Dear Mr. Secretary,
Tradition dictates that I begin by congratulating you on your confirmation. You seem like a man who appreciates frankness, and so I will spare you empty decorum: It would be disingenuous of me to deny that I have been opposed to your nomination to lead the Department of Defense from the moment it was announced. But the Senate has voted, and you are now the leader of the most powerful military on the planet.
Rather than offer you empty congratulations, I hope you will accept—in the spirit of the love of country that I know we both share—some unsolicited advice. You face unique challenges: You are among the least qualified major Cabinet nominees in modern American history, you have no background in leading a large organization, and you come into office with serious questions about your character and fitness, even from some in your own party. I must tell you that I believe you should have told Donald Trump last fall that you could not, in good conscience, accept his offer.
But you did accept it, and so I write to you today not as a critic, but as a fellow American. I know—as you do—that your success is essential to the security and safety of our nation, and so all of us with something to offer owe you our best efforts, including our direct and honest views.
I send these thoughts to you without partisanship or ill-will: The time for that is over. We live in dangerous times and you cannot fail in your new duties. I have no interest in lecturing you about your personal life, or your reported use of alcohol. I have been through such struggles myself, and I believe that even—perhaps especially—in challenging moments, you will choose to approach your new responsibilities with both physical and intellectual sobriety.
I worked in national security and defense affairs for nearly 40 years, including a quarter-century in which my responsibility was to educate American officers. I do not know how to be a Secretary of Defense, but based on my experience, I have three recommendations for you that I hope will contribute to a successful tenure leading America’s military.
First, and most important, I implore you to listen to the men and women working for you who have served our nation. Listening is a sign of strength, Mr. Secretary, not weakness. Every bad senior leader I ever encountered in my career, including generals, admirals, and elected officials, all had the same flaw: Insecurity. They talked and opined and issued orders instead of listening. (From your own military days, you probably remember this expression: They only had Transmit Mode, no Receive Mode.) I know you’ve been charged with shaking up the Pentagon, but the dangerous world around us will not put their plans on pause if you get distracted by a superficial domestic culture war.
You will have the power of decision on almost anything that crosses your path, but you are not omniscient. You are surrounded by a wealth of experience and expertise. Yes, some of the people under you will not be happy about the election or your confirmation, but they respect the terrible burden you’re carrying, and they are there to help you. They share your love of country, and your sense of duty. Their success is your success. They are not the enemy. Hear them out.
Speaking of enemies, you must contend with the reality that you are entering office with almost no credibility with your opposite numbers in Moscow and Beijing (and elsewhere). I say this not as an insult, but to describe in plain terms the conditions you face abroad. I have long experience with the Russians, in particular, and while they will treat you with formal courtesy, make no mistake: These are hard and dangerous people who will have no respect for a former O-5 and talk-show host. I realize it is an uncomfortable truth, but defensiveness about this will only distract you from the work ahead.
You must cover a lot of distance with those opponents. Your previous skills as a public commentator will be of no help and in fact will prove counterproductive in such situations. You cannot bully and speechify your way to respect with such people; they are tough in a way that cannot be countered with macho posturing or rants about DEI. The facile charm that worked for you in public life will be a vulnerability in dealing with our enemies, who will seek to exploit every thoughtless word. The combative punditry that works so well on cable television in America might have helped you burn time during your confirmation hearing, but none of that will serve you well in negotiations or discussions with our dedicated foes. (It won’t do you much good talking to our allies, either.)
Instead, you will find that you must rely on people who have been in the rooms you’ve never seen until now. You are not required to take their advice, Mr. Secretary, but when your counterparts call you, your staff will be able to assist you in ways you might not have considered. They can warn you about your opponent’s strategies—and weaknesses—before you even pick up the phone. Your previous career has rewarded bombast and bluster; now you will have to master judiciousness, restraint, and the strategic use of silence.
Finally, I hope that you will leave behind the kind of rhetoric that brought you to prominence. I know that you gained this post by being a loyal soldier for President Trump. The truth is that most Americans—including the Americans who serve in the U.S. military—don’t really care nearly as much as you’d think about the cultural issues that brought you into the Trump administration. You are no longer a pundit or a provocateur: From today, your fellow citizens are trusting you with the lives of their children. (“Thank you for giving us your son,” a general told one of my friends whose boy, like you, went through ROTC. “We’ll take good care of him.”)
The rest of us are trusting you with all our lives. You could well be the last person to speak to the president before he decides to go to war—or considers using nuclear weapons. Partisan attachments will be meaningless at such moments.
When I was barely 30 years old, I advised a Republican senator who was trying to decide whether to support President George H.W. Bush’s 1990 decision to go to war against Iraq in Kuwait. “Am I doing the right thing?” he asked me. At that moment, I felt as if the world had fallen on my shoulders. Nothing else mattered. “Yes, I think so,” I stammered. And then we spent hours in the gloom of a winter afternoon discussing his eventual vote to send young Americans into battle.
You will face decisions galactically greater than my one small moment with my boss 35 years ago. Some decisions you make will feel small to you, but they will have an impact on hundreds of thousands of people in the military community, and others will live with them long after you’ve left government service. More importantly, some of your answers may have existential consequences for humanity itself. The election and the speeches are over. The lives of millions—or perhaps billions—now depend on things you say that no one but the president might hear.
You are a man of faith, Mr. Secretary. We have that in common. And so I’ll close with my sincere wish that the Lord keep you and guide you in the days to come.
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