Welcome back to The Pentagon Rundown! The big news this week was that President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Fox News host Pete Hegseth, who served as an infantry officer in the Army National Guard from 2002 to 2021, as the next defense secretary.
Hegseth’s recent appearance on the Shawn Ryan Show provides an idea of what his priorities would be if confirmed by the Senate, including firing general and flag officers involved in what he calls “woke s—t,” and the military’s diversity and inclusion efforts. He also voiced his strong opposition to women serving in combat roles.
Trump’s team includes a growing number of Global War on Terrorism veterans, including Army Reserve Lt. Col. Tulsi Gabbard, whom he nominated as Director of National Intelligence. Gabbard often warned that U.S. policy under President Joe Biden’s administration was risking World War III. She has also repeated Russian disinformation that the U.S. government allegedly helped Ukraine develop biological weapons.
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And that’s just the start. Here’s your weekly rundown:
- The Purge: Election Year. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump transition team is considering a draft executive order that would establish a “warrior board,” in which retired military leaders would decide whether to fire serving three- and four-star generals. “It could be very hard to do our job if we have to constantly be making sure we’re appeasing someone on a political or partisan level,” a three-star Army general, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Military.com.
- The Middle East heats up (again) and the Pentagon stays quiet about it (again). The U.S. launched airstrikes on Monday against Iranian proxies, revealing afterward that American troops at a base in Syria had been attacked twice the day before. On Wednesday, the U.S. military launched another airstrike after another rocket attack against Patrol Base Shaddadi, Syria. No U.S. troops have been injured so far. Meanwhile, Houthi rebels fired eight drones and another eight missiles at two destroyers.
- Wolverines! Trump has picked Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), a retired National Guard colonel and Green Beret, as his national security adviser. In a 2022 story about what the movie “Red Dawn” teaches us about insurgencies, Waltz told Task & Purpose that as a child he planned to form his own band of freedom fighters when the Soviets invaded. “We already knew with all my buddies where we were going to start our Wolverine resistance movement,” Waltz said at the time. “I think it probably planted a seed for my future Army career.”
- Keep watching the skies! Witnesses testified before members of the House Oversight Committee that the U.S. government has a secret program to retrieve and reverse-engineer crashed Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, or UAPs, previously known as Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs. But the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office announced in March that it had found no evidence that the U.S. government or private companies have tried to reverse-engineer extraterrestrial technology. When your humble Pentagon correspondent recently asked Air Force Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, about UFOs and aliens, Ryder replied: “The truth is out there, Jeff, and the truth is we have no evidence to indicate extraterrestrial life has visited the planet.”
- Future aid to Ukraine in doubt. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has promised Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) that no more assistance will be sent to Ukraine, Nathaniel Reed of Scripps News and Melanie Zanona of Punchbowl News posted on X on Wednesday. Greene and Johnson did not respond to queries from Task & Purpose. As of Nov. 1, the Biden administration had provided Ukraine with more than $61 billion in military assistance.
- Leakers plugged. Federal prosecutors have charged U.S. government employee Asif Rahman with leaking sensitive intelligence prior to Israel’s retaliatory strike against Iran. Separately, Airman 1st Class Jack Teixeira — whose bedroom décor is decidedly cringe — was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Tuesday for leaking classified information on private Discord servers to impress an online gaming community.
And on a personal note: I tried to brighten the mood a little bit by singing “Patience” by Guns N’ Roses as part of a microphone check ahead of Tuesday’s Pentagon briefing. Unfortunately, I froze, forgot the words, and sounded like a strangled cat. My apologies to my colleagues and band frontman Axl Rose.