Retired Army brigadier calls Hegseth and Trump's military meeting 'an insult'

Military observers are trying to figure out what changes will be coming to the military after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's unprecedented speech to top U.S. military leaders on Tuesday.

Ty Seidule, a retired United States Army brigadier general and professor of history at Hamilton College in New York, called the meeting a "waste of resources" in an interview with Here & Now's Scott Tong.

What is your reaction to the speech?

“I think my first one would be kudos to the generals and admirals. They affirmed their dignity, civilian control of the military and their professionalism. The American people should be really proud of them. For Secretary of Defense Hegseth, he showed to me managerial incompetence to demand these leaders drop everything, travel from around the world to see him the day before a government shutdown, which, by the way, is a catastrophe for the Department of Defense.

“By the way, most of those generals and admirals, they don't use military planes. They're flying coach, middle seat near the toilet, from Korea or Japan, or they had to leave ships for their deployment. And for what? It's just a big nothing. Did they talk about the actual problems facing our military's great power rivalry with China? No. Acquisition reform? No. His new defense strategy? No. Russia's deterrence? No. So, it's an insult, a tremendous waste of time and resources to senior leaders trying to deter war across the globe.”

Hegseth blasted what he called 'fat generals' in the Pentagon and 'fat troops.' There is new guidance from the military on physical standards now on what the military calls a gender-neutral male standard. Is this an important question?

“No. The thing is, he conflates two things. There are job-specific standards, which have always been the same, whether you're in the cockpit or leading an infantry platoon. And then they're admin standards. They're also not the same based on age. So, it changes over age. So, I just don't think this is the biggest problem facing us. And he mistakes what the real problem is. And the most important six inches on the battlefield isn’t around the waist; it's between the ears. It's our strategy. It's the way we think. And what he's saying has nothing to do with that.

“Nobody has said that we lost in Afghanistan or had trouble in Iraq because of our weight or because of those standards. In fact, it was our strategy that was the problem. And he's done nothing to address that or to think about that and to bring all of these great leaders who would, by the way, been fighting for a quarter of a century here to tell him that just seems insulting and degrading.”

President Trump talked about the 'enemy within.' What is the president signaling here about the military and potential activities on U.S. soil?

“Well, my first thought was the tactical term I think would be bonkers. I can't even figure out what that means. It's horrific because we would never use American troops to do such horrible things in our great cities.

"And then the second part is it's terrible training. We go to the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, or we do air training or sea training. We do all of these things in great ways to prepare for war. This doesn't prepare for war. It just breaks this bond we have with the American people by somehow thinking that we're going to go up against them. That's what police are for. The military is to protect and defend the United States, particularly against enemies, foreign and domestic, only when we need it. But there's nothing now that the level of the Civil War or of the riots that we've seen in the past. So, it's greatly troubling. And it's the only thing in that speech that I saw that was new, and it should trouble all Americans to hear that he wants to use his great military that way.”

The secretary promised to remove some guardrails around rules on hazing and harassment. How do you think about what he said?

“Well, I think it's terrible. I mean, we put these in there because 18 to 22-year-olds need guidance and how they're going to treat each other. And we've had a problem with sexual assault. We've had a problem with hazing in the past.

“So, these are things that we put in place to ensure the discipline of the force. And he's just making it more difficult to discipline and have good order and discipline in our great military."

This interview was edited for clarity. 

Kalyani Saxena produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Michael Scotto. Scotto also produced it for the web.