Hegseth and His Anti-Woke Military: An Assessment

On September 30, 2025, a swaggering Secretary of Defense (“War”), Pete Hegseth, delivered his “warrior ethos” lecture to the 800 top generals and admirals of the American military, whom he had assembled for a command performance.

One year later, an assessment is called for.

“The military has been forced by foolish and reckless politicians to focus on the wrong things... we became the ‘woke’ department,” he said. We must “remove the social justice, politically correct and toxic ideological garbage,” he fulminated, adding that “serving with fat or unfit or under-trained troops” is a violation, in effect, of the Golden Rule. (You wouldn’t want to share a foxhole with a fat person, so don’t be fat yourself). Henceforth, the “highest standards” must be met. He told his audience that it is “completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals.”

Was our first president and commander-in-chief too “woke” for Secretary Hegseth?

Secretary Hegseth would see to it that “grooming standards” would be strictly enforced. “No more beardos!” He wants a “lethal department of war.” Furthermore, “words like bullying and hazing and toxic have been weaponized and bastardized... basic training is being restored to what it should be: scary, tough, and disciplined.”

“We’re empowering drill sergeants to instill healthy fear in new recruits, ensuring that future war fighters are forged... and yes, they can put their hands on recruits.”

In what way has Hegseth’s tough training regimen been helpful in the country’s pursuit of its war with Iran? Probably in no way. A drone operator obviously requires different skills from a WWI or WWII infantryman.

Finally, in his oration, Hegseth announced, “We don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement.” That particular point raises serious questions, discussed later. (The questionable legality of the Iran War itself cannot be discussed in this limited space.)

In his blustering speech, Secretary Hegseth either ignored or was unaware of important critiques published shortly after WWII. During that war, a team of social psychologists conducted for the Research Branch, Information and Education Division of the War Department, an extensive study, consisting of numerous opinion surveys, on the attitudes of American fighting men. It was an attempt to discover the motivations that made men fight. This four-volume study, edited by Samuel A. Stouffer and published in 1949, is known as The American Soldier: Combat and its Aftermath.

The study debunked the myth that discipline will crumble in combat in the absence of terror in training. It further debunked the myth that glorification of trivia (grooming and “spit and polish”) increases combat proficiency. It also shattered the illusion—prevailing in the officer corps at the time—that Black soldiers would prefer to serve under white officers rather than under Black officers.

In 1946, another in-depth military study, known as the Doolittle Board, issued even more striking assessments of officer-enlisted relations in the armed forces. Among other proposals, it recommended that the social distinctions between enlisted soldiers and officers be greatly eased.

Secretary Hegseth’s machismo, his atavistic and simplistic notions of warrior ethos, clearly drive his policy preferences. If he were aware of the Stouffer study or the Doolittle Board, he would likely deem their recommendations as too “woke.”

And yet, they were in step with the American military’s original philosophy of maintaining morale, good order, and discipline. For hundreds of years, army manuals have exhorted officers to recognize the intimate relationship between discipline and morale. Even Baron von Steuben, the Prussian military theorist whose codes were adopted wholesale by the American revolutionary army, realized the importance of morale in armies that reflected the caste systems of 18th-century Europe. These, for example, are some of von Steuben’s “Instructions for the Captain”:

His first object should be, to gain the love of his men, by treating them with every possible kindness and humanity, inquiring into their complaints, and when well founded, seeing them redressed.

The baron’s “Instructions for the Sergeants and Corporals” convey the same message:

In teaching the recruits, they must exercise all their patience, by no means abusing them, but treating them with mildness...

George Washington relied on Baron von Steuben’s manuals. Was our first president and commander-in-chief too “woke” for Secretary Hegseth?

There is an aspect of Hegseth’s bombastic oration which is even more problematical, his proclamation that henceforth, “we... don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement.” This dangerous notion has impelled Hegseth to launch policies which, in the opinions of many lawyers, military and civilian, have led to American officials and military personnel committing murder, war crimes, and crimes against humanity—both in the war against Iran and in the campaign to execute without trial suspected drug traffickers in small boats in the Caribbean.

Although military subordinates must obey all lawful orders or be subject to court-martial for violation of Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), they must disobey unlawful orders. What makes an order illegal? When an order is “so manifestly beyond the scope of the superior officer’s authority and the order is so obviously and palpably unlawful as to admit of no reasonable doubt of its unlawfulness,” there is actually a duty to disobey it. (U.S. v. Kinder, 14 CMR 742, 1953). “I was just following orders” in such a case is no defense. Examples of obviously illegal orders are those to target civilians; or abuse trainees; or torture or kill detainees; or otherwise to violate federal law or the Constitution. The prosecutions of Americans for their cruel actions at Mai Lai in the Vietnam War and Abu Ghraib in the Iraq War are situations where the defense of “just following orders” was not successful. In those situations, crucial rules of engagement were not followed. The bottom line: The law requires American soldiers to be reasoning agents, not unquestioning robots. Scaring trainees into unquestioning obedience does not prepare them for modern warfare.

Violations of international law, as embodied in the Geneva Conventions, can also subject a civilian or soldier to criminal prosecution. At least since 1949, the Geneva Conventions have prohibited “cruel treatment and torture” and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.”

Since his speech, Secretary Hegseth has announced that under his regime, American troops should “give no quarter,” meaning show no mercy, even to surrendering or disarmed combatants. This policy was applied to the drug-trafficking suspects in the Caribbean who, under Hegseth’s orders, were killed by American military personnel. The excuse given by him and President Donald Trump, is that the drug-runners are combatants in a “war,” which is nonsense. Trump and Hegseth claim they were given legal cover by an official opinion issued by the Office of Legal Counsel. That classified opinion—which purports to justify the killing of drug traffickers without legal proceedings—is strongly disputed by human rights organizations and many others. Unfortunately, it remains classified to this day. In my opinion, like the memo written by John Yoo purporting to render lawful the waterboarding of terrorism suspects during the Iraq War, it will someday be discredited. And the perpetrators of the Caribbean killings might find themselves indicted.

The hard-nosed approach by the Trump administration and Secretary Hegseth toward the training and deployment of American armed forces is not only unwise and counterproductive. It is a disgrace to the reputation of the United States.