Lethality

Pete Hegseth's (Intentional) Philosophic Miscalculation

This piece was one I wrote back on February 22, 2025, but there is precious little need for an update on it. I was briefly privy to an internet chat where supporters of the Republican Administration were rejoicing in cuts to scientific health research by the Defense Department, because, they contended, the only job of the Defense Department is military preparedness. So this oversimplification continues to propagate itself.

The one item that needs an update is the last line. Now that the Republican Administration in the USA has declared a trade war on Canada (Canada?!), even though I can see that fine land from the shores of Lake Ontario, I would fully understand if they were unable or unwilling to assist us who want to flee to their embrace right now.

A phrase that the current Republican Secretary of the Defense, Pete Hegseth, keeps using is that the US Armed Forces need to be first and foremost, even exclusively, focused on "lethality."

This emphasis on lethality is one of the most dangerous elements in the current Republican administration. It has received less attention than many of the attacks on civil society, because it makes a kind of intuitive sense. Armies engaged in warfare have to be effective at killing. But that's not what those incessant ads for military recruitment over the years have told us - "Be All That You Can Be!" "An Army of One!" "Get Education and Training while Serving Your Country." "See the World!"

Now, obviously, those ads are propaganda - but they have to have some truth to be effective enough to staff an all-volunteer armed forces. Lethality is not the virtue - or skill - touted in any of them. Because the people in charge of the armed forces until now have known that while the ability to be lethal is a crucial job skill, it is not the only skill. Consider for instance what happens when a war ends. When the troops in the field have a peace mission to perform. When getting civilians out of harm's way, or saving a lost child, become the tasks of the day. Or consider what an ethos of constant lethality means in the most common contemporary war situation - urban guerrilla warfare against snipers. Constant lethality in such a situation leads to Abu Ghraib, to war crimes, to the perception of the American military as a bullying force that cares not one whit for human life.

When everything has to be lethal in an armed force, that's not what the army of a democratic nation should be - that's likely nothing more than a jingoistic squad of sadistic mercenaries.

Mind you, I will admit that I am way over toward the pacifist side of the scale (for reference, I agree with Chris Hedges that war may be sometimes necessary, but it should be like chemotherapy for cancer - a procedure that sometimes has to happen, but that no one champions or relishes, either in anticipation or during the process itself).

But, for the sake of argument, I'm conceding the need for an armed force in every nation. And I think back over some figures from military history who displayed human qualities and yet were undeniably successful in field leadership - Antonio José de Sucre, Eisenhower, Mohammed, Joan of Arc - and reflect, would they have put "lethality" at the top of the list for soldiers and leaders. Or did they see where that would lead, as I extrapolate, to endless barbarism, a society that enjoys cruelty, massive resentment and a culture of constant vengefulness and revenge? The first Americans, as articulated in the Haudenosaunee Seventh Generation principle, understood this. They stated then that everything we do today must be imagined in terms of how it will affect society through seven generations. An army focused on lethality only does not, cannot possibly, be following that philosophy.

It is disconcerting how little North Americans know about the great South American revolutions, from Bolivar onwards. Antonio José de Sucre established universal education, for instance, as the first President of Bolivia. By Arturo Michelena - Palacio Legislativo, La Paz // Public Domain

So it occurred to me that the idea of putting "lethality" as the dominant quality for the armed forces, draws on a popular culture image: the Stormtroopers of Star Wars. Here's the description from Wiki of these ubiquitous faceless killers from the franchise:

"Imperial stormtroopers are men and women who have been recruited (or conscripted) at a young age to serve as expendable foot soldiers of the Empire...These recruits are trained at Imperial Academies spread out across the galaxy where they undergo intense conditioning that instills fierce loyalty, strict discipline and ruthless efficiency while removing any sense of individualism or empathy. As the backbone of the Imperial Army, stormtroopers are dreaded for their brutality, carrying out atrocities (and)... engaging the enemy with no regard to casualties."

Some lethal StormTroopers. Joni - stock.adobe.com

A few highlights here - "fierce loyalty" "ruthless efficiency" (that "efficiency" word again, and the same "ruthless" quality we are seeing in ICE and in Musk) and loss of "any sense of individualism or empathy." That's textbook "lethality."

This is what more than half the electorate wanted? An army of unrelenting cruelty? Because "lethality" and "mercy," while not precisely opposites, are not compatible.

And I have a sense the Republican party's defense department under Hegseth is planning an army to kill all enemies, foreign and domestic. And that includes such notorious traitors as me, my Mom, and my dog. Likely you, too, if you agreed with even one sentence of what I've written here.

Stand up and denounce "lethality" as the only job of the Military of our Democracy. Of course, I can ask you to do that, but yesterday Hegseth and his Republican president boss fired the top generals who would have been in a position to challenge that. So yeah, it's up to us.

I think it possible that things will get very very ugly, at home and abroad.

I do hope I am wrong. I hope I am overreacting. But there continues to be a part of me happy to live so close to Canada that I can see it...