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Last week, the Washington Post reported that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wanted Dwight D. Eisenhower’s WWII-vintage globe moved into his office.
But rather than waiting for the army’s trained curators of priceless historical artifacts to move it, as is the normal policy, Hegseth dispatched his own staffers. In their haste to fulfill their boss’s wishes, they dropped the heavy object and impaled the globe on its own base, tearing a gash in it and possibly caving it in.
My friend Tyler Rogoway, editor-in-chief of The War Zone, posted afterward on X: “I mean I appreciate the historic nature of the item, that’s cool, but shit gets moved and gets damaged. And admin execs using historical objects in their offices is common and pretty cool as a connection to history. Listen, I am not getting into what I think of Hegseth, but I just don’t get the angle here.”
Tyler is right on one level: stuff like this happens. But the globe debacle is emblematic of how Hegseth has always assumed that experts are idiots, believed he’s the smartest guy around, and as a result ignores them and ends up breaking stuff (and failing in the process).
The entire Trump administration’s motto mirrors Mark Zuckerberg’s adage to “move fast, break things,” in this case literally.
Arrogant incompetence, impetuous recklessness
Hegseth’s aggression, recklessness and blatant disregard for expertise is nothing new.
When he served as a 1st Lieutenant in Iraq in 2005-2006, he chafed at Rules of Engagement (ROE) meant to limit civilian casualties and collateral damage, calling them “stupid,” “politically correct,” and “overbearing.” He preferred minimalist ROE that would allow US troops to “intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country.” The problem with this approach is the actual experts on counter-insurgency tactics highlighted it as exactly the wrong way to do things.
This disdain for expertise followed Hegseth to the Pentagon when he became secretary of defense — a position he failed up into despite never advancing beyond the rank of major in the National Guard, never doing a tour in the Pentagon either as an officer or as a civilian, and never working in the defense industry.
Hegseth has systematically denuded the Department of Defense of transgender people, female and Black flag officers, and most of the top people in the Judge Advocate General Corps and Office of the Inspector General. He has burned through many of the most senior and respected officers in the military, including Admiral William Holsey (whom I served with), Gen. Randy George, and Gen. Chris Donahue. Hegseth also fired the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency for angering Trump with an honest assessment that US airstrikes had only set the Iranian nuclear program back by a few months.
The point of these firings was to eliminate anyone who might tell him or the president that something is illegal, unethical, a bad idea, too risky, or even simply tell him the truth. He put yes men in place to say what he wanted to hear, and enable “moving fast and breaking things” without considering any long term ramifications. Hegseth operates at the tactical and operational level instead of the strategic, which is where the SECDEF should be.
For a year, he mostly got away with it. The decision to destroy boats suspected of carrying narcotics has killed over 200 people and hurt the standing of the US without significantly affecting the flow of drugs, but there have been very few immediate repercussions for Hegseth. The raid into Venezuela to capture Maduro was incredibly risky and sent a message that the US will use the military to take the resources of other countries, but the consequent damage was largely reputational.
But it all came crashing down when the lack of consequences inspired a false sense of invulnerability in Trump and Hegseth and they decided to attack Iran.
While I was in charge of Long Range Plans and Policy at 5th Fleet Headquarters in Bahrain in 2005-2006, we all knew that a war with Iran would result in our office getting leveled within hours and the Strait of Hormuz being closed for a very long time. But when Trump decided to go to war, he sided with Hegseth and Netanyahu over his admirals and generals who advised against it. The military knew the consequences of a war with Iran 20 years ago. They knew it in February.
But Trump and Hegseth, flush with overconfidence after Venezuela, were certain they knew better than all the people who ate, lived, breathed, and slept military plans and policy for the past 35 years. Now the US is trapped in a war it cannot win, cannot get out of, and is caught in an escalation trap where the solution always sounds a lot like trying to dig our way out of a hole.
The risks of putting reckless, unqualified people in charge who think they know everything are already well understood. After the first Trump administration I wrote about it in a chapter of my book, “American Fascism.” This topic was also the primary focus of the books “The Death of Expertise” and “The Fifth Risk.” Like the Soviet Union or the lords of feudal Europe, Trump has placed people in leadership positions based on how they look, their personal loyalty to him, and ideological purity. Experience, intelligence, education, and ability do not enter the picture at all.
The United States is getting exactly the leadership citizens knowingly voted for. Hegseth laid out his extremist views in his memoirs. We knew that his own unit didn’t trust him enough to deploy him in DC on January 6. We knew about the allegations of alcoholism and sexual assault when he went before the Senate at his confirmation hearings. Despite all of this, only three Republicans broke with the president and voted against the nomination.
Trump and Hegseth essentially promised all along to move fast and break things while putting aggressive, unqualified sycophants in charge of the military. Yet much of the country is somehow surprised that in doing so they dropped the ball literally and metaphorically, and got the country stuck in an unwinnable war the president promised not to wage in the first place.
That’s it for now
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The write up of Hesgeth's performance is fair but I still reckon the bulk of the blame goes to the person who put him there.
What this administration seems to be missing is the other part of the "Move Fast, Break Things" mantra, which is the idea in software that you move fast in order to learn, and then to steer your product. If things do break, you also fix them quickly. But the learning, and the using what you've learned, is the important part. And it's the part that this administration seems to completely ignore.