Hegseth Must Be Confirmed

“Cometh the hour, cometh the man” was a favored expression of historians to capture the role that great figures from the past play in epochal events. It remains true today. This expression defines President Trump and his role at this point in American history. So much must be accomplished to address the failures of the Biden regime that his Cabinet selections will be an essential component of the President’s success. Each of the nominations is critical, as each will have their work cut out for them to correct Biden’s failures. Every secretary and official will have enormous tasks to address immediately and for the next four years. One of the most important of these is President Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth.

Hegseth needs to be confirmed as the secretary of defense for four reasons.

First and foremost, he understands that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is an existential threat to the U.S. Therefore, the responsibility of the U.S. military is to be prepared to deter war with Beijing and if deterrence fails, then it must win the war. While many in Washington provide lip service to these foundational points, no secretary of defense has taken the kinds of actions that are necessary if they truly understood the urgency of the situation. Pete Hegseth has. Fighting and winning our nation’s wars is the reason for being of the U.S. military. That was well understood by secretaries of war and, after 1947, of defense but was lost with the Obama administration, which advanced Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity (DEI) policies that have only been accelerated under Biden.

Given his statements about the PRC and the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) weapon systems and warfighting capabilities, Pete Hegseth offers our nation a break from the failed approaches that previous secretaries of defense have taken when it comes to the urgency of getting the Pentagon to prioritize the PLA as the Pentagon’s number one threat and all this entails. This fact alone is exactly what is needed now and makes Hegseth deserving of confirmation. Moreover, he also perceives a second major danger—the corrosive impact of Obama’s and Biden’s policies that have weakened the ability of the U.S. to respond to the great threats the U.S. now confronts, especially as it relates to sea war with the PLA Navy. He seeks a return to the warrior ethos of the Pentagon to repair the damage caused by Obama’s and Biden’s policies, increase lethality, and address recruitment and retention problems in the armed services.

Hegseth is targeting military effectiveness—real combat lethality, not just promises of future capabilities—for the intense security competition the U.S. now faces with the PRC. He is making military effectiveness the center of what the military must accomplish to prepare for high-intensity warfare in a largely maritime theater of war in the Cold War with the PRC. He knows that the defense industrial base must be repaired and expanded to meet the national security threats of the 21st century. But driving innovation and bringing down costs is not the ultimate metric for the Defense Department. Fighting and winning wars is the only metric that matters. Hegseth knows that anything that is not relevant to military effectiveness is not relevant to the Pentagon and the success of its mission. This means things like DEI and transgenderism must be rooted out of the U.S. military and the practice of meritocracy restored to the department.

Second, he is an untraditional choice for Secretary, and that is precisely the point. This is what is needed in the Department of Defense. Hegseth breaks the pattern of the conga line of “go along to get along” secretaries of defense that have put this nation in such dire straits. While those in D.C. will criticize his perspective as being “unique,” in the best case, the reality is his views represent those of the American people and, more importantly, the vast majority of the young officers and enlisted personnel whom he will have to lead and recruit. Furthermore, Pete Hegseth will invigorate the Department, possibly unlike any secretary in the history of the nation. He might be thought of as a “mustang” secretary of defense. A “mustang” is a non-commissioned officer who received a commission. They are valued for many reasons, but particularly their insight into the problems that enlisted, NCOs, and junior officers confront. Hegseth is the equivalent of a “SecDef mustang” who will bring the warrior ethos and key insights into the position, which in turn will augment the ability of the U.S. military to meet today’s threats in a supremely dangerous security environment.

Third, what makes Pete Hegseth an exceptional candidate is his extraordinary background. He is Ivy-educated, has written books, and has worked in the maelstrom of politics and media—if he were described in football terms, objectively, he would be called a double threat. Most importantly, as a junior officer in the U.S. military, he served his country in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. While other secretaries of defense have served in combat, they exclusively continued to serve up to the ranks of general, such as General Jim Mattis. In addition, Pete Hegseth has no prior special interests or biases from having worked for one of the big five prime defense contractors.

What Pete Hegseth’s background brings is a fresh perspective on the imperative of winning war. His focus is bore-sighted on the requirements for winning wars, not on accepting what amounts to a mentality of defeat. Hegseth understands the Department’s systemic problems and how the organization has come to put the process of producing a budget over the most important metric—combat lethality against our most serious foes, first and foremost the PRC.

Fourth, President Trump has nominated him for the position. President Trump won the election with a mandate—the majority of the Electoral College and popular vote. As written into our Constitution, which he has previously taken the oath to serve, the U.S. Senate’s role is to “advise and consent” on nominations. As such, the president-elect is entitled to have his nominees confirmed by the Senate and to have them confirmed expeditiously.

Due to the failings of the Biden administration, the U.S. faces multiple imminent national security threats. There is no time for political theater. Pete Hegseth must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate now.

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James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer are authors of Embracing Communist China: America’s Greatest Strategic Failure. The views expressed are their own.