The long-term implications of Pete Hegseth’s US military purges

Earlier this week, Daniel Driscoll, the secretary of the United States Army, resigned from his post after he reportedly tried to directly appeal to US President Donald Trump about how changes in the military’s leadership were having an impact on the institution’s readiness for war.

Driscoll, a law school colleague of US Vice President JD Vance, was appointed last February to his position, the highest civilian role in the Army below the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth. He was particularly involved, experts say, in planning how to transform the Army so it could take part in modern wars that seemed to increasingly rely less on ground forces and more on assets like drones and missiles.

His resignation is the latest in a list of top officials who have been fired or asked to resign under Hegseth, including three- and four-star generals and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a group of top-ranking military officers who meet to directly advise the US president. Among them have been Black and female leaders, demographics the Trump administration has said were unfairly promoted in recent times because of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives he is now seeking to undo.

Technically, officials like Driscoll serve at the pleasure of the president, said Kelly Grieco, senior fellow at the Stimson Center think tank. So Hegseth, having been appointed by Trump, has the power to remove them. But for civilian leaders, as well as the rest of the military who are not told exactly why these personnel changes happen, “the sheer number of firings, and promotions that have been blocked, raises the question of whether there is a hollowing out of the senior levels of the military.”

Hegseth was an infantry officer in the Army National Guard who went on to become a television personality on the conservative US news channel Fox News before being tapped for the military portfolio in Trump’s cabinet. Hegseth had been particularly outspoken about modern changes in the military that he claimed had weakened it, including policies that led to the inclusion and promotion of women and LGBTQ personnel. These are other minority groups, Hegseth has said, have been promoted in the military based on their demographics and not based on their performance, as they should have been judged.

“Hegseth came into the Pentagon with a specific set of priorities,” said Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow at Defense Priorities, “including a focus on increasing what he calls ‘lethality’ and getting rid of what he calls ‘woke’ ideology, which he and Trump think are running rampant through the Pentagon.”

Under Hegseth, the Trump administration began using the “Department of War” instead of the “Department of Defense”, and the military has toned down, and in some cases erased, memorials and other public acknowledgments of minorities and women who were pioneers in the institution. Earlier this year, Hegseth announced the military would start annual testosterone screening for its soldiers who are aged 30 and over, as part of an initiative to ensure they “have the biological foundation required to sustain the fight”.

The result, experts say, has been the unravelling of a merit-based system of promotions that defines a military with about a trillion-dollar budget and more than 1.3 million active duty personnel.