Hegseth’s combat experience may come in handy after surprise Pentagon pick

President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Army veteran and outspoken Fox News commentator Pete Hegseth to lead the Pentagon and the 1.3 million active-duty men and women in uniform surprised supporters and opponents alike and raised immediate questions over whether Mr. Trump’s often-rocky relations with the military brass in his first term will be repeated in his second.

Several congressional Republicans rushed to defend Mr. Trump’s unorthodox choice, but some Democrats and private military analysts questioned Mr. Hegseth’s qualifications to carry out one of the nation’s most complex and delicate posts.

Mr. Hegseth, 44, was a combat infantry officer in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has an impressive academic pedigree, with an undergraduate degree from Princeton and a master’s degree from Harvard. He is highly effective on television, a quality Mr. Trump is known to prize.

In a statement Tuesday night announcing his selection, Mr. Trump hailed Mr. Hegseth as “tough, smart, and a true believer in America First.” “With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice. Our military will be great again and America will never back down.”

Until the appointment late Wednesday of firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz, Florida Republican, to be attorney general, Mr. Hegseth rated as the president-elect’s most out-of-the-box choice for a top job in his next administration. Republican senators who must confirm the defense secretary acknowledged their surprise but appeared to give Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Trump the clear benefit of the doubt.

Sen. Mike Rounds, South Dakota Republican, said the nomination surprised his fellow lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee because most didn’t know Mr. Hegseth.

“But it looks to me like he’s got a record. He’s been recognized. He’s been in harm’s way. He’s served overseas,” Mr. Rounds said. “Now, it’s a matter of asking him questions [and] learning more about him and so forth. I’ll go into that with an open mind.”

The Hegseth choice got an early boost from Sen. Roger F. Wicker, a Mississippi Republican in line to chair the Senate Armed Services Committee and oversee the nominee’s confirmation hearing.

“I am delighted at the prospect” of working with Mr. Hegseth, Mr. Wicker told CNN.

Mr. Trump went through five defense secretaries in his first four-year term and feuded publicly with top generals. He later expressed frustration that the Pentagon establishment repeatedly tried to undercut his prerogatives as commander in chief and fought his “America First” foreign and national security policies.

Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said he had never heard Mr. Hegseth’s name mentioned for a government position with such high responsibility.

“His name just wasn’t on anybody’s bingo card,” Mr. Cancian said. “He has an excellent record as a junior officer in the military, but he doesn’t have any high-level national security experience or experience running a large organization. That’s going to make it challenging for him.”

Victoria Coates, a military analyst with the Heritage Institute, said Mr. Hegseth will be a “literal breath of fresh air in the musty halls of the Pentagon.” Conservative opponents of what they say were “woke” military policies of the Biden administration are hailing the choice of Mr. Hegseth as a needed corrective.

“With his combination of combat experience, veterans advocacy on Capitol Hill and commitment to conservative principles, he’s an inspired choice to put the department on the new track it desperately needs,” Ms. Coates said.

Confirmation hurdles

Army officials confirmed Wednesday that Mr. Hegseth served in Iraq from September 2005 to July 2006 and in Afghanistan from May 2011 to January 2012. He also completed a tour of duty in Cuba from June 2004 to April 2005.

Even with Republicans firmly in control of the Senate, Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation could be difficult, Mr. Cancian said.

“There’s going to be an FBI investigation, and he’s never been through a confirmation process. You never know what might be there,” he said. “One issue that will come up is his lack of experience. Some of his more extreme comments will be picked up by the Democrats. If you’re a commentator, you can get away with that. But if you’re secretary of defense, you can’t.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican and a key security adviser for Mr. Trump, said he and Mr. Hegseth served together in Afghanistan briefly while he was deployed with the Air Force Reserves. He called Mr. Hegseth “patriotic and smart” and said he hasn’t talked with any of his Senate colleagues about the nominee’s lack of executive leadership experience.

“We’ll see how it goes,” Mr. Graham said. “He’ll have a chance in his confirmation hearing to answer those concerns.”

Mr. Hegseth said women play a critical role in the military but don’t belong on the front lines. He has accused top military officials in the Pentagon of pursuing liberal social justice programs at the expense of military readiness. Mr. Hegseth has blamed diversity, equality and inclusion initiatives for much of the military’s chronic recruiting problems.

On a recent podcast, Mr. Hegseth called for the firing of Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. If the Senate confirms him, Gen. Brown will work directly for Mr. Hegseth as his principal military adviser.

Several Democrats were not holding back in their criticism. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Illinois Democrat and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Mr. Hegseth was dangerously unqualified to be secretary of defense. She called him a “TV personality with little experience running much of anything.”

“Donald Trump is once again proving he cares more about his MAGA base than keeping our nation safe. Our troops, our military families, and our national security will pay the price,” Ms. Duckworth said. “Our troops and our country deserve better.”

Clifford May, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, predicted that Mr. Hegseth will work well with the other members of Mr. Trump’s quickly assembling national security team, including Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida as secretary of state and Rep. Mike Waltz, also of Florida, as national security adviser.

“They’re kind of young, fresh faces with similar views on America’s role in the world,” Mr. May said. “Does [Mr. Hegseth] have a lot to learn? Absolutely. But on the other hand, we had very experienced people running the Pentagon when we had the shambolic and lethal capitulation to the Taliban in Afghanistan.”

Big job

If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Hegseth must construct a complex web of relationships within the Pentagon — to his immediate subordinates inside the Office of Secretary of Defense and the individual military services — and in Congress, which holds the purse strings for the military budget, said Katherine Kuzminski, director of the Military, Veterans and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security think tank.

“He will need to rely on the relationship with both the House and the Senate on authorizations and also on appropriations,” Ms. Kuzminski said. “He’ll also need to navigate the relationship between the Pentagon and the defense industrial base, which is currently in a tough place.”

Ms. Kuzminski said Senate Republicans may not be inclined to rubber-stamp the nomination for one of the most crucial Cabinet positions. Being an unconventional choice, Mr. Hegseth may find the confirmation process more bruising than he expected.

“I don’t know much about him,” said Maine Sen. Angus S. King Jr., a Maine independent who caucuses with the Democrats. “I haven’t seen a lot that impresses me as qualifications for one of the most complicated and important jobs in the country, if not the world. So I’m going to await, as I always do, the hearings and information. But it’s not a nomination I expected.”

Sen.-elect Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat who once served in the State Department as an adviser to top American commanders in the Afghanistan War, said he was not happy with the idea of a Pentagon chief flatly insisting that women shouldn’t be allowed to fight in combat.

“I haven’t had a chance to really dive through the other nominations, but [Mr. Hegseth’s] is one that really jumps out at me as someone who has worked at the Pentagon before,” Mr. Kim said. “We’ll see how things kind of shake out, but you know, I’m going to take this seriously.”

Former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, Utah Republican, said on Mr. Hegseth’s Fox News network that the Senate Republican majority will face heavy pressure to approve the nomination.

“I think he’ll get easily confirmed. I dare any Republican senator to vote against him,” Mr. Chaffetz told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Wednesday.

“That is not in their best interest,” he said. “And we need to get him in place as soon as possible.”