FROM WOKE TO WAR: Pete Hegseth’s Vision Sets a Clear Path for a Muscular and Effective Military

I’ve witnessed many moments of “America is back” catharsis this year, but few have been quite as inspiring as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s declaration that he will strive to make every unit the efficient killing machine that he’d be proud to see his own son enlist to join.

Speaking at the Marine base in Quantico, Virginia, Tuesday, Hegseth didn’t just discard what he rightly described as the “debris” of wokeness at the War Department—he also laid out a clear litmus test as he looks to whip the military into tip-top shape: what he called the new War Department golden rule.

“Would I want my eldest son, who is 15 years old, eventually joining the types of formations that we are currently building?” the secretary asked.

“Do unto your unit as you would have done unto your own child’s unit,” he said. “Would you want him serving with fat or unfit or undertrained troops? … Or in a unit where standards were lowered so certain types of troops could make it in?”

“The answer is not just ‘No,’ it’s ‘Hell, no!’” Hegseth said.

Speaking as the father of a young boy, I wholeheartedly agree.

Americans viscerally grasp just how important it is for the military to be able to effectively kill the enemy when the calculus boils down to the question of who dies, my son or the enemy’s son.

That’s the fundamental question when war breaks out, and no amount of woke sermonizing will get moms and dads to say they’d rather see the “first black woman commander” or the “first transgender admiral” more than welcoming their son home alive from proud service in combat.

Hegseth instinctually grasps that the real problem with wokeness in the military isn’t that it’s offensive or that Americans didn’t vote for it, though both of those complaints are true. The real problem is how corrosive this ideology is to the fundamental mission of the War Department: preventing war from breaking out, or, failing that, winning as quickly and decisively as possible.

The war secretary noted his platoon motto: “Those who long for peace must prepare for war.”

This motto derives from the deep wisdom of the ages, from the horrific and gruesome tortures that ancient Assyrians, Romans, Aztecs, and others carried out on their victims, and from the unsettling fact that human nature does not change. We are not fundamentally different from the people who conquered and enslaved their enemies, and neither are the people who wish us ill across the globe.

The wars and rumors of wars in far-flung parts of the world, coupled with the deep divisions here at home, should jolt us out of the complacency that takes peace for granted.

It is from Hegseth’s deep conviction that “our fellow citizens … deserve peace” that he draws his motivation—“they rightly expect us to deliver” the kind of strength that prevents war.

“Should our enemies choose foolishly to challenge us, they will be crushed by the violence, precision, and ferocity of the War Department,” he declared.

It is in this context, to meet that unsettling but high calling, that Hegseth casts aside the “debris” of woke.

“For too long, we’ve promoted too many uniform leaders for the wrong reasons, based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts,” he lamented.

This trend echoed the far-left activist takeover of the federal government, where organizations dedicated to critical race theory, gender ideology, climate alarmism, and the preference for technocratic government sent their staff and policy ideas into the Biden administration like a woke octopus, leveraging the bureaucracy to force their ideology on the American people.

Hegseth rightly noted that this change ended up “promoting risk-averse go-along-to-get-along conformists.”

“We became the Woke Department,” the secretary said.

Yet, under President Donald Trump, that’s changing. “No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses, no more climate change worship,” Hegseth declared. “No more debris.”

This means setting high standards for troops of both sexes and all races, creeds, and persuasions.

“We must restore a ruthless, dispassionate, and commonsense application of standards,” Hegseth explained. “Standards must be uniform, gender-neutral, and high. If they’re not standards, they’re just suggestions—suggestions that get our sons and daughters killed.”

The war secretary also explained that everyone in the military will be held to high standards—from the lowest private to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No longer will a young man who must do physical training every day answer to someone above him who isn’t required to keep himself lean and mean.

“It’s like the broken windows theory of policing,” the secretary explained. “If you let the small stuff go, the big stuff eventually goes.”

It all boils down to that War Department golden rule: “I don’t want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape … or under a leader who was the first but not the best.”

The Left may complain, but military moms and dads will sleep better at night, knowing their sons and daughters are more likely to be stronger now, and more likely to survive if—God forbid—war does darken our shores yet again.

A focus on lethality, not dudes in dresses, is what we really expect from our armed forces, and I am proud to see it on display at Quantico today.

This article originally appeared at The Daily Signal.