The new defense secretary’s goals run counter to the military’s apolitical tradition and efforts to build a force that mirrors America.
Pete Hegseth, the newly confirmed defense secretary, has pledged to restore “the warrior ethos” to the U.S. military, which he believes has been weakened by its diversity.
His view that the military has diminished its standards in welcoming women and racial minorities might run into resistance as he takes the reins at the Pentagon, which sees its diversity as an asset and has tried to build a force that mirrors America.
Mr. Hegseth has said that standards were “lowered” as women began serving in combat positions. But he will be met by the more than 10,000 women who currently fill combat roles, from artillery and infantry positions to combat engineers and even a few Green Berets and Army Rangers.
He has vowed to “address the recruiting, retention and readiness crisis in our ranks” and to bring “lethality” back to the Pentagon. But the military has been focused on those issues for years.
“The whole Department of Defense will be ready to focus on lethality when he walks through that door, and is not going to fight him on that,” Peter Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University who has studied the military for decades, said in an interview.
Mr. Hegseth, an Army combat veteran and former Fox News host, has delivered right-wing talking points in his criticism of the military in podcast appearances and in his book, “The War on Warriors.”