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Pete Hegseth, the combat veteran and former Fox News personality tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as his next secretary of defense, trekked up to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Jan. 14, for his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The hours-long session occurred under the backdrop of scandal, whether it was over Hegseth's past indiscretions, his lack of experience in running a large organization, and even the FBI's standard background check, which Democrats on the panel complained was incomplete.
The hearing went as you might expect. Republicans played up Hegseth's service to the nation; Democrats delved on the former TV man's allegations of sexual assault and impropriety. At one point, Hegseth got into trouble when he was asked to explain the importance of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and he went on to name countries that weren't part of the group. Hegseth's views of women in the military were a central focus for the committee's Democrats, who viewed them as archaic at best. Both political parties made their points throughout the hearing.
But therein lies the problem. Ideally, confirmation hearings are meant to poke and prod nominees on their policy views and how they would manage the departments they wish to lead. Approving (or not) a president's nominees is one of the most consequential roles of the U.S. Senate. The "advice and consent" function is a part of the U.S. Constitution for a reason. It serves as a fundamental check on the executive branch's power to run roughshod over the federal government.
What should be a forum where serious deliberations about policy take place are increasingly circus shows where lawmakers gesticulate in front of the cameras for dramatic effect, ask leading questions that tell us next to nothing about how the candidate would fulfill their duties, and treat us to long-winded monologues that serve no purpose other than getting airtime on cable television.
This is precisely what happened during Hegseth's confirmation hearing. There was very little discussion on any of the defense-related issues that mattered. How would Hegseth deal with the threat posed to U.S. interests by China's People's Liberation Army (PLA)? Is the U.S. defense budget too high or too low? Is the Pentagon effectively allocating the massive amounts of taxpayer dollars it receives every fiscal year, and if not, where do the funds need to go in order to mitigate the waste? Is outgoing Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's recommendation for an additional $55 billion in defense spending justifiable? Is the U.S. military currently postured, or are the men and women in uniform being asked to do too much?
These aren't academic questions, but very real ones that the next defense secretary will have to sort out upon coming into office. The U.S. defense industrial base is stretched to the breaking point and can't churn out enough weapons to simultaneously keep the Ukrainian army afloat, Taiwan's defenses intact, and its own readiness up to par. America's shipbuilding industry has degraded in relation to China's, even as the U.S. Navy continues to conduct a high pace of operations around the world. The waste, fraud, and abuse is so pervasive in the Pentagon that the building has yet to pass an audit.
Then there's the U.S. military's overall force posture, which remains centered on establishing a near-permanent presence in every region of the world regardless of how strategically significant it is to U.S. security interests. Three successive U.S. administrations have claimed that the Indo-Pacific is the region most vital to U.S. national security policy, yet international crises have gotten in the way of fully resourcing the shift. After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. deployed an additional 20,000 troops to Eastern Europe to firm up NATO's eastern flank (there are now approximately 100,000 U.S. forces in Europe). And when the war between Israel and Hamas erupted on October 7, 2023, the Pentagon decided to send more U.S. Navy ships and combat aircraft to the Middle East, both to deter a wider war and to reassure Israel. As we speak, the U.S. is fighting an undeclared war against the Houthis, sporadically shooting down Houthi missiles in the Red Sea, and bombing Houthi military facilities in Yemen in what resembles a game of whack-a-mole with no conceivable end in sight.
Regrettably, the senators responsible for overseeing U.S. defense policy barely touched on any of these issues. If they did, it was less to get Hegseth's opinions on the matter and more to burnish their own credentials. If you tuned in hoping to find answers, then there's a decent chance you also tuned out wondering why you bothered to watch in the first place.
Is any of this surprising? Of course not. Politicians like to hear themselves talk, and these days scoring political points is the name of the game. That doesn't make it any less depressing. This is the person who could be in charge of the most powerful military on the planet, for goodness sake. Do your jobs.
Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
