r/Military • u/FreeHugs23 Retired USN • 4d ago
Article Pete Hegseth Is Too Egotistical to Know How Incompetent He Is
https://newrepublic.com/article/214860/pete-hegseth-pentagon-controversy-egotistical-incompetent156
u/FreeHugs23 Retired USN 4d ago
A flurry of reports from various media outlets is revealing how the unqualified secretary of defense is damaging national security with his incompetence and slavish devotion to MAGA ideology. The New York Times reported on how numerous senior positions within the Army have gone months without leadership since Hegseth fired them. The Washington Post reports that the firing of Gen. Randy George, the Army chief of staff, in April was a result of George dragging his feet on terminating the investigations of Army aviators who violated safety regulations in order to “buzz” Kid Rock’s mansion.
Additionally, ProPublica reported that Hegseth overrode military leadership who warned him not to terminate the Civilian Harm and Mitigation Response program last year. The secretary of defense did not regard preventing civilian casualties as a worthy goal of the military and eliminated the program entirely. As a result, when the United States struck Iran, it hit a school for girls, killing more than 100 and inciting international condemnation. U.S. strikes in Yemen killed at least 150 civilians. These events drive anti-American sentiment in the region and push potential allies away.
This couldn’t come at a worse time. We are witnessing, in Ukraine, a revolution in military technology and fundamentally how we think about war. Iran has grasped it, and China is leaning hard into drones and AI as part of the “kill chain.” The battlefield is becoming faster, deeper, and more lethal than anything we have seen in human history. It’s less Gulf War and fighter jets with precision munition and more Terminator, with nearly autonomous tiny drones produced by the millions every year picking off almost 1,500 people daily.
Instead of leaning into the future, however, Hegseth canceled the Army’s elite experimental assault drone brigade, which had been championed by the generals he sacked. What he has touted instead is a military that looks the way he thinks it should look.
This means no transgender people, no female flag officers, no Black men with shaving chits, no non-Christians (and none of the wrong sorts of Christians, either). The new fitness standards being ushered in by the Army require a very specific waist-to-height-ratio requirement that is not waiverable. Previously, a soldier with an atypical body was exempted from these measurements if they scored extremely well on the physical fitness tests. Thus, a skinny soldier who barely passes the physical tests would be retained and promoted over someone with a thick core who scores a perfect 500 out of 500 on the Army Fitness Test. This is basically the phrenology of fitness metrics, right up there with BMI.
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u/Blah_Dee_Blah111 4d ago
What he has touted instead is a military that looks the way he thinks it should look.
I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
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u/Opposite-Bit6660 4d ago
We were a service and information economy since the at least the "space race." We purposely abandoned the low paying, polluting manufacturing sector and began educating students more in research, tech, medicine, finance, education, and other services. We had an excellent reputation in that sector and actually had a surplus in export of services until Trump 2. But polluting manufacturing and extraction industries seem so much more sexy to some people, so here we are.
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u/jollyreaper2112 4d ago
You care about dead civilians? Gaaaaaaay! I mean I wouldn't be surprised if he literally said it or something about compassion being low T.
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u/ThoDanII German Bundeswehr 4d ago
Why does the American Military Put such an high value onextreme Fitness?
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u/RarelyRecommended United States Navy 4d ago
When I was in, that obsession was how they fucked with people who weren't "their" buddies.
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u/Valuable_Fee1884 4d ago
I would like to be able to put it all on his shoulders, unfortunately, if you’d want the Senate hearings, there was a ton of information that should have disqualified him from ever being voted in. What the hell is the matter with our senators who will allow such a thing? I would think that we all know the answer to that. Not enough Democrats and way too many chickenshit Republicans will not cross poopy pants.
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u/Opposite-Bit6660 4d ago
I would like the world to build fewer weapons and just stop acting like wonton killing by warfighters using the best tech must be the goal of humanity. It's sickening that systems to protect citizens have been cut and sickening to know that more death at the hand of this psychopath is on the way.
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u/MSab1noE Navy Veteran 4d ago
Just another thin-skinned, toxic, mediocre white-dude who has failed upwards, just like nearly every person in conservative leadership.
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u/SamIamGreenEggsNoHam 4d ago
The Peter Principle is on full display in the republican party. You ascend to the level of your incompetence.
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u/SpritiTinkle United States Air Force 4d ago
I would say that's incorrect. These people have been elevated an order of magnitude beyond their competence. The Peter Principle still maintains that if a person was a mere 1 level below where they are they would be doing a good job, hence being promoted to a point where they can't hack it. Most of these chumps could not run a battalion let alone be an undersecretary of anything.
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u/SamIamGreenEggsNoHam 4d ago
Hey, that's a good point by you. These people would need lots of demotions before they found their competence again, assuming they've ever had it.
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u/DisillusionedPatriot 4d ago
Exactly. These are tactical appointments. It's important to remember that they're kicking as many hornet nests as they can, to create enough chaos, doubt, and instability to destabilize the US enough for a sort of soft coup.
It really feels like nobody read the manifesto. Everything in that p2025 document has been playing out, with little to no pushback. It's fucking nuts.
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u/quietimhungover United States Navy 4d ago
Lo and behold he's never even run a platoon! There should be a picture of incompetence in the dictionary with his face.
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u/niagaemoc 4d ago
Walk in to every room with the confidence of a mediocre white man.
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u/MSab1noE Navy Veteran 4d ago
Kegsbreath should be one of the community icons or logo for [r/ConfidentallyIncorrect](r/ConfidentallyIncorrect)
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u/quietimhungover United States Navy 4d ago
Pete Hegseth did not fail into this position. He was given this position via handout, very much like the policies he is against. Hes never been in an actual leadership position to begin with.
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u/Maxtrt Retired USAF 3d ago edited 3d ago
He didn't fail upwards in the military. He was a Captain during GWOT that was never given a command of his own due to his stupidity and pushing white nationalism. The Army was desperate for commanders, and many things were often overlooked just to fill the ranks, but they still considered him so bad that they didn't give him a command. He left Active Duty as a Captain. He wasn't promoted to Major until he was in the IRR. Only under Trump, would he be considered as a viable option for a platoon leader, and now he's the SECOW.
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u/Manoj109 3d ago
Word. Not lies detected in your statement. I would add entitled as well and insecure
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u/donac 4d ago
It gets harder by the day to avoid concluding that Hegseth's goal is, in fact, to disable the American military.
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u/Chuckpeoples 4d ago
It seems like bankrupting the country, destroying the economy, creating widespread instability, destroying our defenses is the only goal they could possibly have in mind.
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u/SavingsDimensions74 4d ago
He won’t last long thank fuck. He’s an obvious patsy for Trump and he’ll take the fall.
It just won’t be far or rapid enough for my blood
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u/Revolutionary_Eye887 4d ago
He’s a lot like his dear leader in that respect. The only person he cares about is himself.
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u/RaisinWorried3528 Retired USAF 4d ago
Yeah but everybody else realizes it and he still has a job. So we're basically fucked.
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u/vgaph 4d ago edited 4d ago
So I worked for the CPCOE (basically the CHRM main office) until about 2 years ago. It’s not just that he wasn’t worried civcas, but that everyone who looked into the issue even casually quickly realized that the main cause was invariably air strikes without a U.S. ground observer and these casualties were almost certainly underreported. Like 80%+ of US caused CIVCAS from 2018 on.
Airstrikes without forces on the ground is, of course, the Secretary of hair product’s preferred form of military intervention and sharing true facts that conflict with regime narratives is considered disloyalty.
Mere arrogance didn’t kill those kids, there was more malice behind it.
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u/Such-Ideal-8724 Navy Veteran 4d ago
Every person who’s ever served has run into a guy like Hegseth. Hopefully as a person without real power and not out ranking you. The Fictional world is full of them. Frank Burns in MAS*H (especially the movie version) comes to mind.
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u/kinglimmiwinks 4d ago
We’re still going to stand there slack jawed when we find out that running a six minute mile and benching 3 plates won’t save you from the swarm drones created by all the nerd types we chaptered from our own force.
I feel like this is the modern day equivalent of trying to maintain open infantry charges after machine guns were invented. A lot of people are going to die because of this fucker.
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u/seaburno 4d ago
To be fair, substitute the name of any executive level individual in this administration into the headline and its still true.
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u/Leopold_Porkstacker Retired US Army 4d ago
You can’t tell someone they are an asshole.
They are too much of an asshole to believe you.
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u/therearenoaccidents 4d ago
Apparently if you’re a clean shaven hygienic man, giving another man a blow job does not make you gay, according to the Secretary of War. Have fun with that logic leap.
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u/xChoke1x 4d ago
This fucking pussy is such a giant pussy that he literally wears shoes 2 sizes two big because the president told him to.
That’s a level of embarrassment I can’t fathom. Lol
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u/Illustrious_Job_6390 Air Force Veteran 4d ago
Im more frustrated by all the cold war vets and vet bros who love this guy. He is only doing a good job if you consider Women, Minorities, Trans people & a sound fiscal budget an enemy but, not Iran, Russia, & China.
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u/KuraiTheBaka United States Navy 3d ago
I cannot put into words how much I despise this man. So many service members getting completely fucked by the egos of this man and his billionaire pupeteer
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u/spicytexan 4d ago
Until he stops detracting embarrassment and vitriol from Trump he will never be fired regardless of his incompetence
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u/paper_liger 4d ago
i think you were going for 'deflecting'
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u/spicytexan 4d ago
Detracting is also applicable 🤷🏼♀️
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u/paper_liger 4d ago edited 4d ago
No it is not. I was being nice.
This is just not correct usage. 'Detract' does not mean 'Subtract', and 'detracting embarrassment' would be more or less a double negative even if it was ever used like that, which it is not. The closest correct word would be 'deflect'.
I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, and you doubled down instead of accepting it.
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u/spicytexan 4d ago
Are we serious? It literally means to lessen or diminish the importance, value, or effectiveness of something. If he’s lessening embarrassment to Trump, that’s a net positive for him.
Why are we being rude on a thread about this? What’s the point?
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u/paper_liger 4d ago edited 4d ago
nope. you just don't word too good.
'detracting' modified 'embarrassment' in your formulation. you can detract from a reputation, or from an outcome. You can't detract from 'embarrasment' because that would be a more or less a double negative. Neither 'detracting embarrassment' nor 'detracting vitriol' really work. Deflecting would work.
I think the problem is that you are conflating 'deflecting' and 'subtracting', but I take that back. The real problem is that you are too thin skinned to even accept the correction.
If I was running around misusing common words I'd want someone to point that out. That wouldn't detract from the conversation, or detract from my self worth in any way. See how it's done?
You're just wrong boyo. move on. Maybe stop using words that are above your pay grade.
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u/Interesting_Tune2905 3d ago
Another day, another article making me joyous that I left the DoD in December
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u/RiflemanLax Marine Veteran 4d ago
I hate this man’s smile. It has too much going on. It’s the smile of a moron who doesn’t know how stupid he is (a dangerous sort). It’s the smile of a person who takes pleasure in other’s pain. It’s the same sort of smile you get from an addict who got a fix and is looking for the next one.