Risk of politicization of the US Armed Forces grows with Trump’s appointment

The president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, spent the election campaign saying that he will fire the “woke” generals of the country’s Armed Forces. Last Tuesday (12), Trump appointed Pete Hegseth, a political commentator for the American broadcaster Fox News, to the position of US Secretary of Defense.

The appointment, which still needs to be confirmed by the Senate, gives a clear signal that the promised “cleaning” of the military leadership will bring risks of politicization in the American Army in favor of the far-right leader’s retrograde agenda.

In June, Trump confirmed his intentions when asked by Fox News reporters whether he would fire generals described as “woke”. “I would fire them. You can’t have (a) ‘woke’ military,” Trump said. The term “woke” refers to an agenda focused on racial and social justice, but used in a derogatory way by conservatives.

The Republican takes the first step towards implementing the military politicization plan by appointing presenter Hegseth to head the Pentagon. The political commentator is very popular among conservatives, has thousands of followers on social media and is known for issuing reactionary opinions, including questioning the capabilities of women in the Army.

“I’m just saying we shouldn’t have women in combat roles,” Hegseth said on a podcast last week while promoting her new book, “The War on Warriors.” “It didn’t make us more effective. It didn’t make us more lethal. This made the fight more complicated,” he said.

In the book, Hegseth states that the United States Armed Forces have generals who defend the “woke” agenda, with very progressive policies. For him, this has harmed the country’s defense, with a weak and “effeminate” military.

The commentator also mocked transgender military personnel and said that by promoting diversity and inclusion, the AAFF is turning away recruits. For Hegseth, a “clean up” of the Pentagon is necessary. “America’s white sons and daughters are falling away, and who can blame them,” he wrote.

The presenter’s appointment has caused a stir in the country. Even though the future Secretary of Defense is a veteran of the United States National Guard, having served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, agents linked to the sector classify Hegseth as “unqualified” for the position, as he has little or no management experience.

A senior Defense Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity to Reuters, said Hegseth would not be qualified for even a less important role in the field. Two other US military commanders called the appointment “ridiculous” or “a nightmare” in an interview with CNN.

Trump’s appointment to the Pentagon followed the same method used to nominate other positions in the future government. What matters to the elected president is the loyalty of those who will be in key positions in the public sector.

Even if the person chosen for the position has little or no qualifications to assume the position, what Trump will prioritize during his second term is the integrity that his orders will be carried out.

“[Trump] places the highest value on loyalty,” Eric Edelman, who served as the Pentagon’s top policy officer during the George W. Bush administration, said in an interview. “It seems like one of the main criteria used is: to what extent do people defend Donald Trump on television?”

Former allies campaigned against Trump

Billionaire Donald Trump has other reasons, besides the ideology he carries, to keep his most loyal followers in key positions in Washington, especially within the country’s Armed Forces. In addition to being the target of numerous lawsuits, after the electoral failure in 2020, when he lost the race to Democrat Joe Biden, Trump saw a series of former allies criticize his political stance in the middle of the presidential campaign.

The former president faces four lawsuits in American justice: three linked to his actions as president of the United States (assault on the Capitol, electoral fraud in Georgia and illegal seizure of secret documents) and the other in which Trump is accused of covering up a payment made to porn actress Stormy Daniels, during the election campaign that led him to the presidency in 2016.

Trump’s judicial saga threatened to end his political career until the justices of the US Supreme Court, most of whom were appointed during Trump’s first term in June, decided that he is entitled to receive partial immunity in the proceedings he faces in the US courts. American.

The judicial victory not only paved the way for his return to the White House, but renewed his drive to surround himself with only the most loyal supporters.

Angered by criticism from former allies, Trump even suggested that Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in his first term, could be executed for treason. “In times past, your punishment would have been death,” he wrote on the social network Truth Social.

The speech reflects the level of tension between the future president and defense sectors that maintain a critical stance towards Trump.

In another dig at former allies, John Kelly, former White House chief of staff, said before the election that Trump fit “the general definition of a fascist” and that he had spoken of “the loyalty of Hitler’s Nazi generals ”.

Threat of politicization of the US Armed Forces

With the aim of no longer making mistakes in his choices, according to his criteria, Trump is now seeking to politicize the North American barracks by placing his most loyal supporters in key positions.

The intention is not to go through the same problems that his first administration had, when he was often blocked by high-ranking officers.

In an interview with Fox News in October, weeks before winning the American election, Donald Trump gave some clues about his plans to reshape the Armed Forces if he returned to the White House: at the time, he said that one of the biggest, if not the biggest, threats to USA was the “enemy within”, referring to immigrants and anyone who challenged its actions in government.

If in his first term, for example, Trump was prevented from using soldiers against protesters or in actions to combat crime, now, with fewer dissenting voices, the Republican seems close to launching one of the biggest reforms in the functions of the Armed Forces. And it will walk in a gray area, which involves legal, moral and strategic issues.

The future president spent his entire campaign promising to employ the National Guard to contain riots and Trump’s plans for immigration, including what he calls the “largest mass deportation in history.” “If I think things are getting out of control, I would have no problem using the Army,” he said in April, in an interview with Time magazine.

In his years as President, Trump was frequently frustrated with the lack of support for using troops on the streets, as he advocated. Two years ago, Mark Esper, then Secretary of Defense, revealed to Congress that the president asked if soldiers could shoot at protesters who were in the streets protesting structural racism in 2020.