Hegseth will no doubt work to roll back what he calls “woke” policies within the Pentagon, as well as some of the Pentagon’s climate initiatives. He’d also “quickly identify Trump haters in the department” and remove them, says Zakheim.
But “Hegseth will discover that purging civil servants, or even bending them to his will, is far from an easy matter.”
“The executive branch bureaucracy has always managed to undermine political leaders who threatened it. Indeed, bureaucrats are most effective when it comes to protecting themselves and their turf.”
If he wins Senate confirmation, writes Zakheim, Hegseth will find that “changing the Pentagon’s behavioral and cultural patterns is easier said than done.”
“Instead, he might find himself like Gulliver, tied up in knots by the Lilliputians of the five-sided building. He would not be the first, nor the last, to suffer that fate.”
Read the op-ed at TheHill.com.
