Trump taps Hegseth as defense secretary, vows ‘no Marxism, no communism’ in military

NEWS AND ANALYSIS:

President-elect Donald Trump is wasting no time targeting “wokeness” in the U.S. military, vowing in a recent video statement there will be “no Marxism, no communism” in the ranks.

Mr. Trump announced Tuesday that he has selected Fox News host Pete Hegseth, an Army veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as his defense secretary.

The pick rounds out a series of conservative selections for key national security posts, including Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida as White House national security adviser, Sen. Marco Rubio, also of Florida, as secretary of state and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as secretary of homeland security.

Mr. Hegseth wrote in his recent bestselling book, “The War on Warriors,” that “woke” ideology in the military is to blame for the recruiting shortfalls facing the armed services in recent years.

The Army National Guard member will be in charge of Mr. Trump’s plan for U.S. defense policies, a plan that was recently outlined in a short video message. He and Mr. Trump call for an end to “woke” policies highlighting such issues as diversity and inclusion and conducting a major military buildup. Mr. Trump also lamented the decline in the U.S. military’s ability to produce weapons in the video.

“We had peace through strength,” he said in the Nov. 9 video posted on Truth Social.

“Twenty-nine months later, the arsenals are empty, the stockpiles are bare, the Treasury is drained. The ranks are being hollowed out. Our country has been totally humiliated, and we have a corrupt compromise president, Crooked Joe Biden, who is dragging us into World War III,” Mr. Trump said.

Ending the Biden administration’s “woke” policies that Mr. Trump said have negatively affected military recruitment will be a major target.

“Joe Biden’s woke policies and political purges have repulsed many great patriots from serving,” he said. “I will restore the proud culture and honored traditions of America’s armed forces, and there will be no Marxism allowed, no communism allowed, and we’ll get rid of the fascists,” Mr. Trump said.

He said on the video that the idea of admitting Ukraine to the NATO alliance is “unhinged,” and that the last thing the current administration should be doing is “risking war with nuclear-armed countries like Russia or China.”

The president-elect also said that “when I’m back in the White House on Day One, we are returning to a foreign policy that puts America’s interests first.”

A top priority will be seeking to end the conflict in Ukraine, he said, and next will be rebuilding American military strength and deterrence.

Another priority will be fixing the broken system of defense procurement and the defense industrial base that supports it.

“Given all the money we spend on the Pentagon, it’s unacceptable that we would ever run out of ammunition or be unable to quickly produce the weapons needed,” Mr. Trump said. “I will provide record funding for our military, just as I did for four great years.”

Mr. Trump said his new administration would also seek to get the best value for dollars spent on defense “because we’re spending too much money foolishly and our prices are too high.”

For the billions spent sending U.S. arms to Ukraine, Mr. Trump said he plans to seek reimbursement from European states to replenish American arms stocks.

Mr. Trump may sign an executive order upon taking office that would create a “warrior board” to review the appointments of four- and three-star generals and admirals who could face dismissal by the president, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The president-elect said while campaigning that he plans to fire the senior military officers responsible for the 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan soon after taking office.

Next CIA director to target politicization

President-elect Donald Trump picked former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to be the next CIA director. If confirmed by the Senate, the former Texas congressman will replace William J. Burns, who has been the agency’s director since 2021.

Mr. Ratcliffe is expected to initiate agency-wide reforms in the next Trump administration amid charges by Mr. Trump that the CIA and other intelligence agencies abused their power.

Mr. Trump said in announcing the appointment that Mr. Ratcliffe exposed “fake Russian collusion” during his first administration, revealed FBI abuses of surveillance and countered the 51 former intelligence officials who lied about Hunter Biden’s laptop.

“John Ratcliffe has always been a warrior for Truth and Honesty with the American Public,” Mr. Trump stated on Truth Social.

Sources close to the transition team said Mr. Trump will seek reforms from top to bottom at the CIA over concerns that the agency is linked to the 51 former officials’ letter written weeks before the 2020 election in a bid to boost then-candidate Biden’s election prospects. The former officials said the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, but it was later found by investigators in both the FBI and Congress to be genuine.

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government stated in a report made public in June that CIA contractors colluded with the Biden presidential campaign to mislead voters.

“The report reveals new information detailing how the highest levels of the Central Intelligence Agency, up to and including then-CIA Director Gina Haspel, were made aware of the ’Public Statement on the Hunter Biden Emails’ by 51 former intelligence officials prior to its approval and publication,” the panel said in releasing the report.

The letter was organized by former Deputy CIA Director Michael Morell, who according to congressional investigators worked as an active contractor with the CIA at the time the statement was issued.

Commandos retool for China war

The Army Special Operations Command at Fort Liberty, North Carolina — possibly soon to be renamed back to Fort Bragg, its previous name —  is retooling its 35,000 commandos for operations against China.

Last spring, some of the command’s 35,000 special operations forces took part in an unprecedented military deployment to Taiwan’s Kinmen island, about 3 miles from the Chinese mainland, the online military blog SOFREP reported. The commandos were training with Taiwanese military forces under provisions of the 2023 defense authorization law that calls for U.S. military advisers to work with their counterparts on the self-ruled island.

According to SOFREP, the exercises involved U.S. training for the Taiwanese military use of the Black Hornet Nano, a small military unmanned aerial vehicle. The cooperation suggests the outlying Taiwan islands could be used as part of what the commander of the Indo-Pacific Command calls the “Hellscape” strategy.

The strategy involves the use of thousands of armed drones — both aerial and sea-based — that would be used against invading Chinese forces to prevent any rapid takeover of Taiwan and buy time until U.S. and allied forces could arrive in force.

Taiwan’s defense minister at the time, Chiu Kuo-cheng, confirmed in March the U.S. commando deployment near the mainland but declined to elaborate.

“This exchange is for mutual observation, to identify the problems we have, figure out how to improve and to recognize their strengths so we can learn from them,” Mr. Chiu said in March when asked about reports of the commando training.

In addition to Hellscape operations, the commandos are practicing for political warfare and psychological warfare against China.

Kinmen was recently was targeted by military exercises that involved the use of Chinese coast guard ships near the island in an attempt to establish a legal precedent over the outlying islands.

China expert Miles Yu said in a column for the Hoover Institution that the Army commando deployment to Kinmen was a monumental shift in U.S. military and foreign policy that challenged doctrines in place since the 1950s.

“This move not only signifies an important geopolitical pivot, but also breaks a long-standing taboo that has implications for regional stability and U.S.-China relations,” Mr. Yu said.

Until the commandos trained on the island, Kinmen and other outlying Taiwanese islands were viewed as indefensible and geopolitically sensitive to U.S.-China ties.

“This deployment might well be remembered as a pivotal moment when the U.S. took a definitive stand on its commitments in the Taiwan Strait, reshaping regional dynamics for years to come,” Mr. Yu said.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly named the current director of the CIA. William J. Burns has headed the agency since 2021.