Does Pete Hegseth Have What It Takes to be Secretary of Defense?
Running the American military is a demanding job even for the best, most accomplished leaders.
THE SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE is scheduled to hold a hearing for Pete Hegseth, President-elect Trump’s choice for secretary of defense, on January 14. There are few positions as important as the one Hegseth seeks. Criticisms of the former Army major and Fox News weekend host have mostly focused on the serious accusations of sexual assault against him, reports of alcohol abuse, and his alleged mismanagement of two charity groups. These are serious issues, but there is a more fundamental question that the president-elect, his advisors, and every senator should ask about Hegseth: Does he have the skills and experience to succeed in the job?
The secretary of defense must possess extensive leadership and management skills to oversee a massive bureaucratic institution with almost 3 million active duty, reserve, and civilian personnel conducting operations around the globe—but that’s just the beginning of the office’s responsibilities.
Having had the privilege of observing and working with four secretaries of defense—one directly while I was assigned to the Pentagon, three while in field operational assignments—I have seen many (though perhaps not all) of the roles successful secretaries must play and the skills they must have.
1. Master the details and the big picture.
The primary statutory requirement of the secretary is, obviously, to serve as the second link in the military chain of command, just under the president. It is the secretary of defense, not the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who issues orders to the generals and admirals overseeing American soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, guardians, and, at times, coast guardsmen around the world. It is the secretary—not the chairman—who gives orders to the commanders of European Command, African Command, Central Command (covering the Middle East), Indo-Pacific Command, Southern Command (covering Central and South America), Northern Command (covering the United States and the U.S.-Canadian combined air defense), and Space Command, as well as the global, functional combatant commands: Special Operations Command, Cyber Command, Strategic Command (in charge of nuclear weapons), and Transportation Command. Finally, it is the secretary and along with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs who offer the military advice on the capabilities of the force when the president is considering putting our men and women in harm’s way.
During my two-year stint in the Pentagon on the chairman’s staff as a newly promoted brigadier general, one of my duties was to oversee a review of the hundreds of contingency plans (what some would call “war plans”) generated by the various combatant commanders. The secretary at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, was attempting to transform the contingency planning process, for which he needed the president’s approval. Rumsfeld took great interest and spent significant time with each combatant commander, reviewing in detail their voluminous contingency plans and associated requirements. I was always the note-taker, and only other person in the room, during those sessions and remember vividly the high anxiety of each four-star as they were peppered with questions from a civilian master who knew the strategic ramifications of those plans. On several occasions, I was also present while Rumsfeld briefed the details of those plans to President Bush.
While the SecDef’s role as second-in-command of the military is specified in law, most instruments of national power are under the supervision and direction of others. The secretary of defense must work hand-in-glove with those who are responsible for diplomacy, economics and finance, intelligence, homeland security, and others. Few presidencies have mirrored the successful “team of rivals” approach used by President Lincoln, and more than one president has presided over vehement disagreements and ego-driven dysfunction among cabinet-level officials. Emotional intelligence can therefore be as useful to a secretary of defense as a sharp analytic mind or great strategic imagination. Coordination among the secretary of defense, secretary of homeland security, secretary of state, the director of national intelligence, the secretary of commerce, the secretary of the treasury, the national security advisor, and a variety of others is essential to ensure the effective execution of U.S. national security and foreign policy objectives. Each government agency or department has distinct roles and missions, but their overlapping areas of responsibility require seamless communication and collaboration.
2. Think long term and short term.
The longest-serving secretary of defense was Robert McNamara, whose tenure lasted just over seven years. By comparison, many of the general officers with whom secretaries spend much of their time have careers of 40 years or more, and the long-term strategic projects secretaries start, shape, change, approve, or cancel can also last decades. So can their choices of whom to hire, whom to fire, whom to promote, and whom to pass over. To take one example, the Air Force’s new strategic stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider, has yet to enter operational service. It had its first flight in November 2023, but the program to develop it began in 2011—five secretaries and five acting secretaries ago. Any prudent secretary of defense needs the experiences to determine when to make short-term decisions while ensuring those calls don’t come at the expense of the security of the country decades in the future.
But sometimes, when a quick decision has to be made, only the secretary can do it. Secretary Robert Gates made such a decision in 2007, when he ordered the military to prioritize buying mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles (MRAPs) immediately over waiting for the Army-Marine Corps joint light tactical vehicle program to re-invent the wheel. That decision cost billions of dollars, but it likely saved hundreds if not thousands of American lives from improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. Only the secretary could make the massive Pentagon bureaucracy move that quickly, and the secretary needs to have the savvy and experiences as to when to make those tough calls.
3. Lead the world’s biggest organization.
The Department of Defense has nearly 3 million employees with a yearly budget in excess of $1.3 trillion (including payments to retirees and other mandatory expenditures). But even that doesn’t begin to explain the complexity of the organization. It operates in every state in the Union, hundreds of countries around the world (every American embassy has a Marine guard), operates some of the most sophisticated technology on the planet, and contains three other departments and dozens of other, smaller agencies within it. The military is extremely active: On any given day, the Army has more than 180,000 soldiers deployed around the world for a variety of missions, the Navy has more than 100 ships at sea, and the Air Force launches more than 5,000 sorties.
Successful secretaries therefore have to lead as well as manage at a strategic scale. They can’t do everything themselves—they can hardly do anything. They must communicate a clear vision and get everyone working to work toward implementing it. Part of the secretary’s responsibility is to define clear, achievable, worthwhile goals based on the desires of the president and Congress (yes, both) and the expertise of military leaders.
Mastery of small-unit tactics and experience on recent battlefields will be of limited benefit for a secretary of defense. While the secretary is not a general, he must have a deep understanding of military strategy at the highest levels, operational logistics, the American way of war, and the unique (and at times competing) military cultures of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The ability to command respect from the leadership of all the “clans and tribes” in the military while delegating authority to trained, skilled, and professional subordinates and fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, and teamwork is a challenge even for an extremely gifted strategic leader.
All this doesn’t even consider the challenges associated with crisis response, which occurs more times than most Americans know. The Office of the Secretary of Defense—which itself employs thousands of people—relies on a vast array of subordinate offices, each tasked with managing critical aspects of defense policy, operations, and administration. These offices work in tandem to ensure that the secretary can oversee the DoD’s multifaceted responsibilities effectively, maintain readiness, and implement national defense objectives.
Each office is vital for the smooth operation of the nation’s defense complex and its global mission. But even the width and depth of their responsibilities are staggering. A deputy secretary is critical to the smooth function of the department, as are the half-dozen under secretaries, plus assistant secretaries, directors, and others—provided they are all guided by the overarching vision provided by their de facto CEO.
The SecDef’s job is not simply to implement a political agenda, but to lead the military and to develop a strategy for defending the country from a range of threats. From personal experience, I can attest that while key members of any administration are loyal to those who appoint them, the women and men who wear the cloth of their country bear allegiance to the Constitution, not a politician or a party.
4. Build political support.
A superficial glance at the Constitution and the National Security Act of 1947 would suggest that the secretary of defense has one boss, the president. But the reality is more complicated. Yes, the president gives orders as commander-in-chief, but Congress cuts checks, the uniformed military carries out the orders, and the people of the United States form the military itself when they volunteer for service (or, in times of war, are drafted). A successful secretary must therefore have the political acumen and persuasive communication skills to secure bipartisan support for programs and expertise in the complex budgetary and legislative processes associated with security programs. It’s a given that all SecDefs will testify before Congress dozens of times during their tenure on topics as varied as defense policies, strategies, budgets, personnel actions, contingency operations, and deployments.
During informal discussions and formal appearances, finding ways to build relationships with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle is critical. Secretary Leon Panetta once observed that some of his best friends from the time he had served as a congressman turned into “pit bulls” when the red light of the C-SPAN camera started blinking.
5. Wage diplomacy, not just war.
While the secretary of state always holds the record for most frequent flyer miles in any administration, the secretary of defense is usually a close second. Diplomatic skills to build alliances and foster international security partnerships, as well as knowledge of geopolitics and global defense systems, are essential. Collaboration with foreign governments and members of long-standing defense alliances (like NATO) requires competencies and political savvy that are only gained through experience.
High-level discussions with credentialed defense ministers, hardened foreign military leaders, and heads of state—a requirement during any visit to a foreign country—can be intimidating. During my time as a division commander in Iraq, we first hosted Secretary Gates at one of our operating bases. He asked me and our soldiers hard questions about our operations, walked part of our area of operations with a platoon of soldiers, and he showed all of us that he had a firm grasp of what we had been asked to do and provided after-action comments to me on how we were doing it.
That same day I had a chance to watch Gates engage with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his ministers. I had seen many who did not represent our nation well during similar visits. It’s one thing to know about Americans and the American military, but another to know about our allies, adversaries, and the enemy with equal detail and nuance. Gates—who had served under two presidents from different parties—was masterful in the field and in the palace. It was amazing to me that he could easily transition from one to the other during a battlefield visit.
THERE HAVE BEEN THIRTY-FIVE secretaries of defense (including seven acting secretaries, five of those during the first Trump administration) since the office was created in 1947 as a result of the post-war National Security Act. Any mere mortal hoping to attain the position of secretary of defense must come into office with a strong character, an enduring set of values, and a dedication to the Constitution.
It takes a unique individual to fill these shoes. I’ll admit, even with some of the experiences I’ve had in national security positions, I’m not sure I would be ready for these responsibilities. And frankly, I’m not sure I’d want the job. The pressures of the office may have driven the first secretary of defense, James Forrestal, to suicide. George Marshall, the celebrated general and secretary of state, had a lackluster performance in the job. Donald Rumsfeld’s reputation and legacy were inarguably injured by his second stint in the role. And some of our best secretaries of defense have been the least celebrated, like Melvin Laird and Harold Brown. I recently talked with my West Point classmate Lloyd Austin and while he has performed magnificently, he is also fatigued. The job of the secretary of defense is a good fit for someone who wants to work hard, keep their head down, and stay out of the spotlight—not someone whose focus is publicity, fortune, fame, or advancement.
President-elect Trump has, at least for now, decided that he wants Hegseth at the Pentagon. As part of their Constitutional duties, Senators tasked to confirm a nominee are right to ask tough questions about whether any candidate can lead a large and diverse organization, manage large and complex budgets, inspire a workforce willing to give their lives for the country, and untangle political knots in Washington, D.C. and around the world. If they think the candidate does not have these skills, they should vote no, because the security of the country is at stake—not just now, but for generations to come.
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