy based on national warfare? If you’re a Democrat trying to derail a nomination, you’d think they’d want to ask big questions about life-or-death issues to expose the nominee’s ignorance and unpreparedness.

But did that happen at Pete Hegseth’s hearing before the Senate Committee this week? If you thought that these kinds of questions would dominate hearing, you must live under the assumption that we live in a mature country.

We don’t do that. We live in a country of comics. We live in social media/cable TV country. In our culture you don’t want to focus on boring political questions; you want to engage in the kind of endless culture war that infuriates voters. You don’t want to focus on academic subjects; you focus on easy-to-understand images and issues that evoke an immediate visceral reaction. You don’t win this game by engaging in serious thinking; you win just by acting – by striking a pose. Your job is not to advance an argument that might help the country; your job is to spread.

Pete Hegseth is of course a living and breathing face of this culture. The world is burning and what is its attraction? Revival in the army. I went to high school to try to work my way through the classroom without doing a single reading, and at Mr. Hegseth I knew I was good at the craft. During the hearing, Mr. Hegseth repeatedly said he would defend the integrity. What kind of meritocracy is preparing to be secretary of defense as a Fox TV host? Perhaps in the one Caligula wanted when he thought of making his horse consul.

Several Republican senators were happy to play along in the wake-up-soldiers game. Additionally, Senator Kevin Cramer used his valuable question time to praise Mr. Hegseth for having the courage to use the word “Jesus Christ.” (If we had used this logic during World War II, Father Fulton Sheen would have commanded the D-Day invasion.) I also learned that discussing climate change at the Republican convention it’s like throwing chicken into an orthodox minyan — they’re seriously offensive.

Mr. Hegseth is in no danger of rising to the level of mediocrity, but next to some of his democratic questioners he looks like Carl von Clausewitz. The Democrats played their own culture war game. Especially at the beginning of the hearing it was the women in the war that attracted them the most. (Like everyone in my social class, I support women in war, but I don’t think it’s as big an issue as the failure to prevent World War III).

Senator Elizabeth Warren submitted more than 30 pages of written questions to Hegseth before the hearing. They were related to things like alcohol abuse, allegations of sexual assault, threats to LGBTQ rights and veterans benefits. I have a lot of respect for Senator Warren, but he has shown little interest in topics like how to prevent and fight wars—which is kind of the focus of this committee’s work.

Senator Tim Kaine tried to play the moral stigma game, thinking of Hegseth’s various infidelities. Because Donald Trump has not been defeated by this strategy, I admire the Democrats’ ability to defeat permanently.

The listening got better as they went and more junior senators spoke. Senator Mazie Hirono was very good, asking a great question: If the president ordered you, would you order the military to shoot him in the leg? Will you follow orders to use the military for mass deportations? Senator Tammy Duckworth also stood by, asking about the important role in the job: Does Mr. Hegseth know anything about international negotiations? Does he know which countries are part of the ASEAN group? (The answer is no and no.)

The lesson for Democrats over the next four years is clear: Don’t fly into moral outrage every day. Focus on Trumpian incompetence.

In general, the Republic was the more serious party in these hearings. The committee’s chairman, Senator Roger Wicker, noted that we live in the most dangerous security environment since World War II. Senator Tim Sheehy spoke about shipbuilding. Senator Ted Budd did ask about fighter jets. Senator Eric Schmitt asked about drones.

But, as you can tell, I ended up watching the episodes sick to my stomach. I also thought I needed to find a better way to think about skills. The conviction of Mr. Hegseth’s people — repeated over and over again — is that the grunts on the floor know what they’re doing and write meaningless rules that keep the pencil sharpeners out of air-conditioned offices. The man spent years at Princeton and Harvard when he could have learned all he knew by watching Colonel Jessup’s speech at the end of “A Few Good Men.”

We don’t want to live in an overpopulated paradise where skill is frowned upon and ignorance is a virtue. We also don’t want to live in an elitist world where technicians are trying to rule the world. As political scientist James C. Scott has pointed out, technocrats are so blind to reality that they don’t even see what’s going on.

Experts need to sit in a place of respect and inform decisions, but civilians make the final call. In a healthy democracy, people respect serious learning about serious issues; they understand that the world is too complex to be grasped with biting slogans; but they also appreciate the wisdom that comes from concrete experience and know that most of the tough calls have to be made in light of the deep-rooted values ​​that made America what it is.

All this was destroyed by war for a short time. In the 19th century there was the Lincoln-Douglas debate. Today is the Lincoln-Douglas TikTok debate followed by “Three Takeaways From the Lincoln-Douglas Debates” followed by a panel of pundits (like me) analyzing whether it helped turnout in DuPage County Stephen Douglas.

Can this type of country win in the clash of world systems? Maybe, maybe not.