Earlier this year, President Trump asked his senior military leaders about the possibility of a campaign against Iran. While the chairman of the Joint Chiefs urged caution, warning of consequences like a threatened closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Fox News personality and now self-styled ‘Secretary of War’ Pete Hegseth urged immediate action. His public cheerleading for strikes and his insistence that the United States must ‘let loose’ against perceived threats reflect a longer pattern: a mix of personal ambition, revivalist religion, and a hunger for a more aggressive American military posture.
Hegseth’s trajectory from Ivy League student to guard officer, pundit, veterans activist, and hawkish official illuminates why his instincts skew so bellicose. He arrived at Princeton from Minnesota aiming to forge an identity that felt more traditionally masculine. Military service offered validation, prestige, and a narrative of transformation he found lacking in his upbringing. After deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, he returned home not with a public reckoning about the limits of interventionism but with a hardened resolve to defend the wars he had served in and to elevate the warrior ethos as the country’s remedy.
His wartime record includes a Bronze Star awarded without a valor distinction, a detail critics note as emblematic of how officers of his era were decorated. Rather than grappling with the strategic failures and human costs of the post-9/11 conflicts, Hegseth embraced a rhetoric that cast the Pentagon as weak and its leaders insufficiently ruthless. Over time that rhetoric took on a sharper cultural edge: Islamophobic language, contempt for what he framed as a ‘soft’ leadership that included women and minorities, and a frequent invocation of faith as both moral justification and motivational force for war.
After leaving uniformed service, Hegseth parlayed his profile into advocacy and media. He became visible in groups backed by conservative donors that promoted privatizing veterans services and staged patriotic tours mixing music and militarized pageantry. Through that circuit he connected with Gold Star families and elite operators, cultivating ties to those who embody a particular American warrior myth. He also publicly defended Navy SEALs accused of war crimes, arguing they were unfairly vilified for tough choices in combat. When the president intervened on behalf of accused service members, Hegseth’s positioning helped normalize a more permissive view of battlefield behavior.
Israel figured heavily in Hegseth’s evolving worldview. Frequent trips and on-the-ground documentaries for his network deepened his admiration for that country’s security doctrine and its religious framing of national survival. That affinity bled into symbolic choices: a visible chest tattoo of a Jerusalem cross, other ink including an assault rifle, an American flag, and the phrase traditionally translated as ‘God wills it.’ Those markings, together with public praise for Israel’s resolve, illustrate how faith and martial identity fused in his public persona.
In the current administration, Hegseth’s ideas moved from punditry to policy. As Pentagon chief he has overseen a bombing campaign alongside Israeli forces that has struck a range of targets including civilian sites and commercial tankers. He has publicly signaled a willingness to show no mercy to enemy fighters and to frame the campaign in religious terms, asserting providential protection for US troops and describing adversaries as religious fanatics seeking apocalyptic capabilities. His office has promoted prayer gatherings, showcased Bible verses in recruitment-style materials, and hosted openly sectarian religious performers at Pentagon events. Observers warn that blending evangelism and military messaging risks alienating pluralistic service members and violating norms about the separation of church and state within the armed forces.
Not everyone in the national security apparatus has accepted the rush to conflict. Several former officials resigned or publicly expressed doubts about the immediacy of the Iranian threat, arguing that intelligence did not justify sweeping military action. Their departures underscore that Hegseth’s bellicose posture has not been universally embraced and that political and personal motivations can drive policy choices as much as clear strategic necessity.
Hegseth’s recent book and public patter further unveil his blueprint for remaking the military: reinvigorate an aggressive, male-dominated fighting culture, push back against inclusion efforts he derides as ‘lowering standards,’ and celebrate a nostalgic warrior masculinity. Critics see these prescriptions as reactionary and dangerous, a return to an era when military identity was narrowly defined by gender, race, and religiosity rather than professional competency and adherence to the laws of armed conflict.
The consequences of elevating personality-driven, faith-tinged militarism are already visible: civilian casualties, regional environmental damage from strikes in strategic waterways, and diplomatic fissures at home and abroad. For Hegseth, the campaign is more than geopolitics; it is an attempt to resolve a lifetime quest for external proof of manhood and national purpose through force. For the country, the stakes are far higher — risking another generation of military engagement justified more by wounded ego than by a clear and defensible national interest.
Jasper Craven, an investigative journalist who covers the military and veterans issues, is the author of a recent book examining the making of American military masculinity. This piece was originally published with permission and reflects reporting on Hegseth’s public record, rhetoric, and actions.
