Last week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth called America’s Generals to Quantico to meet for an unknown reason. America’s top civilian military leader calling the generals home all at once is strange and unprecedented. It’s the kind of move that often presages something like a major war. But that’s not what he wanted. During a bizarre, unhinged speech before America’s military leadership, Hegseth focused almost entirely on the culture wars and called for the restoration of what he called a “warrior ethos.” He said some of America’s generals are fat, demanded the Pentagon go all in on AI, whined about beards and accountability, told the troops they “kill people and break things for a living,” and plugged his book.
“The speech today is about the nature of ourselves,” Hegseth said. For the next hour, before setting up President Trump for remarks, Hegseth spoke about a new American military that will shave its beards, reduce the number of women in combat, and focus on killing. “To our enemies: FAFO. If necessary, our troops can translate that for you. Peace through strength, brought to you by the warrior ethos.”(FAFO means fuck around and find out.)
An earlier theme of the speech was more and faster. “This urgent moment, of course, requires more troops, more munitions, more drones, more [Patriot missiles], more submarines, more B-21 bombers,” Hegseth said. “It requires more innovation, more AI in everything and ahead of the curve, more cyber effects, more counter [unmanned aerial systems], more space, more speed. America is the strongest, but we need to get stronger and quickly.”
The alarming speech took most of the attention of social media Tuesday morning and comes at a time where Donald Trump has deployed troops in American cities, has threatened to invade Portland, and told the military they should use American cities as a “training ground.” Hegseth himself has been said to be more or less having a meltdown, according to reporting by The Daily Mail.
The Pentagon has been all in on AI and drones for years now, but it hasn’t gone well. Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Pentagon is struggling to deploy AI weapons and is worried about catching up to China. A Biden era initiative called Replicator was meant to help bridge the gap between dreams and reality, but hasn’t worked fast enough for its critics. So the Pentagon is turning the project over to Special Operations Command—the part of the Pentagon in charge of its operators—under a new division called Defense Autonomous Warfare Group (DAWG). This means that the military leaders who run SEAL Team Six will soon be in charge of getting AI controlled drone swarms to the troops.
Much of Hegseth’s speech was about aesthetics and fitness. For him, a return to the “warrior ethos” meant never seeing a fat general or admiral ever again. “Every member of the joint force at any rank is required to take a PT test twice a year as well as meet height and weight requirements twice a year, every year of service,” he said. “Also today, at my direction, every warrior across our joint force is required to do PT every duty day. Should be common sense…but we’re codifying it. And we’re not talking hot yoga and stretching. Real hard PT, either as a unit or an individual. At every level, from the Joint Chiefs to everyone in this room to the lowest private.”
“It all starts with physical fitness and appearance,” Hegseth said. “If the Secretary of War can do regular, hard PT, so can every member of our joint force. Frankly, it's tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops. Likewise, it's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country in the world, it's a bad look. It is bad and it's not who we are.”
Hegseth’s aesthetic concerns extended to facial hair. “This also means grooming standards. No more beards. Long hair. Superficial individual expression. We’re going to cut our hair, shave our beards, and adhere to standards. It’s like the broken windows theory of policing. When you let the small stuff go, the big stuff eventually goes. So you have to address the small stuff,” he said.
There was, of course, a carve out for America’s operators. “ If you want a beard you can join Special Forces. If not, then shave. We don’t have a military full of Nordic Pagans. At my direction, the era of unprofessional appearance is over. No more beardos. The era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done.”
Beards may seem like small stuff in the grand scheme of things, but it’s a hot topic among military recruits. Over the past few years, military recruits have fought and won exemptions for grooming standards based on their religion, often in court. A federal court told the Marine Corps it couldn't force Sikh recruits to shave in 2022. There’s also medical issues. Men with pseudofolliculitis barbae, a condition that causes painful ingrown hairs and razor burn after shaving, have gotten long gotten waivers to exempt them from shaving in the military. Around 60 percent of black men have pseudofolliculitis barbae.
Hegseth made it clear that these new conditions mean there will be fewer women on the frontlines and in physically demanding roles. “I don’t want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape or in combat units with females who can’t meet the same combat arm physical standards as men,” he said. “When it comes to any job that requires physical power to perform in combat, those physical standards must be high and gender neutral. If women can make it excellent,” he said. “If not, it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs. So be it, that is not the intent, but it could be the result.”
The Secretary also said he would end the tyranny of accountability in the military. “We are overhauling an Inspector General process, the IG that has been weaponized, putting complainers, ideologues and poor performers in the driver's seat,” he said. “We're doing the same with the Equal Opportunity and Military Equal Opportunity policies. The EO and MEO at our department. No more frivolous complaints, no more anonymous complaints, no more repeat complaints. No more smearing reputations. No more endless waiting. No more legal limbo. No more side-tracking careers, no more walking on eggshells.”
Pentagon acting Inspector General Steven Stebbins is currently investigating Hegseth over his use of an unsecured Signal clone to plan military operations.
A modern military is a technological and logistics machine. A warrior takes many shapes and, if Hegseth wants to go all in on cyber, drones, and AI, then harsh grooming standards and increased physical fitness requirements will cut off many of the brightest minds who could help him fulfill that goal.
That doesn’t seem to matter to Hegseth and Trump as much as aesthetics does. Towards the end of his speech, the Secretary said the Pentagon lost its way. Then he plugged his 2024 book The War on Warriors. “We became the woke department, but not anymore. No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction, or gender delusions. No more debris. As I’ve said before and will say again: we are done with that shit,” he said.
“You might say we’re ending the war on warriors. I hear someone wrote a book about that.”
