Sure, service members like it when senior leaders work out alongside them, but they like it much more when senior leaders live by the same standards they impose on their troops. They also like it much more when senior leaders can keep the nation’s most precious secrets.

 

What Rusting Russian Tanks Can Teach Us About the Pete Hegseth Group Chat

By David French

Opinion Columnist

Before Russia invaded Ukraine, several leading Trumpists developed a strange fascination with the Russian Army. They contrasted masculine Russian recruitment ads, which featured chiseled Russian soldiers displaying their martial prowess, with much softer American ads on social media.

The Russians were masculine and tough, they said. Americans were woke and weak. But the illusion of Russian prowess was shattered on those battlefields north of Kyiv. There is much more to military strength than physicality and bravado. Ukraine, the much smaller representative of the so-called woke West, has turned much of Russia’s conventional arsenal into smoking ruins.

It’s telling that Hegseth is turning to martial, masculine symbolism to save his career. He’s putting out images of himself working out with Navy SEALs, as if his fitness can cover for his carelessness and incompetence.