Trump Sets His Sights on the Pentagon

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s SitRep, where we also had to Google “Who is Pete Hegseth?”

Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: A Trump enforcer heads to the Defense Department, the president-elect reportedly asks Putin not to escalate in Ukraine, and the death toll in Sudan’s civil war may be even worse than previously reported.

Trump Sets His Sights on the Pentagon

A little over a week after the election was called for Donald Trump, the president-elect has announced his picks to serve in all of the country’s major national security jobs.

Trump’s selection of Sen. Marco Rubio as secretary of state and Rep. Mike Waltz as national security advisor initially reassured Trump critics and foreign officials who were nervous about how he may carry out his foreign policy in a second term. Both are prominent China hawks who have sat on foreign affairs and intelligence committees in Congress.

Waltz and Rubio are “both serious and credible on foreign policy,” Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group, wrote on X. U.S. allies “around the world [are] feeling more comfortable with both of these announcements.”

Then came Tuesday night’s announcement that Trump had selected Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth, which caught many off guard. “I confess I didn’t know who he was until 20 minutes ago,” Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters, according to Politico. 

Trump’s decision to tap Hegseth, a loyalist and outspoken critic of diversity efforts at the Defense Department, offers a preview of the president-elect’s agenda for the Pentagon during his second administration.

A graduate of Princeton and Harvard, Hegseth served as an infantry officer in the Army National Guard for almost two decades, and he served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay. He has a number of military awards, including two Bronze Star medals, which are issued for heroic or meritorious service.

In 2014, he joined Fox News as a contributor before becoming a co-host of the Fox & Friends weekend edition.

If confirmed by the Senate, Hegseth, who has no government experience, would sit at the helm of one of the world’s most powerful militaries at a moment of global turmoil, as wars rage in Europe and the Middle East and China continues to prepare for a potential confrontation with the United States.

“Hegseth is undoubtedly the least qualified nominee for SecDef in American history. And the most overtly political,” Paul Rieckhoff, the founder of Independent Veterans of America, wrote in a post on X.

Hegseth has spoken out against women serving in active combat roles and has railed against diversity efforts at the Pentagon, including in a 2024 book he wrote titled, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free. In a recent podcast interview with Shawn Ryan, Hegseth said any general who had been involved in “woke shit” should be fired, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.

His views echo those of the president-elect, who has vowed to create a task force to monitor what he described as “woke generals” and to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at the Pentagon.

On Wednesday, Reuters reported that Trump’s transition team was preparing lists of military officers to be fired, potentially including Brown, though the unnamed sources they spoke to noted that the planning was in the early stages and could be subject to change as the second Trump administration’s agenda takes shape.

The Wall Street Journal also reported this week that Trump’s transition team was considering a draft executive order that would establish a “warrior board” to review and potentially remove three- and four-star generals.

A person familiar with the Trump transition team denied that any such plans were currently being considered. “There’s no plan to establish a board at this time,” said the person, who was granted anonymity to share knowledge of the transition team’s plans.

Trump clashed with the Pentagon top brass during his first term and is reported to have said he needed the “kind of generals that Hitler had.” While the president-elect appears to once again be on a collision course with senior Pentagon leaders, Hegseth’s appointment may be quietly welcomed among the rank and file, said a former Trump administration official who, like Hegseth, served in the Army and reserves for nearly 20 years. “Appointing Pete Hegseth is a much better way to empower those people,” said the former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He is getting in a political guy.”

In an interview with Foreign Policy, former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton was sanguine about Hegseth running the Defense Department. “Hesgeth has a lot to prove, but he is smart and served with honor,” said Bolton, who is now one of Trump’s most vocal critics.

“I would put him [Hegseth] in a different category than the others,” he said, referring to Trump’s choice of former Reps. Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard to serve as attorney general and director of national intelligence, respectively.

“Their connection is fealty to Trump, not loyalty. Loyalty is a good thing, but fealty, that’s a medieval idea of being subservient. He just wants yes-men and yes-women,” Bolton told FP’s Keith Johnson.

Let’s Get Personnel

Here’s whom Trump has announced so far to staff top foreign-policy and national security jobs, including those who must still be confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate and those who do not require confirmation.

Require Senate confirmation:

• Secretary of State: Marco Rubio
• Defense Secretary: Pete Hegseth
• Secretary of Homeland Security: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem
• CIA Director: Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe
• Director of National Intelligence: Tulsi Gabbard 
• U.N. Ambassador: Rep. Elise Stefanik
• Ambassador to Israel: Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee
• Attorney General: Matt Gaetz

Do not require Senate confirmation:

• National Security Advisor: Mike Waltz
• Middle East envoy: Real estate developer Steve Witkoff
• Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor: Stephen Miller
• “Border czar”: Former Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tom Homan

On the Button 

What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.

Trump talks to Putin. Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin last Thursday, the Washington Post reports, one day after Trump won the U.S. presidential election. Trump reportedly advised Putin not to escalate the war in Ukraine and expressed an interest in follow-up conversations to discuss a “resolution” of that conflict. (Curiously, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied to Russian media that the call took place.) Trump has also spoken to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky; Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO whom Trump named to co-lead a newly created Department of Government Efficiency, was also on the Trump call with Zelensky.

Israel preparing Lebanon cease-fire? The Post also reported that Trump’s return to office could result in progress in another major war in which the United States is involved, with Israeli officials telling the newspaper that the country is preparing a cease-fire deal with Lebanon as a “gift” to Trump when he takes office in January.

Haiti violence. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration suspended all flights to Haiti this week after three U.S. aircraft were shot at, forcing the closure of Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. Gang violence in the country has continued to escalate, despite the deployment of a Kenyan-led multinational police force in June intended to wrest back control from the violent gangs that have come to dominate large parts of the country.

Sudan’s grim toll. The death toll in Sudan’s civil war is likely much higher than previously reported, according to new research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Sudan Research Group, reported by Reuters. The group now estimates that some 61,000 people died in Khartoum state during the first 14 months of the conflict. Starvation and disease are the leading cause of death, but some 26,000 of the people in that total estimate are thought to have suffered violent deaths—a higher figure than the United Nations estimates for the entire country.

Snapshot 

U.S. President Joe Biden shakes hands with President-elect Donald Trump in the White House Oval Office in Washington on Nov. 13. Alex Wong/Getty Images

Put On Your Radar

Friday, Nov. 15, to Saturday, Nov. 16: The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economic leaders’ meeting takes place in Lima, Peru.

Saturday, Nov. 16: Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Lima.

Sunday, Nov. 17: Senegal holds parliamentary elections.

Monday, Nov. 18, to Tuesday, Nov. 19: The G-20 leaders’ summit takes place in Rio de Janeiro.

Quote of the Week

“We need to join NATO, making it a North Atlantic and Pacific Treaty Organization, NAPTO,” Taro Kono, a former Japanese foreign and defense minister, told Rishi.

“North Korea is now sending 12,000 or even more soldiers to Ukraine. I think European people are now recognizing that East Asia and Europe are in the same theater. East Asia is now participating in war in Ukraine. So we need to work together,” added Kono, who is a member of the Japanese parliament.

As for a second Trump administration: “We need to hope for the best but prepare for the worst,” he said.

FP’s Most Read This Week

• The 10 Foreign-Policy Implications of the 2024 U.S. Election by Stephen M. Walt
• What Trump’s Win Means for U.S. Foreign Policy by FP Staff
• Trump’s Foreign-Policy Influencers by FP Staff

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg recorded a “romantic” cover of the explicit, early 2000s rap track “Get Low” by Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz for his dating anniversary with his wife, Priscilla Chan. The song was playing when the pair first met at a college party 21 years ago, Zuckerberg explained in an Instagram post.

Zuckerberg’s cover, which he recorded with U.S. rapper T-Pain, is available on Spotify—and we’ll be the first to say, it does not slap.