Hegseth attacks press, doubles general-officer cut at Quantico

Musk, Gingrich, and Luckey tapped for 120-day warfare review

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered a “State of the Force” speech Wednesday to hundreds of officers and enlisted servicemembers at a Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va., one year after he used the same venue to call for “no more beardos” or “fat generals.” In the opening minutes of the address, Hegseth accused the media of “treason,” denied news reports of munitions shortages and blamed reporters for revealing U.S. base locations to “the enemy.”

Hegseth highlighted plans to cut by 20 percent the number of spots reserved for admirals and generals across the board, doubling the 10 percent reduction to the military’s senior ranks he ordered last year. As of Sept. 30, 2023, there were 809 active-duty generals and admirals, 48 fewer than the maximum of 857, according to the Congressional Research Service. “The media calls that a purge,” Hegseth said. “I call it accountability, and long overdue, and frankly, the bare minimum.”

Hegseth announced that Tesla CEO Elon Musk, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican, and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey, whom he called “three great Americans,” will lead a team that will study the future of warfare. “Project Meridian” will be focused on achieving technological superiority for “developing and fielding weapons and systems” for battlefields in the decades ahead. “Their work will be focused on discovering, developing, and fielding the weapons and systems that our children and our grandchildren will need in their lifetimes, without any creative limitations or restrictions, on any future battlefield, from under the Earth to beyond the Moon,” Hegseth said. The findings are to be completed within 120 days.

Hegseth said the combatant command would speed the development of robotics and autonomous systems. Under another effort called “Fortress America,” every U.S. base will have its own power supply that is independent of the national grid and, thus, not vulnerable to sabotage or cyberattack. He also created an Office of Religious Affairs that will report directly to the defense secretary; it will ensure that there are ample budgets for building and maintaining base chapels and other religious infrastructure and “strengthen religious support.”

The Pentagon will work with five universities to establish a new corps of cadets that is intended to become a pipeline for recruiting young people for the military. The universities are Louisiana State University, Liberty University, Tuskegee University, Mississippi State University and Hillsdale College; no Ivy League schools or universities in the Northeast or on the West Coast were included. Hegseth, a Princeton graduate, has frequently criticized colleges and universities for being anti-American and overly focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion. “The status quo of our officer pipelines is pretty good, but the future will be even better by embedding continuous military discipline and leadership development into new institutions,” Hegseth said.

Those in attendance, hundreds of whom had worked out with the defense secretary outside the Pentagon that morning, received a book called “The War Department Field Manual,” a compilation of Hegseth’s past speeches. In a foreword written by President Trump, the troops were told: “As your commander in chief, I will not ask you to fight dumb wars.”

Hegseth said he had eliminated “silly PowerPoint trainings” and “silly drag queen shows.” He touted getting rid of diversity quotas, gender pronouns and “identity months.” He also reprised a refrain from his speech last year: “No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals. Just warriors.” “The ideological clowns are out,” he added. “The patriotic cowboys are in, with testosterone testing on top,” he said, referring to his recent mandate for male servicemembers over 30 to undergo annual screening for testosterone deficiency.

While last year Hegseth spoke to more than 800 admirals and generals, this year his audience was made up of lower-ranking officers and enlisted personnel who gave him a standing ovation as he walked off the stage.