While US President Donald Trump often appears to thrive in sowing discord, the current chaos at the US Department of Defense (DoD) cannot serve any decent purpose – and comes with significant strategic risk.
With US President Donald Trump having announced in early April 2025 that he planned to set the 2026 US defence budget at a record-breaking USD 1 trillion (EUR 870 billion), a prerequisite for overseeing such a vast sum would appear to be a highly efficient Department of Defense (DoD) with a clear and unified purpose.
Yet less than 100 days into Trump’s second presidential term the US DoD is reeling from one crisis to the next amid multiple firings, astonishing lapses in security and Pentagon staff being threatened with lie detector tests to stifle any leaks to the press.
A major reason for the current disfunction is a relatively obvious one: the qualifications for serving in the Trump Administration are not experience and professional capability, but absolute loyalty to Trump’s political agenda. In this regard the current US secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, epitomises the current situation.
Dogged in the wake of his nomination by reports of excessive drinking, abuse of women and a clear lack of executive and political experience, Hegseth squeaked through his confirmation hearing on 25 January 2025 only through the rare intervention of the US Vice President, JD Vance, to break a 50-50 tie in the Senate vote. While there were clear reservations about Hegseth’s suitability on both sides of the political aisle, the former Fox News anchor sported exactly what Trump required: a background of military service (with a hint of Christian nationalism), but above all absolute fealty and an eagerness to wage a ‘war on wokism’ within the US military.
The ’war on wokism’
Trump and Hegseth lost no time in firing senior US commanders whose leadership or appointments they viewed as having strayed too far in terms of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
On his first day in office, in fact, Trump fired the commandant of the US Coast Guard, Admiral Linda Fagan, who in June 2022 became the first woman to lead a US military service. Then, on 21 February, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, US Air Force (USAF) General Charles ‘CQ’ Brown was unceremoniously ushered from his post via a Trump message on social media. Hegseth separately announced the same day that he was replacing Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Lisa Franchetti and USAF Vice Chief of Staff General James Slife.
Both Gen Brown and Adm Francetti had served in the US military for four decades; Gen Brown is a former fighter pilot who was appointed as the USAF’s first black chief of staff by Trump in August 2020, while Adm Francetti commanded the US Sixth Fleet, two carrier strike groups and US Naval Forces Korea before becoming the first woman appointed as CNO in November 2023. Gen Slife, who had served in the USAF since 1989, is a former commander of Air Force Special Operations Command. Both Gen Brown and Gen Slife, as four-star officers, have been replaced by three-star officers.
Meanwhile, a campaign was afoot to reverse the previous Biden Administration’s renaming of nine US Army bases previously named after Confederate generals of the American Civil War. On 10/11 February 2025 Hegseth directed Fort Liberty in North Carolina to be restored back to its original name of Fort Bragg, while on 3 March Hegseth directed Fort Moore in Georgia to be reverted back to its original name of Fort Benning. On both occasions the US DoD – though not Hegseth in his social media posts – was at pains to point out that these bases were being renamed after US Army heroes of the 20th Century, rather than the slavery-endorsing Confederate leaders they were originally named after. Presumably some unfortunate staffers within the Pentagon are now having to come up with another seven US Army heroes who share the same surnames – Gordon, Hill, Hood, Lee, Pickett, Polk and Rucker – as the Confederate generals those bases were originally named after.
The ‘Signalgate’ fiasco
While the re-renaming of US Army bases can be seen as a waste of time and money that has little to do with the Trump Administration’s professed goals of emphasising the warfighting effectiveness of the US military, Hegseth has now been involved twice in potentially exposing classified military information.
On 15 March 2025, US Central Command (CENTCOM) initiated a large-scale operation consisting of precision strikes against Iran-backed Houthi targets across Yemen. Prior to the attack commencing, however, US National Security Advisor Michael Waltz inadvertently copied in a US journalist, The Atlantic Editor Jeff Goldberg, into a group chat among senior Trump Administration officials on messaging app Signal in which Hegseth noted in some detail the operation being executed. The events were subsequently reported by Goldberg in a 24 March piece published in The Atlantic.
This appeared to be a major security breach that contravened a number of US security laws and regulations, yet in the wake of the revelation numerous Trump Administration officials denied and obfuscated over the extent of the incident. On 24 March, Hegseth’s initial response was to attack Goldberg’s credibility and to state that “Nobody was texting war plans and that’s all I have to say about that.”
In a subsequent 24 March interview with CNN, however, Goldberg defended the claims made in his article, “No, that’s a lie. He was texting war plans. He was texting attack plans, when targets were gonna be targeted, how they were gonna be targeted, who was at the targets, when the next sequence of attacks were happening.”
On 26 March, following numerous denials from Trump Administration officials that any war plans had been texted, The Atlantic published a full transcript of the controversial Signal chat. In it, Hegseth posted the following outline of the US strike plan:
“1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)”
“1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME _ also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)”
“1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)”
“1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)”
“1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts _ also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.”
“MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)”
“We are currently clean on OPSEC”
“Godspeed to our Warriors.”
“If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests – or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media – the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds,” The Atlantic wrote. “The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic.”
It then emerged on 21 April 2025 that Hegseth had shared detailed plans about military operations against the Houthis on a second Signal group chat, this time one he had set up himself that included his wife, brother and lawyer. The group chat was reportedly set up during Hegseth’s confirmation hearing in January, included more than a dozen people and was continued to be used by Hegseth after he was confirmed.
Amid this latest controversy a number of Pentagon advisors in Hegseth’s orbit disappeared from their jobs. John Ullyot, the former top DoD Spokesperson, announced his resignation on 16 April, while on 18 April three top staffers at the Pentagon were fired: Senior Adviser Dan Caldwell, Deputy Chief of Staff Darin Selnick and Chief of Staff to the Deputy Defence Secretary Colin Carroll. Hegseth’s Chief of Staff, Joe Kasper, then announced he was leaving that position for a new role in the Pentagon.
Ullyot is a fully pro-Trump official who was sidelined amid controversies over the purging of supposedly DEI content from military websites, while Caldwell, Selnick and Carroll were all accused of leaks: an assertion they strongly deny.
In a 20 April opinion piece for the US news website Politico, Ullyot wrote, “It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon. From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president — who deserves better from his senior leadership.”
Ullyot also defended Caldwell, Selnick and Carroll, asserting that “Defense Department officials working for Hegseth tried to smear the aides anonymously to reporters, claiming they were fired for leaking sensitive information as part of an investigation ordered early this month. Yet none of this is true.”
Despite claiming to be a “longtime backer” of Hegseth, Ullyot nevertheless wrote that the US defence secretary “is now presiding over a strange and baffling purge that will leave him without his two closest advisers of over a decade — Caldwell and Selnick — and without chiefs of staff for him and his deputy. More firings may be coming, according to rumors in the building. In short, the building is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership.”
With regard to the ‘Signalgate’ debacle, Ullyot claimed that Hegseth “followed horrible crisis-communications advice from his new public affairs team, who somehow convinced him to try to debunk the reporting”.
Writing that this was “just the beginning of the Month from Hell”, Ullyot detailed further PS disasters: The Wall Street Journal and other outlets reporting that Hegseth brought his wife, a former Fox News producer, to two meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive information was discussed; the Pentagon setting up a top-secret briefing by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on China for Elon Musk, the Tesla-owning Trump senior advisor who still has extensive business interests in China (a meeting subsequently cancelled by the White House); the Pentagon purges; and then details emerging about Hegseth’s second Signal chat group.
Noting that Hegseth now faces an inspector general investigation into a possible leak of classified information and violation of records retention protocols, Ullyot suggested in his Politico opinion piece that “it’s hard to see Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remaining in his role for much longer”. That might not come to pass – at least in the short term – unless Hegseth himself resigns, given that, having overseen the railroading through of his appointment in the face of considerable opposition, Trump would have to concede to having made a mistake in doing so. On 21 April, when asked about Hegseth’s position, Trump stated, “Pete’s doing a great job. Everybody’s happy with him.”
That said, as numerous casualties within the first Trump Administration have demonstrated, senior officials in Trump’s orbit only have his complete support until they don’t.
The wider picture
All of the discord and disfunction at the Pentagon could be regarded as a comical sideshow if it was happening in a vacuum, but it isn’t. The war resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 continues to rage, despite Trump claiming numerous times pre-election that he could end it in 24 hours. The economic meltdown that Trump claimed would happen should his presidential rival Kamela Harris be elected is, indeed, happening – as a result of Trump’s self-instigated tariff war. Meanwhile, US relations with some of its erstwhile closest allies, as a result of both the US response to the situation in Ukraine and the imposition of US tariffs, is at perhaps its lowest level since before the Second World War. Indeed, a major fallout of the first ‘Signalgate’ incident was the revelation of how much contempt senior figures in the Trump Administration – most notably Hegseth and Vance – hold for their supposed European allies.
Beyond the eroding of allegiances forged in the grim endeavours of previous wars, the greatest danger from a dysfunctional Pentagon is nothing less than strategic. With the Trump Administration packed with appointees whose prime qualification for their positions is absolute loyalty to the Trump agenda, and with the US defence secretary devoid of senior advisors as of late April 2025, there is a growing likelihood that bad strategic decisions will progress unchallenged. If that were to materialise, the consequences could be felt far beyond US borders.
Peter Felstead
