Pete Hegseth’s Pathetic Warrior Cult Has Undermined the Military

[Tony]

And yet Hegseth's latest announcements suggest that he has learned remarkably little from his experiences. At a recent address at Quantico, he declared that the "warrior ethos has been revived" and "American deterrence is back," even as he announced plans to eliminate 20 percent of general and admiral positions. He also briefly championed a plan to livestream the firing-squad execution of Nidal Hasan, turning military violence into a public spectacle supposedly meant to demonstrate U.S. resolve, before a public backlash—strong enough to push Trump away from the planned display of public cruelty—put the kibosh on those plans.

Still, the dissonance is jarring: The defense secretary is so thoroughly preoccupied with projecting toughness and glorifying lethality, all while presiding over a war that has exposed the limits of U.S. power potentially even more than its debacles in Vietnam and Iraq.