One of life’s simple joys is playing with the boys.
What policy has Hegseth announced that you believe will improve the effectiveness of the US military?
Which of those policies were so critical that it required an in-person meeting? (at huge cost and risk - one serious cold could seriously affect the combat readiness of the whole force)
Please provide a concrete example and explain how you think this will aid the military accomplish their missions and why it was necessary to spend a couple of M$ to tell them.
Untill you do some of us will keep believing the administration tried to engineer a foto-op for them to look “tough”. And that the drunk wants to play soldier and thinks you can drive a drone better if you do a lot of pushups.
These people are practically the Platonic Ideal of the Dunning–Kruger effect. Clueless about everything, but absolutely sure they are omnidisciplinary geniuses. It’s a given that both Trump and Hegseth are certain that with their godlike intellects they know how to run the military better than any mere General or Admiral would.
What if the transgender folks want to kill everyone? No?
All of that shaving rhetoric was also based on racism. Historically, a significant number of blacks were given medical waivers for facial hair due to pseudofolliculitis barbae, which predominantly affects the black population. Removing those waivers would cause many black members of the military to either leave or risk scarring, disfigurement, and possible mental health issues.
Guess who is tightening up the rules around those waivers? Ya boy, Petey!
He REALLY, REALLY doesn’t like women in high ranking positions.
In short order, the seven people below were let go recently:
- Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - CQ Brown - Black
- Chief of Naval Operations - Admiral Lisa Franchetti - Woman
- Commandant of the Coast Guard - Admiral Linda Fagan - Woman
- Vice Chief of the Air Force - General James Slife - White dude who brought up concerns with racism in the Air Force ranks
- Head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency - Lt. General Jeffrey Kruse - It was his group which accurately stated that the bombing of Iran’s nuclear site only put them back a matter of months.
- Chief of the Navy Reserve - Vice Admiral Nancy Lacore - Woman (and awesome badass)
- Head of Naval Special Warfare Command - Rear Admiral Milton Sands - Other then Petey being jealous of how tough Milton is, it also came the day after the less-than-successful Iranian nuclear bombing, so I wouldn’t be shocked if it was related.
Seven people, three woman, one openly anti-racist white guy, one white guy who pissed off the CheetoPedo with an operations report, one black guy, and finally another white guy. That is NOT a representative cross-section of military leadership.
Both the hedgehog and his boss are hickeys on the hemorrhoids on the anus of democracy.
Don’t forget book sales!
I expect that both Hegseth and Trump wanted to flex over being able to force a bunch of top military officials to sit there and listen to them blather.
Seriusly? Of course they should be interested. If service members are disadvantaged or discriminated against on the basis of irrelevant criteria like race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, gender identity, etc, that obviously impairs the efficiency and effectiveness of the military. Quite apart from the negative effects on service members of the disadvantaged race, sex, etc, if the military is a place where racism, sexism and so forth are fostered, then men and women of character are less likely to find it an environment in which they wish to serve, even if they are not themselves directly disadvantaged by these prejudices.
Would you expect a top-class military if people were promoted or demoted, encouraged or discouraged on the basis of, say, eye colour? No, you wouldn’t. As a society the US doesn’t actually have much of a problem with discrimination on the basis of eye colour, but it absolutely does have long-standing and deep-seated problems with discrimination on the basis of sex, race, etc. Therefore the miltary should be proactive in ensuring that it isn’t affected by these prejudices.
The reason the likes of Hegseth can’t see this is because he considers prejudice against womenb, gays, etc basically unobjectionable.
The word “lethality” is an open joke among service members, because it can be defined however you want, and applied however you want, to justify anything you want. Hegseth is just abusing people he doesn’t like and calling it lethality.
Probably 80% of the military performs non-lethal functions like administration, logistics, support, etc. which enable the lethal functions to be performed.
Abusing service members who are gay, trans, or minorities doesn’t improve lethality at all. In fact it reduces lethality of the force by robbing it of trained people who know how to do those mission-critical nonlethal jobs.
In general, idiots don’t make good points, so if you find yourself saying that an idiot has a point, you should probably reconsider.
During the Bush Jr administration there was a military purge of gay service members, which (for reasons) resulted in a significant number of Arabic interpreters being expelled. Which then created a significant logistical problem for troops in Iraq, who didn’t have enough interpreters and had to hire locals. Which then created other problems.
And all because of pointless homophobia. U-S-A!
Good point. You might also add things like search and rescue (thinking Coast Guard here), necessary engineering after a natural disaster (thinking Army Corp of Engineers here, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina), ferrying VIPs around (Air Force One and Marine One), and back in the day, recovering American space capsules that splashed down (the Navy, of course).
Nothing in the above requires “lethality.” What they all require, are trained and skilled personnel who can do their jobs well. Better than well, really. They are are things that the military is well-equipped to do, and that any civilian or private agency is not equipped to do.
There is a lot more to the military than being able to shoot a gun and blow stuff up.
Heck, in order to become a Navy SEAL, a very lethal job, you have to be pretty educated. And the vast majority of people who served in WW2 were not on the front line too.
Saying the U.S. military should be “most dominant” by privileging killing above all else misunderstands what makes force truly effective. Sun Tzu teaches that the best victory is to win without fighting — success comes from strategy, deception, economy of force, and denying the enemy the will or means to fight, not from maximal slaughter. Overreliance on sheer lethality wastes resources, provokes desperate resistance, and prolongs conflict; a force that is adaptable, disciplined, and clever can achieve political objectives while preserving its own strength. In short: lethality is a tool, not the goal — the real aim is decisive, sustainable victory with minimum cost, which Sun Tzu argues is far more advantageous than brute force.
I think what you’re missing is that facially neutral rules can be discriminatory in effect, and exclude some people from even serving in the military. They have the opposite effect of what you’re saying the goal should be, a military that accepts all American citizens who want to serve their country, regardless of their race, sex, etc.
The two examples others have cited are the single set of physical standards and the no-beards rule. Both of those are facially neutral, but discriminatory in effect.
The single physical standards rule is now the standards for men. Now, women have to meet the male standard. That will make it disproportionately more difficult for women to be accepted in the military, and will have a discriminatory effect.
The no-beards rule will have a disproportionate impact on at least two different groups. One is black men, as mentioned by other posted, because being clean-shaven can have detrimental health effects for some black men.
The other is Sikhs, who have a religious requirement not to shave. The no-beards rule will have the adverse effect of requiring Americans who are Sikhs from choosing between serving their country and complying with their religious beliefs.
Both of these rules have an adverse impact on some groups, but not on white Christian males. That’s what makes them discriminatory: on the face the rules are neutral for all, but in practice they favour white Christian males. That’s the exact opposite of what you say the goal should be for the military.
If the admissions forms said:
“Women, black men and Sikh men are not eligible to serve in the military” that would be discriminatory, right?
Instead, the new rules have that effect, although facially neutral.
I’ll also add that a force that thinks only in terms of lethality is likely to kill lots of people you don’t want them to kill. Including possibly yourself; trigger-happy people are dangerous.
Much of the point of military discipline is producing soldiers you can give weapon to and trust them to not shoot up the things you don’t want shot up. Hegseth is just one of those fake tough guys who thinks the only valid military tactic is “kill everything”. Which in reality as you point out, is typically a bad tactic.
Or in short:
This whole thread reminds me of Nigel Tufnel’s “What’s wrong with being sexy?” (Spinal Tap)
Aside from using the wrong word, Nigel’s concept of sexiness was rooted in adolescent misogyny. So too is Hegseth’s concept of lethality and military readiness. An effective military doesn’t require being clean shaven, buff, mean, or cruel. Effective militaries are also not ruined by diversity, women, or rules of engagement.
[I haven’t read the thread]
I find it helpful to cite Adm. Percy Fitzwallace on this one.
Any professional military will have a significant academic component. Historically, western militaries have all developed military academies throughout the 19th century, as part of a move to professionalize the west’s militaries’ officer corps. Prior to this, militaries’ officer corps were simply extensions of the various aristocracies with no particular expertise in anything.
The academic background of a professional officer corps is as important as a competent logistics organization, a military health-care system as well as all the other required support mechanisms.
Also, if you simply take everybody from the variety of backgrounds of a given country, and put them in uniform, you will have no standard of behaviour, cultural knowledge or attitudes (affective domain). Consequently, some units and sub-units could just run rampant with racism, sexism, or homophobia or any other bigotry, while other units and sub-units could have completely different standards. Not all people magically or inherently have the same belief systems; these have to be instilled.
Hegseth’s (and Trump’s) posturing on this is a common rhetorical trick.
They are using the word “lethal” to mean whatever they want it to mean (in this case overwhelming white and male, and entirely cis). And then attacking anyone questioning their motives by hiding behind the “why would anyone want the military to not be lethal?” trick.
They don’t like Lloyd Austin, among others, so they call them out for being fat (even though many famously effective generals have been overweight). They don’t like women serving so they define lethality as the ability to do a lot of pushups, even if the women are serving in roles that don’t require upper-body strength. They love the idea of hazing to “toughen up the troops” so they define that as essential for lethality, even if the evidence shows it is disruptive to morale and effectiveness.
It’s a nice trick, but being aware of it can help you to not fall for it next time. You may see it in other areas when you hear folks say things like: “Who wouldn’t want safer cities?” or “Who wouldn’t want fairness in college applications?”. Both relying on you accepting their definition of “safer” and “fairness” along with their approaches for achieving them.
I couldn’t help but think of the Russian military where conscripts can expect to be mercilessly hazed, many of them sexually assaulted, which is indicative of some serious institutional problems. A lot of Russia’s military problems in Ukraine stem from their poor training, lack of discipline, and low morale.
Apparently Trump was displeased with his military birthday celebration, specifically with the physical appearance of many of the soldiers. Hegseth was speaking to an audience of one. Like all Trump’s other sycophants, he’s just saying whatever he thinks will make Dear Leader happy. Does Hegseth believe what he says? I don’t know.