In a highly anticipated in-person speech to nearly every general and admiral in the U.S. military, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth laid down his marker: the warrior ethos must once again define America’s armed forces. A great nation needs a great military. That is his aim.

The audience mattered. Senior officers have lived for decades under politicized leadership that drained readiness and morale. Many of them became complicit in the decay. Hegseth addressed that reality head-on.

Restoring standards

No issue exposes the compromise of standards more clearly than the push to force women into combat roles. In 2015, President Barack Obama ended the combat-exclusion policy that had kept certain military professions male-exclusive. Alongside that change came the promise of a “neutral” fitness

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