Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth apparently thinks that Arizona Senator Mark Kelly is in the wrong job. Kelly was one of six Democratic legislators who released a video reminding the officers and enlisted people of the U.S. military that they are bound by their oaths to disobey illegal orders. Now Hegseth wants to recall Kelly, a decorated combat veteran and former astronaut, back to active duty in the Navy so that Kelly can be court-martialed for what Hegseth sees as riling up the troops against the commander in chief.
Hegseth has a point: Maybe Kelly shouldn’t be in Congress. But the secretary is wrong about putting the senator back in the naval service. In a more sensible and serious world (and yes, I know this is not the one we live in right now), Hegseth would be fired—and Kelly would take Hegseth’s job as secretary of defense.
Kelly is at least as qualified to lead the Pentagon as other recent appointees, and would probably be an easy addition to any future Democratic administration’s shopping list for senior defense or national security roles. (He was also short-listed to be Kamala Harris’s running mate in 2024.) A Navy pilot, Kelly flew 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm. He has a uniform heavy with awards, including medals with the combat “V,” a special addition that denotes valor and heroism. After the senator posted a picture of those medals yesterday on social media, Hegseth, one of the most eager and petty trolls in an administration full of them, immediately took to social media and claimed that they were in the wrong order. He also warned “Captain” Kelly—putting Kelly’s rank in scare quotes—that he will have to submit to a uniform inspection once he’s recalled.
[Jonathan Chait: Trump and Hegseth’s hysterical reaction to an ad]
After his combat service, Kelly joined the astronaut corps, and piloted or commanded multiple Space Shuttle missions. (His twin brother, Scott, also became an astronaut.) In 2011, he retired—not to kick back and get rich, but to help his wife, the former member of Congress Gabby Giffords, who had been nearly killed in a shooting earlier that year.
Kelly’s had some business ventures, but he’s a bit light on management experience. Still, he’d be a far better choice than Hegseth, who is now vying to snag the never-coveted title of Worst Secretary of Defense in Modern American History.
Hegseth, for the moment, is in no danger of taking the crown from Robert McNamara, a brilliant man who nonetheless kept sending American boys to Vietnam even when he knew the war was lost. The day is young, however, and Trump seems determined to start a war in Latin America that could offer Hegseth the opportunity to give McNamara a run for his money.
But unlike Hegseth, McNamara also did some good during the frostiest days of the Cold War, including modernizing Pentagon procedures and updating American nuclear strategy. So did other flawed secretaries: Mel Laird created important new Defense Department institutions while privately (and ineffectively) opposing the expansion of the Vietnam War to Cambodia; Jim Schlesinger and Harold Brown did what they could to arrest the free-fall of American power in the 1970s; Les Aspin tried, and failed, to kill national missile defenses; Donald Rumsfeld initiated post-Cold War reforms but stubbornly refused to think about the post-Gulf war administration of Iraq.
Even James V. Forrestal, the first modern secretary of defense, was also better at his job—and he was fired in 1949 after a conflict with President Harry Truman and a nervous breakdown. (He killed himself later that year by jumping out of a window at Bethesda Naval Hospital.) Whatever his shortcomings, Forrestal was an honorable and hard-working public servant, which is why a building in Washington, D.C. and an aircraft carrier were both named in his honor.
All of these secretaries were competent men with records of achievement before coming to the Pentagon. They were professionals and patriots who cared about the security of the United States and the people who served in uniform. Hegseth, by comparison, is a dude-bro sporting some questionable tattoos, a creation of television who’s acting as if he won “The Apprentice: The Nuclear Weapons Season.” He seems to believe that his job is hectoring young men about being fat and forcing Black men out of the military for having beards. He has no understanding of national strategy, and no real experience managing anything.
Nor is he a man who can serve as a model for his organization. Hegseth wants to recall Kelly so that he can levy charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice against him, but when Hegseth was a serving officer, he could have faced the UCMJ himself: By his own admission, he was an adulterer with an alcohol problem. (Apparently, military justice for thee and not for me is the new rule in Hegseth’s Pentagon.) His tenure so far has featured a series of appalling security lapses and janky public performances that call into question not only his character but his emotional stability.
The Trump White House knows that Hegseth is nothing like Forrestal, or Aspin, or even Rumsfeld, for that matter, and that he is unqualified to do anything but push-ups. This realization is probably why Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll, and not the actual head of the Pentagon, is the person meeting with the Russians in Geneva trying to stop the biggest war in Europe since 1945. Trump seems to like Hegseth, but the administration also seems to be taking care not to let Hegseth near anything breakable or dangerous.
Of course, Hegseth is still the secretary of defense, and thus the person who, in theory, must advise the president of the United States on the most dire issues of war and peace. He is also the official likely to be in the room and would verify the orders if the commander in chief calls for the use of nuclear weapons. The idea that Hegseth would have to advise Trump at a moment of crisis is genuinely terrifying: The president is already showing increasing signs of panic and irrationality, and Hegseth is hardly the kind of stable or prudent aide one hopes would be nearby in times of danger.
For now, the White House seems content to let Hegseth preen and strut and yell, but the United States still needs an actual secretary of defense, and Pete Hegeseth is completely unqualified for any position of public trust, elected or appointed, in the government of the United States.
Trump should look around and choose one. He has plenty of options—including Mark Kelly.
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