The U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is a self-proclaimed culture warrior who wants to purge the ‘woke culture’ and restore “the warrior ethos” to the country’s military.
In his 2024 book, ‘The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,’ Hegseth has warned against what he considers to be the biggest threats to the US military: “woke” ideology, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) policies, women in combat roles, and related social experiments in the US military.
These social experiments, Hegseth argued, have systematically degraded the ‘warrior ethos’ in the US military.
DEI policies are “intentionally weakening our fighting force from within, prioritizing social experiments over lethality,” Hegseth wrote in the book. He has vowed to “address the recruiting, retention and readiness crisis in our ranks” and to bring “lethality” back to the Pentagon.
Since taking over the reins of the US Department of Defense (now named the Department of War) in 2025, Hegseth has steadily implemented these changes, bringing, according to many, the MAGA culture wars into the US military.
Hegseth eliminated DEI programs on his first day on the job, later saying that “Our diversity is our strength” was the “single dumbest phrase in military history.” He ended identity months, quotas, and any focus on diversity as a strength.
Just weeks after taking charge, Hegseth fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., only the second Black man to hold the prestigious position.
Adm. Lisa Franchetti and Adm. Linda Fagan — two of the highest-ranking women in the US Armed Forces — were also ousted. Franchetti was the first woman to lead the Navy and the first woman to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Fagan led the Coast Guard and was the first woman to lead a branch of the military.
He directed that physical fitness and combat role standards be raised to a uniform, gender-neutral, and age-neutral level, or the “highest male standard,” for everyone (including women).
“Physical standards must be high and gender neutral. If women can make it, excellent. If not, it is what it is,” Hegseth said, while urging a return to the 1990 fitness test.
Hegseth banned promotions based on race, gender quotas, and “historic firsts,” insisting that recruitment, retention, and advancement be strictly merit-based and gender-neutral.
Earlier this month, the Pentagon said it is changing the independent military newspaper Stars and Stripes to focus on “reporting for our warfighters” and no longer include “woke distractions.”
“The Department of War (DoW) is returning Stars & Stripes to its original mission: reporting for our warfighters…We will modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members… It will focus on warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability, and ALL THINGS MILITARY. No more repurposed DC gossip columns; no more Associated Press reprints,” Hegseth’s spokesman, Sean Parnell, said on X.
Now, Hegseth’s culture wars to restore “warrior ethos in the US military,” underpinned by Trump’s MAGA philosophy, have reached the doors of Harvard University.
Pentagon to End Military Training at “Woke” Harvard
Secretary of War Hegseth announced the War Department would sever its academic ties with Harvard University, because attendance at the school no longer meets the needs of the War Department or the military services.
“For too long, this department has sent our best and brightest officers to Harvard, hoping the university would better understand and appreciate our warrior class,” he said. “Instead, too many of our officers came back looking too much like Harvard — heads full of globalist and radical ideologies that do not improve our fighting ranks.”
In a separate X post, Secretary Hegseth said, “Harvard is woke; The War Department is not.”
The War Department will discontinue graduate-level professional military education, fellowships, and certificate programs at Harvard beginning with the 2026-2027 school year.
Hegseth noted that military personnel currently attending classes will be able to complete their courses of study.
Similar programs at other Ivy League universities will be evaluated in the coming weeks, Hegseth said.
Notably, Harvard has a long history with the military. People connected to the university have served in various militias for at least 100 years prior to the country’s founding.
In 1776, during the War of Independence, students were sent home early, and the campus was handed over to the Continental Army.
Over 1600 soldiers associated with Harvard participated in the US Civil War.
The campus hosted the first Army ROTC in the country, starting in 1916.
US Navy officers were trained at Harvard during the Second World War. The Harvard campus was also the epicentre of the anti-War student movement in the late 1960s.
Hegseth’s statement also acknowledged Harvard’s long association with the US military.
“In 1775 … Gen. George Washington took command of the Continental Army in Harvard Yard and used the university as a military base,” he said. “From that time, through the Korean War, military service was commonplace at Harvard. There are more recipients of our nation’s Medal of Honor who went to Harvard than any other civilian institution in the United States.”
However, Hegseth said, today Harvard is no longer a welcoming institution to military personnel or the right place to develop them.
Ironically, Hegseth himself earned a master’s degree from Harvard but symbolically returned his diploma in a 2022 Fox News segment. A Pentagon social media account run by Hegseth’s office resurfaced the clip in which Hegseth, then a Fox News commentator, returned the diploma and wrote “Return to Sender” on it with a marker.
The Secretary also highlighted concerns over Harvard’s relationships with certain foreign powers, as well as an on-campus culture that he believes is increasingly at odds with core military values and broader American interests.
“Campus research programs have partnered with the Chinese Communist Party,” he said. “And university leadership encouraged a campus environment that celebrated Hamas, allowed attacks on Jews, and still promotes discrimination based on race in violation of Supreme Court decisions.”
Going forward, Hegseth said, the War Department will focus on developing warriors, increasing lethality, and reestablishing deterrence.
“That no longer includes spending billions of dollars on expensive universities that actively undercut our mission and undercut our country,” he said.
Incidentally, Harvard had several run-ins with the Trump administration.
Earlier, the President had threatened to cut the University’s funding. On the other hand, Harvard sued the administration in a pair of lawsuits.
While Hegseth argues that he is purging Wokeism from the US military, his critics argue that he is imposing MAGA ideology on the country’s armed forces, in the process politicizing an institution that has so far remained apolitical.
Breaking the US military’s centuries-old ties with the country’s most prestigious educational institution is neither the first nor the last step Hegseth has taken to rid the military of what he sees as liberal, woke values.
To what extent these steps will restore the”warrior ethos” in the US military remains to be seen; however, what can be safely said is that the US military is now a site of deeply polarizing cultural wars.
- Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK.
- VIEWS PERSONAL OF THE AUTHOR
- He can be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com
