Pete Hegseth is Right: We Have a Military Standards Problem

Unfortunately he embodies it.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

It’s hard to pick the worst, least qualified, or most dangerous of Donald Trump’s cabinet appointees, but his pick to head the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is certainly up there. Hegseth is the least qualified DoD nominee perhaps ever. He has never led any major organization; when he did head up two right-wing vanity nonprofits, he was such a disastrous leader he was pushed out of both. He’s disrespectful of the same soldiers he claims to stand up for, arguing that women shouldn’t be in combat and arguing that a lot of people who serve are unqualified for their roles because of their race or gender. He doesn’t even have the kind of career-long military experience one might expect from an unconventional but still experienced hire. He argues that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, along with the basic rules of war, have hamstrung the military, turning it into a woke, equity-seeking institution instead of a cadre of warriors.

Here’s the thing: Hegseth is right that the US military has a readiness problem and, frankly, a standards problem. The military has in fact lowered its recruiting standards. But that isn’t to make the institution more diverse or to include more women or to meet some DEI goal. The military has lowered its standards because the American population has gotten less healthy — especially the middle- and working-class groups from which the military largely pulls. It’s lowered its standards because more young people are choosing college or other work over military service — because more young people, and especially middle-class young people, have opportunities outside of the military. And it’s lowered standards because the narrowed pool of people who are willing to serve often can’t meet basic academic requirements, and the military needs bodies — which means that the people they’re recruiting are sometimes particularly ill-suited for the kind of technological and technical work that a modern military requires.

Many of these problems do stem from policy, much but far from all of it Republican-made. The problem, though, of a military that has lowered its standards is not solved by radically lowering the standards for who runs it. Hegseth isn’t a symbol of a military returning to its warrior ethos. He’s the epitome of its lack of qualifications problem. He is, in fact, the very thing he rails against: A person elevated to a position he doesn’t deserve because of his identity, not his accomplishments.