“It all starts with physical fitness and appearance,” Hegseth told hundreds of top military leaders during a speech at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia. “If the Secretary of War can do regular, hard PT [physical training], so can every member of our joint force. Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops,” he added while addressing the room full of generals and admirals. Hegseth said he was in the process of ordering 10 department directives, the first of which would ensure that all requirements for every combat Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) “returns to the highest male standard, only because this job is life or death.” The Pentagon is also implementing a combat field test for combat arms units that Hegseth said “must be executable in any environment, at any time, and with combat equipment.”

CAN'T HAVE HOT HANDSOME GENERALS ANYMORE BECAUSE OF WOKE

The Pentagon will require all members of the joint force to meet the height and weight standards twice per year, take and pass a PT test twice per year and work out during every duty day.

wait... why would you need to retake height tests? are they worried some of their soldiers were actually three kids in a trenchcoat?

Also on Tuesday, Hegseth ordered that every service and unit conduct an “immediate review of their standards.” “Any place where tried-and-true physical standards were altered, especially since 2015 when combat armed standards were changed to ensure females could qualify, must be returned to their original standard,” he said. “Other standards have been manipulated to hit racial quotas as well, which is just as unacceptable. “When it comes to any job that requires physical power to perform in combat, those physical standards must be high and gender neutral. If women can make it, excellent. If not, it is what it is,” he added. The military has repeatedly said it did not lower qualification requirements for women to serve in some of its toughest combat posts. “As long as they qualify and meet the standards, women will now be able to contribute to our mission in ways they could not before,” former Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in 2015. Marine Corps researchers compared all-male and gender-integrated combat units from 2014 to 2015. They found that all-male units were faster and stronger, but the gender-integrated groups had better problem-solving skills. Morale remained the same among the units. Women are currently held to the same standard as men to become infantry, fighter pilots, Army Rangers and to hold other combat posts.

I'm loving this "diversity allow us to better solve the problem of, uh... murdering civilians in the Middle East (and I guess now Latin America?)" argument, a real win for liberalism

There are still no women in the Navy SEALs, although at least two women have successfully completed the SEAL Officer Assessment and Selection (SOAS) program but did not proceed to Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training. The nonprofit Service Women’s Action Network pushed back Tuesday on policies “implying that the focus on diversity and inclusion distracts from the core mission of lethality.” “Our diversity is not a vulnerability — it is our single greatest strategic advantage, a force multiplier that makes our military stronger, more resilient, and ultimately, more lethal in execution,” the group said in a statement. The group reiterated the Marines Corps’ findings that diverse teams of men and women from every background are “proven to identify risks and develop more innovative, complete strategies than homogenous teams.” A force that better reflects the global population and diversity of the United States “builds deeper trust and achieves greater operational effectiveness overseas,” SWAN added.

Hegseth said his litmus test for the changes being implemented was whether he would want his eldest son to join the types of formations currently in the military. “If in any way the answer to that is ‘No’ or even ‘Yes, but,’ then we’re doing something wrong,” he said.

more governments need to adopt this innovative eldest-son-based method of evaluation

but what about the other sons, Pete? are we going to be sending them to mercenary companies? (you do have a lot of them apparently, as I just found out)

Hegseth also pledged to improve grooming standards in ways critics argue could target the religious freedoms of U.S. service members. “No more beards, long hair, superficial, individual expression. We’re going to cut our hair, shave our beards and adhere to standards,” Hegseth said. The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on the Pentagon on Tuesday to clarify Hegseth’s order and affirm that the department would maintain the religious rights of all service members. “The First Amendment guarantees military personnel the right to practice their faith — including the right of Muslim, Sikh and Jewish personnel to grow beards or cover their hair — as does established Pentagon policy,” CAIR said in a statement.

Another directive Hegseth announced at Quantico on Tuesday is geared toward “overhauling” the Inspector General process, which the secretary said had been “weaponized, putting complainers, ideologues and poor performers in the driver’s seat.” “No more frivolous complaints. No more anonymous complaints. No more repeat complaints. No more smearing reputations. No more endless waiting. No more legal limbo. No more side-tracking careers. No more walking on eggshells,” Hegseth said.

CW: SA (unfortunately i don't think I can spoiler this since spoilers can't be nested?)

well, I'm sure that's going to do wonders about SA rates in the army (https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/us-military-sexual-assault-rates-2-4-higher-govt-estimates-study-says-rcna166490)

The IG is currently investigating Hegseth for his use of Signal to share classified or sensitive information about an attack in Yemen earlier this year. Hegseth’s office has called it a “sham” review. It was unclear Tuesday how this overhaul would affect the investigation.

Hegseth called on military leaders who did not like the initiatives that he laid out on Tuesday to resign. “If the words I’m speaking today are making your hearts sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign,” Hegseth said. “I know the overwhelming majority of you feel the opposite. These words make your hearts full.”

don't even have the guts to purge people properly, they have to politely ask them to resign. weak!

Meetings between top military brass and civilian leaders are not uncommon, but the haste with which Tuesday’s meeting was called was unusual. Speaking to Military Times on condition of anonymity, one U.S. official said that some exercises and operations concerning hurricane disaster response on the East Coast were thrown into temporary confusion as leaders tried to determine which officers would need to stay back and remain in charge of operations, and which commanders were needed for the speech.

In the mid-2010s, Pentagon officials in the United States were alarmed by the military progress China and Russia were making. Both countries were investing in cyber, space, and electronic warfare capabilities as well as precision-guided munitions and long-range, ground-based weapons. U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work was particularly concerned about China, which he determined was trying to achieve parity with the United States in military technology. China had developed the DF-21D, an antiship ballistic missile with a range of nearly 1,000 miles dubbed the “carrier killer,” which posed a threat to U.S. ships—including aircraft carriers—in the Pacific. It was time, Work and others in the Pentagon concluded, to imagine what a war in the Pacific might look like and consider how the United States would win it. Inspired by the so-called offset strategies that the United States developed to counter the Soviets during the Cold War, Work proposed a “third offset” to counter China’s advantages in the Pacific. The U.S. military started drafting new warfighting concepts, such as the navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations, which involved spreading out forces over a large area and developing long-range weapons. The Pentagon also started identifying what weapons, systems, and equipment it would need to buy, prompting new investments in space capabilities, advanced sensors, and a variety of promising technologies, such as advanced sea mines. The third offset, as Work described it, was a “combination of technology, operational concepts, and organizational constructs—different ways of organizing our forces—to maintain our ability to project combat power into any area at the time and place of our own choosing.”

But in many ways, Work’s third offset was a decade ahead of its time. At the time, the United States was still the preeminent superpower. Neither China nor Russia possessed a significant military advantage over the United States—there was not much, in other words, for the U.S. military to offset. Although Work’s call to action inspired various initiatives, it never fully took shape with coherence or urgency. Today, the situation is gravely different. China’s defense industrial base is on a wartime footing, producing hardware and software at what Admiral Samuel Paparo, the head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, calls “an alarming pace.” Its military and commercial shipbuilding capacity is roughly 230 times larger than that of the United States, and its long-range missile capabilities have mushroomed over the past two decades. This means that China poses a serious threat to the U.S. military in the two concentric island chains on Beijing’s maritime flank, the second of which extends south from Japan to Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Palau. If, for example, the current tensions over Taiwan were to break out into a full-scale war, U.S. forces from Japan to Guam would be vulnerable to Chinese strikes before they even got to the fight.

Like the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War, however, China has vulnerabilities that can be exploited. It is time for the United States to develop, in earnest, a new offset strategy. Although Beijing has dominated Washington’s agenda in recent years, the Pentagon has not yet developed a modern-day equivalent of the so-called AirLand Battle concept that U.S. leaders established in the 1970s to defeat the Soviet Union in central Europe. Thus far, much of the focus has been on emerging technologies, such as autonomous systems and artificial intelligence. Technology is important, but it has never been sufficient to win wars. As Andrew Marshall, the longtime head of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, argued, “Technology makes possible the revolution, but the revolution itself takes place only when new concepts of operation develop.” The United States, in other words, needs to develop a joint concept of operation—a plan to use forces to conduct specific military operations—and it needs to follow through by making the necessary investments and acquisitions to offset Beijing’s numerical and industrial advantages. If it does not, the United States risks losing a war with China.

NEW LOOK

The United States has done this before. During the Cold War, the United States succeeded in several major efforts to offset Soviet advantages. The first was the Eisenhower administration’s New Look, which involved countering the Red Army’s significant numerical advantage in central Europe. In the 1950s, the Soviets had nearly three times the number of ground forces in Europe as the United States and its allies did, and it was building a formidable industrial base. But instead of deploying and sustaining a large standing army in Europe, which might have crippled the U.S. economy, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his administration developed New Look: the plan to build an overwhelming nuclear advantage and plan, in the event of a war, to use tactical nuclear weapons against Red Army troops, including inside West Germany. As described in the administration’s policy paper NSC 162/2, which Eisenhower approved in October 1953, the United States would develop the capability to inflict “massive retaliatory damage by offensive striking power.” The goal was to strengthen deterrence and persuade the Soviet Union not to start a war, but for the United States to nevertheless be prepared in case of a conflict. New Look was backed up by new acquisitions in nuclear weapons and long-range bombers. In 1956, for example, Eisenhower pushed through Congress a request to ramp up B-52 production from 17 to 20 aircraft per month, along with additional funding for missile research and expansion of B-52 facilities. The result was overwhelmingly successful: the Soviets were deterred in central Europe, and by the 1960s, the United States held a commanding lead over the Soviet Union in missiles—including nuclear missiles.

"Soviets were deterred in central Europe" deterred from what? I guess if you believe the Soviets were totally going to invade the rest of the world for some reason, and then they didn't, you get to credit yourself for having accomplished that somehow. Westerners do be loving to assign made-up objectives to the other side, and when they weren't accomplished, say that the other side was defeated (see the Finns and their "well, we may have lost the war (twice!) and handed over way more than the territory they initially demanded, but the Soviets didn't conquer the entirety of Finland (which was an objective they had?) so we actually won!")

A decade later, however, the United States was in danger of losing that edge in deterrence thanks to U.S. defense cuts and Soviet advancements. The Soviets had reached nuclear parity with the United States and had a three-to-one advantage in conventional capabilities in central Europe. To respond, U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s secretary of defense, Harold Brown, and Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering William Perry led a second offset. Brown and Perry realized that they could defeat Soviet forces attempting to invade Western Europe if they could effectively strike the rear-echelon forces, or those feeding the frontlines, with precision. The so-called second offset, which included the concept of AirLand Battle, thus led to a focus on acquiring stealth and precision weapons, such as the F-117 Nighthawk aircraft, the laser-guided Copperhead antitank projectile, and various precision-guided bombs and missiles. The Reagan administration continued these efforts into the 1980s as Moscow watched with alarm. In 1981, Soviet General Nikolai Ogarkov and other Soviet leaders conducted a massive exercise, called Zapad-81, to see how Soviet forces would fare against the new U.S. strategy. Afterward, Minister of Defense Dmitri Ustinov said the military balance between NATO and the Warsaw Pact was “at the moment not in our favor.”

The Pentagon, alarmed at the low weapons stockpiles the U.S. would have on hand for a potential future conflict with China, is urging its missile suppliers to double or even quadruple production rates on a breakneck schedule. The push to speed production of the critical weapons in the highest demand has played out through a series of high-level meetings between Pentagon leaders and senior representatives from several U.S. missile makers, according to people familiar with the matter. Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg is taking an unusually hands-on role in the effort, called the Munitions Acceleration Council, and calls some company executives weekly to discuss it, some of the people said. The department summoned top missile suppliers to a June roundtable at the Pentagon to kick off the industry effort. The meeting, attended by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, drew executives from several weapons makers, new market entrants like Anduril Industries, and a handful of suppliers of important parts like rocket propellant and batteries.

“President Trump and Secretary Hegseth are exploring extraordinary avenues to expand our military might and accelerate the production of munitions,” said Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, when asked about the efforts. “This effort has been a collaboration between defense industry leaders and senior Pentagon officials.” Some people involved in the effort both inside and outside of the government worry that the government’s targets aren’t realistic. Individual missiles can take two years to fully assemble. It can take several months and hundreds of millions of dollars to test and qualify weapons from new suppliers as safe and reliable enough for U.S. service members to use. There are also questions about the money needed to accelerate production. The Trump administration’s Big, Beautiful Bill, signed in July, provided an additional $25 billion in five-year munitions funding, but analysts say that hitting the Pentagon’s aggressive targets would cost tens of billions more.

“Companies don’t build these things on spec,” said Tom Karako, a munitions expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “You wait for the government to put them on contract. There needs to be an expression of support with money. It can’t just be words.” Defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon say they have responded by adding workers, widening factory floors and growing spare-parts inventories to prepare for a potential demand surge. But some suppliers have struggled to hit the new targets and are wary of splurging on orders that the government has yet to fund. Christopher Calio, the chairman and chief executive officer of Raytheon parent RTX, one of the military’s largest munitions producers, said in a July 3 letter to the Pentagon that it was ready to work with the Defense Department to increase production, but cautioned that the company would need additional money and commitments from the Pentagon to buy more munitions.

“Signaling the demand strength of these critical munitions to the supply base with Program of Record extensions…and funding to support is required,” he wrote in the letter, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Military officials have fretted about the U.S. ability to ramp up weapons production since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The Biden administration launched an effort to raise munitions production rates and smooth out supply-chain kinks in 2023. “The current conflict in Ukraine has been a wake-up call,” then-Undersecretary of Defense Bill LaPlante said at the time. “We’ve allowed production lines to go cold, watched as parts became obsolete and seen sub-tier suppliers consolidate or go out of business entirely.” New missile orders have since failed to keep up with the soaring use of expensive interceptors, including the Patriot, to defend Ukraine against intensifying Russian bombardment. U.S. officials want more of those interceptor missiles on hand to protect bases and allies around the Pacific region.

By June, the Trump administration had set even more aggressive production goals. Then the U.S. fired hundreds of high-end missiles during the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, further depleting its missile arsenal. The new acceleration council is focused on 12 weapons that the Pentagon wants on hand for a potential conflict with China, some of the people said. The list includes Patriot interceptors, Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles, the Standard Missile-6, Precision Strike Missiles and Joint Air-Surface Standoff Missiles. Patriot is a particular priority because Lockheed has struggled to keep pace with surging global demand. An early request for information asked weapons makers at the June roundtable to detail how they could increase production to 2.5 times current volumes through steps taken over the following six, 18 and 24 months, according to documents reviewed by the Journal. The military also asked suppliers to describe how they might attract new private capital and potentially license their technology to third-party manufacturers.

The Army in September awarded Lockheed almost $10 billion to make nearly 2,000 PAC-3 missiles from fiscal year 2024 to 2026. The Pentagon wants suppliers to eventually pump out that same number of Patriots each year—nearly four times the current production rate, according to some of the people familiar with the matter. A Lockheed spokeswoman said the company is exploring more investments in Patriot missile production and expects to deliver above its stated capacity for the next several years. An RTX spokesman declined to comment. The effort is also mapping supply chains down multiple tiers to find areas for potential improvement and looking for second sources where single suppliers create bottlenecks. For example, the Pentagon is calling for more production of a Boeing-made seeker nested in the missile’s nose, which has become a chokepoint for Patriot production. Boeing rushed this summer to calculate how big an order of the seekers it could fulfill and recently finished a 35,000-square-foot expansion project at its factory, which is still being outfitted with new assembly equipment. A Boeing spokeswoman said that monthly seeker deliveries have hit new records and that the company plans to further boost production.

Some suppliers say they are willing to put capital at risk before contracts are in hand. A Northrop Grumman spokeswoman said the missile supplier “invested ahead of the need with more than $1 billion across solid rocket motor production facilities,” with plans to nearly double output over the next four years. The Pentagon will soon be taking more steps to increase production, said Daniel Driscoll, the Army secretary, earlier this month. The department, he said, is planning “massively substantive changes to how we buy our stuff.”