Is Hegseth’s future at the Pentagon uncertain?

What a Friday night on Sky News, some weeks ago. The cameras rolled nonstop for one hour and twenty minutes as Donald Trump entertained twenty of the biggest oil barons in the world.

The only oil man missing was the man from South Fork, J. R. Ewing, though Homeland Security still thinks he was shot at a Texan barbecue all those years ago.

This article is the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the UK Defence Journal. If you would like to submit your own article on this topic or any other, please see our submission guidelines

Also, and strangely, missing from the top table was the Secretary for War, Pete Hegseth, whose department delivered the goods in Venezuela for Uncle Sam. President Trump heaped praise on the US military operation that shook Caracas a week earlier, without anyone getting killed, yet he never mentioned Pete, nor did anyone else in the room. It took Ireland’s President Connolly to remind the world that real people died in the Venezuela military operation. Those confirmed dead included Venezuelan and Cuban security guards tasked with protecting President Nicolás Maduro. “Super Bigote” (Mustache) himself was last seen doing the humiliating “perp walk” from a US military helicopter.

But what happened to Pete?

Only a few months ago, the heavyweights of Trump’s administration sat, like the three wise monkeys, on the sofa in the Oval Office. First, in order of precedence, was the official heir apparent, the Consiglieri, VP J. D. Vance. Then there was the Secretary of State, Marco Polo, who travels a lot but lacks the necessary machismo to be a serious contender for the MAGA throne. Finally, the aforementioned Secretary for War, Pete Hegseth, sat stiffly at attention, ready to respond to his master’s voice.

For some time, I have developed an unhealthy fascination with the dramatis personae of the current US regime. Whoever said that all roads lead to Rome was wrong, dead wrong. All roads lead to Washington DC. We are eavesdropping in the court of Donald the First, surrounded by sycophantic illuminati of the neo right while they plan the division of Venezuela’s oil.

In that pre Christmas episode of The Apprentice, the game was to predict which of his three musketeers would be fired first. The spotlight was very much on Pete Hegseth, who had gone a bit hog wild again, this time in the Caribbean.

So, will it be three strikes and you’re out for the Secretary for War?

Last July he revealed a classified top secret operation before it happened on an insecure Signal app. The operation was a preplanned US Air Force strike against Houthi rebels in Yemen. Unfortunately, the US National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, had included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic, as an addressee in the app. Waltz took the rap and was fired. There was no great operational need for Hegseth to give the tip off to the Signal group in the first place. Why did he do it? Did he want to ingratiate himself with these officials? Was he trying to show he was all powerful? Was he on an ego trip?

It certainly seemed so on 30 September, when he addressed the military leadership of the US Armed Forces in Quantico, Virginia.

Watching Secretary Hegseth giving the fingers to the top brass in Quantico and prancing around the stage, I remembered the Southern expression “going hog wild”. This memory came from my time with the US Army in Fort Benning, Georgia. Happy days.

He had a lot to say, but he was not open to anything the military leadership might have wanted to say to him. It was one way communication, a rant where dissent might warrant instant defenestration.

Hegseth’s main military experience was as a junior officer, and he was talking down to an audience who had, to put it bluntly, been there, done that, and got the tee shirt long before Pete was knee high to a grasshopper. His performance in front of the military leadership was arrogant, bombastic and humiliating. His homily, at times, openly incited serving members of the US military to be insubordinate to their superior officers.

If the officers attending in Quantico were to act on his words, the position of women in the US Armed Forces would be drastically marginalised, as would that of gay people and soldiers with disabilities who are effectively contributing to national defence in non combat roles. He deplored the fat generals and admirals he saw every day in the Pentagon, clearly showing that, for him, image was more important than substance.

The whole performance was meant to be intimidating, to instil fear into brave career men and women. The message was clear: conform with Hegseth’s weltanschauung, or leave the forces.

US and international law experts are still questioning the legality of militarily engaging suspected drug boats operating in both the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific Ocean. The number of attacks since September were mostly in the Caribbean, with 117 fatalities reported by 5 February. There were no media reports of US ships and aircraft coming under fire in these incidents, nothing at least that would justify a shoot to kill policy, given the massive firepower available to the Americans.

The US Navy and the Coast Guard had the capability to intercept these boats, verify their cargo and arrest their crews. The threat these presumed drug runners might pose to US warships did not, of itself, automatically authorise Uncle Sam, or rather Uncle Pete, to conduct these turkey shoots. The rules of engagement for war scenarios do not apply in this case.

In contrast, the waters off the coast of Gaza were, and are, part of a war zone, where the bar for justifying the firing of live ammunition in self defence is lower than during peacetime anti drug operations. In the case of the estimated 60 boat flotillas that attempted to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza last September, the Israeli Navy successfully intercepted the boats and detained the protesters without a single loss of life.

In a democracy, the military must always be subordinate to the civil authority. The issue of the political military relationship can be crucial, even in times of peace. It is a two way arrangement and mutual respect is essential. First, the military must respect and follow the direction of the civil authority. At the same time, the civil authority should respect the military. Civil authority means political authority, not civil service authority. It is a symbiotic relationship where the elected representative must, in a democracy, always have precedence.

As Trump has distanced himself from Elon Musk, Pete Hegseth is the latest groupie in the Musk camp, being entertained at Musk’s space centre.

However, in trying to pass the blame for the 2 September killing of shipwrecked survivors in the Caribbean onto the operational commander, Admiral Bradley, Secretary Hegseth may have lit the fuse that will ultimately remove him from the Pentagon.