Pete Hegseth and the Autocratic Strategy of Engineered Incompetence

Three Ways that Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense Could Harm the U.S. Military

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“Trump wants a team of outlaws: likeminded pals who ignore laws, boundaries, ethics, norms, civility, respect, and manners,” writes Jill Lawrence of many nominees for top jobs in the second Donald Trump administration. “People whose unforced missteps, mistakes, and worse are now a badge of honor; a mark of achievement; a prerequisite for the job.”

Of all the nominees for Cabinet positions, Pete Hegseth, the likely next Secretary of Defense, best communicates the dangers of choosing unqualified and inexperienced people for positions of great power. Hegseth is a decorated Army National Guard veteran who served overseas in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as at Guantanamo Bay. He has no experience helming any large organization, though, let alone the biggest organization in the world. He resigned from the veterans’ organizations he did lead after accusations of financial mismanagement and inappropriate behavior, which Hegseth denies.

Add in allegations of excessive drinking and sexual assault (he reached a settlement with the accuser but maintained his innocence and wasn’t charged), and he is the last person one might think would be put forth for the Secretary of Defense role –that is, if you are seeing things in a democratic frame.

When we think like an autocrat, however, Hegseth’s nomination makes more sense. Authoritarian states abound with examples of engineered incompetence, when leaders appoint individuals to Cabinet positions who lack the skill-set and high-level connections needed to succeed. This makes those individuals more dependent on the leader and creates more space for the leader’s powerful cronies to influence the institution to their own benefit (one could imagine that Elon Musk, who is an interested party due to his many defense contracts, might prefer Hegseth as Secretary of Defense over a tough and seasoned professional).

Appointing someone whose main credential is the ability to smile and repeat propaganda lines convincingly (Hegseth is a former Fox News weekend host) also accelerates the autocratic process of “hollowing out” institutions by replacing expert and nonpartisan employees with zealots loyal to the leader. Project 2025 tellingly makes no exception for the Department of Defense in its purge and hollow-out plans for the U.S. government.

For every dictator who finds an expert collaborator and sticks with him, as Adolf Hitler did with Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, there are others who penalize ministers for being too competent. In 1933, Fascist Air Force Minister Italo Balbo’s pioneering transatlantic flight to America landed him on the cover of TIME; Chicago gave him a parade and named a street after him. This was threatening to dictator Benito Mussolini, who in 1934 demoted Balbo to Governor of Libya, transferred him to Tripoli, and took over his job.

The expanded role Trump foresees for the U.S. military means the risks of negative outcomes due to subpar leadership are redoubled. Not only has the president-elect raised the prospect of claiming Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal for America, but he has also indicated that he would potentially use the military to assist with mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and to further his personal revenge crusades (subjecting former Rep. Liz Cheney to a military tribunal).

Here are three ways Hegseth could harm the power, professionalism, and combat readiness of the U.S. military if he becomes Defense Secretary. First, our armed forces face a recruiting crisis. Hegseth’s belief that women should not be allowed in combat situations will exacerbate this situation. In 2024, women accounted for a surge of enlistments –an 18% jump among women, versus only 8% for men. Hegseth’s misogyny will hardly encourage women to enlist, and women combat veterans have denounced his attitude as reactionary.

An image from the Instagram account of the likely next Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.

Second, the U.S. military is a non-partisan institution. Those who serve make a commitment to serve the country and uphold the bedrock military values of duty, honor, and integrity above any political party or leader. Hegseth was removed from a National Guard security deployment to Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration because of concerns that he was a political extremist. His tattoo of a symbol traditionally associated with far-right extremism and Christian nationalism suggests that those concerns are not unfounded.

Third, in military affairs, false information costs lives. As a Fox News host, Hegseth proved his loyalty to Trump by repeating the falsehood that has become Republican party dogma: that Trump, not Biden, won the 2020 election. He also repeatedly spread the lie that the Jan. 6 coup attempt was the work of anti-Fascists disguised as Trump supporters.

How can someone who traffics in conspiracy theories and falsehoods have oversight of military intelligence and lead an organization that depends on reliable information? Spreading false information among enemy countries has been a staple of espionage and malign influence campaigns around the world. Here we have someone who has circulated unreliable and false information to the American people.

Every nominee for a Cabinet position communicates the values and intentions of an incoming administration. If Hegseth becomes Secretary of Defense, it will be another reminder that “Make America Great Again” is actually a crusade on an unprecedented scale to make America less safe and degrade the efficiency of the institutions designed to defend us, to the benefit of the autocrats Trump so admires.