Who is plotting against Hegseth and misplaced trust

Kyiv, from our correspondent. The wheel of scapegoating keeps turning: until a week ago, the person blamed for all America’s ills – namely, the plummeting popularity of Donald Trump and the Republican Party – was Volodymyr Zelensky with his attacks on Russian refineries; today it is Pete Hegseth, the head of the most dysfunctional Pentagon ever. The mid-term election result has corrected many of the distortions that the White House has inflicted on its foreign policy over the past month, during which, evidently, data had also reached Washington showing the crumbling of the 2024 electoral coalition; however, conversations in Kyiv suggest that no major changes are expected in relations with Washington, though there is hope that ‘the worst-case scenario’ – namely, a reduction in intelligence-sharing and the Starlink data feed – will no longer occur. The war with Iran is the reason for American voters’ discontent, and whilst Trump has said he would do it all again because it was the right thing to do, the reckoning goes far beyond the decision to start this war: the crux of the matter is how it was (mismanaged). This brings us to the head of the Pentagon, the 46-year-old former soldier and former journalist Hegseth, who has never set foot in Ukraine and is even reluctant to visit Europe – which is yet another demonstration that ‘Trump’s war’ is the one against Iran: it is on that war that he is and will be judged.

Even before the vote, rumours were circulating about Hegseth’s uncertain future: it is said that a team of political saboteurs has formed within the Trump administration, led by the chief of staff, Susie Wiles – who, according to some reports, is spreading damaging information about the head of the Pentagon – and by Vice-President J. D. Vance. 

Vance explicitly cited the war in Iran as the cause of the electoral defeat, but he was also its diplomatic face, so to speak, and must find someone more to blame than himself. Logically speaking, if a war goes wrong, it is normal for the Defence Secretary to bear the lion’s share of the responsibility, but this is not a rational government: diplomacy is entrusted to people who do not know how to handle it and who are constantly being duped by the Russians and Iranians – who, by contrast, are extraordinarily skilful in this field – and the strategic decisions regarding the war were planned so inefficiently that American arsenals are now depleted. There is a further factor that is often underestimated: reports have emerged indicating that American bases in the Gulf region have not been adequately defended; there has been far more damage and far more casualties than is officially acknowledged, and this fact will also have an impact on the Pentagon’s ongoing review of the American commitment in Europe, which – whether or not it pleases those Americans who dismiss the Russian threat as European hysteria – is under attack.

The Pentagon’s mistakes are Hegseth’s responsibility; not only is he unfamiliar with military strategies and the changing nature of warfare today, but he has also chosen to focus more on ‘culture wars’ – if we can call them that – at a time when Republican voters are no longer particularly interested in such matters. In short, we are no longer in 2024, so Hegseth’s obsession with masculinity, physical prowess, gender and race seemed even more misplaced at a time when the priority was to try to win the war that had begun against Iran amidst much internal dissent. Moreover, in his internal purges within the Pentagon – which undermined not only the careers of many generals but also the very fabric of competence within the Ministry of Defence – Hegseth made many enemies, starting with Vance himself: this happened when the Vice-President’s friend and protégé, Dan Driscoll – a young and ambitious Under-Secretary of the Army who stood in stark contrast to Hegseth – was forced to leave. Driscoll represents a rare case within the Trump Administration: he is often mentioned in connection with Ukraine because, on his first visit to Kyiv with an American delegation, he was rather brusque, stating that Russia was militarily stronger and that it was necessary to move on to a phase of negotiations based on compromise. But then Driscoll saw with his own eyes the Ukrainian organization, its technology, the ingenuity in learning to wage a completely new kind of war, and the frontline data – which is not the same as that which the Russians regularly feed to gullible Americans. And from that moment on, struck by the reality of Ukrainian innovation, he became the ‘drone guy’, the man who has sought to introduce this new technology into the US military – a technology that is also synonymous with efficiency, because, as the Ukrainians keep repeating – and they even offered practical assistance, only to be rebuffed – you don’t need a three-million-dollar Patriot interceptor to shoot down a Russian-Iranian drone that costs eighty thousand. Driscoll established a drone unit and secured production agreements, but eventually clashed with Hegseth, who perceived in him not sound ideas but merely a desire to replace him. The Pentagon chief prevailed, but it is likely that today Vance will also hold him to account for the sacking of Driscoll, who was his university mate, is a friend of his and to whom he owes his political rise.

Hegseth’s future does not look bright: there is a conspiracy within the Administration, and the newly elected Democratic MPs and senators in Congress are explicitly determined to initiate impeachment proceedings against him (this could begin even now, whilst the new Congress has not yet been sworn in, on the initiative of Kentucky MP Thomas Massie, who was ousted in the primaries by a Trump-backed candidate and is out for revenge). Trump has said he has no intention of sacking his minister, but in the meantime he has been making his usual ‘Apprentice’-style phone calls: ‘What do you think,’ he asks whoever he’s speaking to at the time, ‘should I sack him?’ This is where Trump’s improvisation comes in, and his predictions are always wrong. Yet there remains an important small step for this administration to take, beyond personal grumbles: Russia is helping Iran with military equipment and components, as well as with intelligence on targets to strike. Vladimir Putin has offered to act as a mediator between the Americans and the Iranians, whilst at the same time waging war alongside the Iranians, as the Financial Times confirms once again today, reporting that Moscow has stepped up its military aid to Tehran by supplying 90 launchers for guided missiles, and the Americans have heeded his advice. However, appeasement toward Russia prolongs the war in Ukraine and prolongs the war in Iran: the lesson from the electoral defeat is that Putin must be stopped.