(None of which has prevented him from changing both the website from\u00a0defense.gov\u00a0<\/em>to\u00a0war.gov,\u00a0<\/em>or the banner atop the website to read Department of War, of course.\u00a0 The Trump regime is always happy to skirt, or outright break, the law when it comes to pursuing its whims.)<\/p>\n The department’s mission is (still, officially):<\/p>\n To provide the military forces needed to deter war and protect the security of our country.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Which sounds pretty cool.\u00a0 Deterring war is good. Providing security is good.<\/p>\n Hegseth (along with, one presumes, his boss) doesn’t think that’s good enough.\u00a0 His rhetoric is nothing about protection, and even “security” tends to get short shrift. His person mission statements are full of words like “kill” and “violence” and “lethality”.<\/p>\n On the one hand, sure, being willing and able to kill, through violent and lethal means, is always a part of what the military does and should be able to do.\u00a0 But it’s the essence of the language here that feels important. It’s trying to be\u00a0bad-ass.<\/em> It’s trying to be\u00a0macho.<\/em> It’s trying to be, not the calm, assured, even friendly guy at the bar that you can tell you don’t want to mess with, or even the quiet one who exudes a sense of danger, but the loud, blustery, loud, yelling, bullying one who challenges anyone who looks at him cross-eyed and loves to shove folks around.<\/p>\n Sort of like Trump’s governing style, and just as buffoon-like.<\/p>\n Anyway, back to Hegseth’s\u00a0How to Alienate Friends and Intimidate People<\/em> seminar.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let’s start from the top.<\/p>\n \u201cWe became \u2018the woke department\u2019,\u201d Hegseth said in an address that seemed to designed to be as incendiary as possible. \u201cNot any more. We\u2019re done with that shit.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n For some folk, such as Trump, “woke” feels like a generic insult, a bit of political speech to target opponents with. Sure, it comes backed with more than a whiff of remembering the good ol’ days when it was okay to discriminate against women, Blacks, the disabled, people from other countries or religions, etc. without getting into trouble. But a lot of it feels like just trying to find a convenient label to hang onto the other side, like “tax and spend liberal” or “jacobite” were in the past.<\/p>\n Not Hegseth. He clearly projects a visceral loathing for what he terms to be “woke.” For him, that seems to mean any policy or philosophy that detracts from turning every member of the armed forces into a Robocop-like killing machine. He not only sees no value in diversity, he thinks it is a menace because it disrupts regimentation and makes his toy soldiers all look\u00a0different.<\/em> He can’t imagine a woman or a Black man or a Sikh being as good a violent, lethal, killer as he wants them to be, because his focus (as we will see) is as much on how they\u00a0look<\/em> as how they\u00a0act.<\/em><\/p>\n Toy soldiers should all look and act the same.<\/p>\n Nor is diversity in thought to be encouraged; indeed, it’s to be stamped out. There is room for only the chain of command, with Pete up at the top (well, under Donald), and everyone below in lock-step obedience to orders.\u00a0 Concerns, dissent, differing opinions, counter-suggestions: all are a sign of weakness.\u00a0 Only obedience is of value.<\/p>\n \u201cFor too long, we\u2019ve promoted too many uniform leaders for the wrong reasons \u2013 based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts,\u201d said Hegseth, who fired Gen CQ Brown, an African American, as chair of the joint chiefs of staff in February, and has dispensed with the services of several high-ranking female personnel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The shibboleth of quotas-mean-hiring-inferior-people is firmly fixed in Hegseth’s head. Having been in corporate America my entire career, and for a long patch as a hiring manager, I can confidently assert that diversity goals and encouragement in the hiring process was not about “Hire some women, no matter whether they are qualified,” but more “Why are all your applicants \/ hirees white guys — are you looking in an array of places, and are you discriminating in your processes?”<\/p>\n Hegseth says he wants promotions among “uniform leaders” to ignore race, gender, or any other factor than the factors\u00a0he<\/em> thinks are important. The thought that there might be value in having someone who doesn’t fit the traditional mold (white guys!) never enters his mind. Nor does he value any inspirational value such promotions might provide to others.<\/p>\n Nope. Anyone who doesn’t fit into the nice ranks of identical toy soldiers is clearly a “quota hire.”<\/p>\n Hegseth boasted of \u201cremov[ing] the social justice, politically correct and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department\u201d.<\/p>\n He added: \u201cNo more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship, no more division, distraction or gender delusions, no more debris.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Not surprisingly, “climate change” is dismissed as garbage. So much for deterrence of war or protection of national security in the face of the economic and population disruptions already occurring due to climate change. I have no idea whether Hegseth actually knows anything\u00a0about<\/em> climate change, only that it’s part of “politically correct and toxic ideological garbage” that has “infected” the DoD.<\/p>\n Purity — that’s what’s important. No “garbage.” No “toxicity” (hold that thought). No “delusions.” No “debris.” Everything clean and tidy and orderly and fitting some mythic Pattonesque vision of conformity and unity, with the sole focus on killing the other guy better and faster and more thoroughly.<\/p>\n Also not surprisingly, Hegeseth considers gender issues a “delusion” (to be dismissed with the oh-so-un-macho<\/em> disdain for “dudes in dresses”).\u00a0 Nor is any “identity” of value to him other than identity as “lean, mean, killing machines.”<\/p>\n \u201cFat troops are tiring to look at,\u201d Hegseth said, as he ordered commanders to crack down on a lack of physical fitness. \u201cIt\u2019s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There’s this ongoing weird note of personal disgust for things that take away from what Hegseth considers the real mission of the DoD.\u00a0 “Fat” troops are “tiring.” Not “sub-optimal” or “concerning” or “not the best that we can be,” but an insulting “tiring.”<\/p>\n Hegseth is apparently a big believer in sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, though:<\/p>\n Commanders were not excepted from Hegseth\u2019s purge on the overweight. He lamented having to see \u201cfat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon, and leading commands around the country and the world\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n On the one hand, this seems fair, right?\u00a0 If we don’t want “fat” troops, then leading by example is important. Never mind that other “leading by example” considerations are disdained by Hegseth as quote hires and the like.\u00a0 The war on fat soldiers is mission-critical.<\/p>\n But once you get beyond seeing “fat” generals as (one presumes) “tiring,” so what?\u00a0 Unless you expect those generals to be out there digging trenches and charging the enemy and needing to do 250 pull-ups for some mission, what’s the value here?\u00a0 Performative slimming?<\/p>\n And what about the Commander-in-Chief? Is it “tiring” seeing his weight issues?\u00a0 Since I don’t expect Trump to lead the charge up San Juan Hill, I don’t see that as an issue.\u00a0 But I don’t expect that of anyone of general or admiral rank, or even much below.<\/p>\n I don’t have a problem per se<\/em> with a lean, fit military (even if a lot of military jobs have little to do with actual combat). But forcing a lean, fit military because someone finds it “tiring” to see overweight soldiers seems a bit weird.\u00a0 It feels more like pushing for how folk\u00a0look<\/em> than how they are called to\u00a0act.<\/em><\/p>\n It also raises concerns about what standards are necessary<\/em>, and what standards are used as weapons.<\/p>\n \u201cWould you want [your child] serving with fat or unfit or undertrained troops? Or alongside people who can\u2019t make basic standards? Or in a unit where standards were lowered so certain types of troops could make it in? In a unit where leaders were promoted for reasons other than merit, performance and war-fighting? The answer\u2019s not just no, it\u2019s hell no.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ah. We pivot from “fat” being a problem to “basic standards” being lowered and promotions being given for folk who are unworthy — worthiness being defined by meeting those basic standards.<\/p>\n Which means those standards can be weaponized. Don’t like women in combat — or in the military at all?\u00a0 Keep raising physical standards\u00a0—\u00a0regardless of what they need to be<\/em> — so that you can exclude most women (to the degree that women’s average upper body strength, what is usually being tested, tends to be lower than men’s average upper body strength).\u00a0 Then when you have a much smaller number of women in the military, you can complain about how it’s operationally disruptive to meet all their different needs, and so you have no choice but to exclude them from combat roles, or (since everyone is now no longer allowed to be “fat,” which means that everyone is expected to be able to be in combat), maybe all roles whatsoever.<\/p>\n The first question is not whether a given person can meet a particular standard.\u00a0 The first question is, what does the standard actually need to be?<\/p>\n The same is true for that statement about promotions being given out for “reasons other than merit, performance and war-fighting.”\u00a0 What are the standards for\u00a0meriting\u00a0<\/em>a promotion?\u00a0 What\u00a0performance<\/em> standards and areas are you talking about? What constitutes promotion standards for\u00a0war-fighting?<\/em> And are you crafting those standards towards the mission? Or to other, exclusionary ends, to create a military that looks like some ideal you’re carrying around in your head?<\/p>\n \u201cNo more beards, long hair, superficial individual expression,\u201d the clean-shaven war secretary declared. \u201cWe\u2019re going to cut our hair, shave our beards and adhere to standards.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have a military full of Nordic pagans, but unfortunately, we have had leaders who either refuse to call BS and enforce standards or leaders who felt like they were not allowed to enforce standards.<\/p>\n \u201cThe era of unprofessional appearance is over,\u201d he declared. \u201cNo more beardos.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n To hear Hegseth talk, you’d think that grooming standards have been non-existent, that there’s been some outbreak of soldiery with long beards, pony-tails, and dirty fingernails. Certainly it sounds like our national security is being threatened by (to use Hegseth’s disdainful terms) “superficial individual expression” and “unprofessional appearance” and “beardos.”<\/p>\n This is where we get into that tin-pot general marching around toy soldiers concept again. Because Hegseth has made it clear that not adhering to even more strict grooming standards is somehow damaging to our “war-fighting” ability.<\/p>\n How?<\/p>\n I mean, I haven’t heard anyone saying, “well, if you have a beard, then the beard hairs can get caught in your M250 machine gun and jam it.” Or “If your hair extends over your ears then you can’t properly wear headphones while piloting your chopper” or anything like that.<\/p>\n Nope. It just looks “unprofessional,” all for the sake of “superficial individual expression.” Because individual expression is a menace, even if we dismiss it as “superficial.” It somehow violates the “warrior ethos” (whatever that is), harms discipline, and reduces the ability to effectively war-fight.<\/p>\n Somehow.<\/p>\n The military is always leaning on uniformity (heck, they wear\u00a0uniforms),<\/em> but it’s also something that rightfully gets poked fun at when taken to extremes. While having soldiers out in the field wearing jeans and personal t-shirts has some clear problems, having a bit longer hair, or a beard, or some other “superficial individual expression” does nothing to affect the ability to point a gun and shoot it. Nor does it arguably make soldiers less likely to obey orders or have each others’ backs, or love their country.<\/p>\n But it does make the troops look somehow sloppy, and, if your focus is on the optics<\/em> of being ultra-lethal, ultra-violent, ultra-war-fightable, then utter uniformity is a great way to impress people while on parade.\u00a0 The Soviets knew that. The Germans knew that. Every army that puts on a big parade for their leaders knows that.<\/p>\n If your focus is on the optics.<\/p>\n It’s also useful if you have an ideal as to what a soldier should look like. The problem being, that’s a great way to incorporate personal, idiosyncratic standards.\u00a0 Soldiers should be\u00a0this<\/em> tall. Their hair should be this<\/em> long. Their cheeks should be this<\/em> smooth. \u00a0And maybe their skin should be\u00a0this<\/em> color. And their external plumbing should be\u00a0this\u00a0<\/em>configuration.<\/p>\n I mean, hair length standards are arbitrary, based on personal taste or prejudice.\u00a0 Why not other prejudices?<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/0df47ed22b62a57049f20a1ef6ccba95abcac2ac\/0_0_6937_5551\/master\/6937.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&precrop=40:21,offset-x50,offset-y0&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=6f1622b78b63d9b38a359365b9090160\")
<\/div><\/div>\n
![\"Calvin](\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/calvin-hobbes-sex-discrimination.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\n