The president and the defense secretary are being humiliated abroad, so they’re purging scapegoats at home.
Donald Trump might not be able to win a war abroad, but he’s found an easier target for his bullying back at home: his own military.
Trump’s war on Iran is currently mired in an interminable stalemate. Iran is still firmly in control of the Strait of Hormuz (and, by extension, the international energy market) and negotiations to end the conflict have stalled, though a shaky ceasefire remains in place. The situation favors Iran, which has learned how to absorb a great deal of pain after decades of US sanctions and is prepared to endure much worse rather than fold to Trump. Meanwhile, the longer Iran strangles the Strait, the closer the world economy edges to disaster. Even right-wing allies of the president like Gerry Baker, editor at large of The Wall Street Journal, admit that the war is “failing.”
In the face of this humiliation on the world stage, Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, are throwing scapegoats from within the US war machine under the bus.
On Wednesday, Trump unceremoniously fired Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, a billionaire crony of the president. Phelan is part of a much wider military purge. As The New York Times reports, “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired or sidelined more than two dozen generals and admirals over the past year, including the Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, earlier this month. Mr. Hegseth has also butted heads with the secretary of the Army, Daniel P. Driscoll, over promotions and a host of other issues.” On Thursday, the Pentagon fired Jacqueline Smith, the ombudsman for Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper. Her firing seems to have been politically motivated. Smith had been fending off attempts by the Trump White House to weaken the editorial independence of Stars and Stripes, which they accused of being “woke.”
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It’s not uncommon for a president facing a tough war to fire unsuccessful commanders and bring on a new team. Abraham Lincoln famously relieved Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan of command of the Union Army in 1862. (Lincoln felt that McClellan was a half-hearted warrior unwilling to aggressively engage the Confederate Army.) More controversially but justifiably, Harry Truman fired the insubordinate Douglas MacArthur in 1951.
Like these earlier presidents, Trump is struggling with the headwinds of a war that isn’t going according to plan. But, to put it mildly, the similarities end there. The latest firings aren’t motivated by a desire to build a better army. As with so many of his other decisions, they are fueled by Trump’s vanity and refusal to take responsibility for his failures. Throw in Hegseth’s ideological zeal (as evidenced in the Smith firing) and personal ambition, and you’re left with an especially toxic state of affairs.
Phelan’s sacking is a particularly ridiculous example of Trump’s overweening egoism. The president has long nursed the dream of turning the Navy into a showcase for his personal taste. This fantasy was partially inspired by his boyhood love of the 1950s TV program Victory at Sea. It is also informed by the same strong confidence in his aesthetic gifts that is fueling his attempt to turn the White House into his own, extremely tacky Versailles, and his equally garish plans for a giant arch in Washington, DC.
Last December, Trump gave a speech outlining his vision for the Navy, which would involve the creation of a new “Trump-class” of battleships:
So, the battleships are gonna be armed, just in terms of guns and missiles at the highest level. They’ll also have hypersonic weapons, many hypersonic weapons, state-of-the-art electric rail guns, and even high-powered lasers that you’ve been starting to read about. We have lasers where you aim the laser at a target, and it just wipes it out.
Trump added, “The US Navy will lead the design of the ships, along with me because I’m a very aesthetic person.” He also described his plans as the creation of a “golden fleet.” Addressing troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina in February, Trump claimed that he wanted the ships he helped design to “put a little more spirit in the hull, a little bit more, give me a little bit more hull, I want that ship to look gorgeous, you know.”
As secretary of the Navy, John Phelan ran aground on the shoals of Trump’s aquatic daydreams. As The New York Times reports:
The U.S. shipbuilding industry has nowhere near the capacity to build a technologically advanced battleship of the sort Mr. Trump is envisioning in the next few years, senior military officials said.
The Trump administration has failed over the last 16 months to nominate anyone to serve as assistant secretary for research, development and acquisition—who is supposed to oversee the Navy’s weapons programs. And the Navy’s civilian work force, which plays a critical role in developing and testing new warships, has been devastated by cuts and early retirements, military officials said.
In the days after Mr. Trump announced his plans for the new battleships, defense experts raised questions about whether they would ever be built.
Trump’s growing disenchantment with Phelan proved a perfect opportunity for Hegseth, who launched a campaign against the rival cabinet member. A Hegseth favorite, Hung Cao, a former military officer, is now acting Navy secretary.
Like Hegseth, Cao is an ideological warrior with strong ties to the religious right. (In a 2023 interview with right-wing pastor Sean Feucht, Cao warned of the dangers of witchcraft, which he claimed had taken over California and threatened Virginia.) Both men are as keen to fight the enemies of MAGA as they are foreign foes.
Trump’s narcissism is one source of instability in the military, but Hegseth’s own ambitions, ideological and personal, are the main drivers of the purge. As I noted in an earlier column, Hegseth has been especially keen to fire or stall anyone he sees as being woke or an example of DEI. The Hegseth purge has especially hurt officers who are Black, female, or trans.
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Even in an institution as conservative as the military, Hegseth’s ideological purge is getting pushback. Earlier this month, Axios quoted unnamed military officials who described the firing of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George and Army Gen. David Hodne as “insane.” Another officer was quoted as saying of the George firing, “Here is a four-star general who is actively working to get equipment and people into theater—to protect U.S. forces—and you fire him? In the middle of a war?”
But Hegseth’s actions are only “insane” if you think his main priority is winning the war in Iran. It is much more likely that Hegseth’s real agenda is creating a MAGA-dominated military. That’s one war that Hegseth has a good chance of winning, at least as long as Congress remains supine.
Civilian control of the military is a crucial democratic principle, so it is foolish to hope the military can resist Hegseth’s purge. The only path to really hold him accountable is Democratic victory in the midterms. If that occurs, Democrats need to make it a top priority to investigate and challenge Hegseth’s ideological war. In that battle, all weapons should be used, including impeachment.
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