The US defence secretary has said he is ending “woke” culture and political correctness, telling top brass: “We are done with that s***.”
Pete Hegseth said diversity and inclusion policies would be rowed back, with changes including “gender-neutral” or “male-level” fitness standards for everyone.
He also hit out at “fat troops” and said height and weight requirements would be brought in – as well as twice-yearly fitness tests.
President Donald Trump was at the event and told reporters beforehand he was prepared to fire any generals or admirals he disliked “on the spot”.
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Speaking in Quantico, Virginia, he said the new approach was “bringing back a focus on fitness, ability, character and strength [because] the purposes of American military is not to protect anyone’s feelings”.
Mr Hegseth drove home that message as he said the days of “the woke department” were over.
“The era of politically correct, overly sensitive don’t-hurt-anyone’s-feelings leadership ends right now at every level,” he said.
“No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses, no more climate change worship, no more division, distraction or gender delusions,” added the newly rebranded secretary of war.
Mr Hegseth said the changes were not intended to stop women serving, but “physical standards must be high and gender neutral” for combat roles.
“If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it. That is not the intent, but it could be the result… It will also mean that we mean that weak men won’t qualify because we’re not playing games. This is combat. This is life or death.”
Hundreds of US military officials from around the world had been summoned abruptly to the Marine Corps base without knowing why until Tuesday morning.
The gathering included admirals and generals called in from conflict zones in the Middle East.
Mr Hegseth told them grooming standards would also be raised, with beards, long hair and “individual expression” now prohibited – “the era of unprofessional appearance is over. No more beardos”, he said.
“We don’t have a military full of Nordic pagans, but unfortunately, we have had leaders who either refuse to call BS and enforce standards or leaders who felt like they were not allowed to enforce standards,” the defence secretary added.
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A review of how bullying and hazing are defined will also take place to “empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second guessing”.
Toxic leadership has been suspected and confirmed in many military suicides in recent years, including the high-profile case of sailor Brandon Caserta who killed himself in 2018.
The changes unveiled on Tuesday follow the recent rebranding of the US Department of Defense as the Department of War.
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President Trump said last month the name sent a “message of strength” – and his speech on Tuesday also lauded America’s nuclear weapons capability.
However, he said people shouldn’t “throw around” the word.
“I call it the N-word. There are two N-words, and you can’t use either of them,” he told commanders.
“You don’t have to be that good with nuclear,” the president added. “You could have one-twentieth what you have now and still do the damage that would be, you know, that’d be so horrendous.”
He cited his repositioning of nuclear submarines in August in response to comments by Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev.
“We were a little bit threatened by Russia recently, and I sent a submarine, nuclear submarine, the most lethal weapon ever made,” Mr Trump said on Tuesday.
“Number one, you can’t detect it. There’s no way. We’re 25 years ahead of Russia and China in submarines.”
“Frankly, if it does get to use, we have more than anybody else,” the president said of America’s nuclear arsenal.
“We have better, we have newer, but it’s something we don’t ever want to even have to think about.”
