Hegseth’s culture war fixation disrupting Army progress, sources say

(CNN) — In the aftermath of the resignation of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, multiple sources told CNN they believe Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is damaging the Army’s efforts to adapt to the modern battlefield as he focuses on culture wars and prioritizing his own image of the “American warfighter,” and pushes out leaders who don’t align with his vision.

In submitting his resignation, a source familiar said Driscoll brought up “concerns with the administration surrounding Army transformation and readiness and Hegseth’s blocking those efforts specifically by firing the generals who were responsible.”

Driscoll announced Tuesday evening that Wednesday would be his “last full day in the role.”

Multiple sources agreed with the concerns Driscoll raised: that Hegseth is damaging the Army’s efforts to modernize and adapt to the 21st century battlefield environment – where drone warfare is becoming increasingly important – by firing or pushing out leaders who were spearheading those efforts.

“It’s critical that you have key leaders that understand technology and have the temperament to deal with industry and turn that into the formation,” a former senior Army official said. “When you fire these guys for arbitrary reasons, it creates confusion and a void … the Army is enduring turbulence right now.”

Senior US military officials have privately acknowledged they have come under what could be characterized as political pressure during Hegseth’s tenure ­— particularly when he has prioritized culture war issues — and voiced concerns about the secretary’s recent efforts to fire or push out uniformed and civilian leaders.

A defense official in Europe told CNN that even though Hegseth has spoken about technology reform and even previously released guidance on unmanned systems, in practice they see a secretary and Pentagon leadership more focused on cultural issues than modernization.

“It’s conflicting because yeah he put out a memo saying this is important, but … he’s talking about muscles, dudes in dresses, testosterone,” the official said. “We don’t see a change at that level.”

Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell called it a “total fabrication to claim that Secretary Hegseth is not focused on modernization” and that the “entire Department is unified” behind his vision.

“Secretary Hegseth has been a transformative leader for the Department of War and, at President Trump’s Direction, has ushered in a new era of Peace Through Strength,” Parnell said. “Standards and merit are back, our arsenal is stronger than ever before, and morale and recruitment across every service are at all time highs. Secretary Hegseth has slashed bureaucracy, unleashed innovation, and delivered for our warfighters every step of the way.”

Driscoll said Tuesday evening in a post on X that it was the “honor of a lifetime” to serve under President Donald Trump and Hegseth, and that the Army “could not have made the progress we did without the support of Secretary Hegseth.”

The Army currently has five active-duty four-star general officers, and while Hegseth said early on in his tenure he would seek to reduce the number of four-star generals and admirals — something others have supported historically — sources and experts told CNN the firings don’t seem to be driven by any broader strategy.

With the resignation of Driscoll, the Army will soon be left without a confirmed chief of staff or secretary, raising concerns about the service’s future as the war with Iran continues and with significant modernizing challenges remaining.

On Wednesday, in a post on X thanking Driscoll for his service, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina called on Trump to replace Hegseth.

“I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country,” Tillis said in the post. “He is intimidated by competence and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force. I urge the President to find a new leader at the Pentagon who will retain and empower our military talent rather than diminish it.”

Mike O’Hanlon, the Philip H. Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy at the Brookings Institution, voiced optimism that the Army has a deep bench of talent and the senior levels of the Pentagon broadly have people working seriously towards modernizing the military, but that Hegseth is “disrupting” and “losing momentum” by pushing out highly respected and successful officers.

“He’s so obsessed with these false vendettas and battles,” O’Hanlon said. “If anything I think he’s pretty good on transformation, but because he wants to engage on culture wars he distracts from the real priorities.”

Focus on ‘restoring the warrior ethos’

Hegseth’s tenure has largely been marked by his aggressive stance on social and so-called culture war issues. He has gone after military personnel and leaders he perceives to be “woke;” some of the first steps he took as secretary included advocating for renaming the Defense Department the Department of War, and changing the names of Army bases back to Confederate-era titles, though naming them after different individuals with the same names.

Last October, Hegseth gathered the military’s top general officers and senior enlisted leaders and lambasted them over physical fitness standards, beards, and becoming “the woke department” who celebrated “identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses.”

He has repeatedly leaned on those same remarks since then. In August, while speaking to the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition in Panama, Hegseth criticized the Biden administration for “promoting priorites like gender issues, women, peace and security, or climate change and diversity — dudes in dresses.”

“No more DEI, no more dudes in dresses, no more social engineering,” he said in January during an official visit to the Rocket Lab in California.

Last month, Hegseth also went to campaign for Rep. Zach Nunn at the Iowa State Fair, telling the crowd the Pentagon is “restoring the warrior ethos.”

“At the Department of War, we do training not trannies,” Hegseth said.

Sources also pointed to the firings or forced exits of Army Chief of Staff, Randy George, former head of US Army Europe and Africa Gen. Christopher Donahue, and former commander of US Army Transformation and Training Command Gen. David Hodne as particularly concerning given their focus on adapting the Army for the future.

In Europe, Donahue was working quickly to learn from the Ukrainians on drone warfare and how best to equip American troops with cheap but lethal technology to defeat the kind of attacks launched by Iran in the Middle East over the last several months. The former Delta Force commander was seen as one of the most promising Army general officers in uniform.

Hodne, a widely respected Army Ranger, led the Army Transformation and Training Command in Austin, Texas. In March, he told industry and Army leaders alike that the command would “innovate with urgency” to take on threats like China, Russia, and Iran.

Donahue held a retirement ceremony last week, a couple of months after he left command in Europe with no new role assigned to him by Hegseth. Hodne was fired in April alongside George, with no public explanation.

“You’re taking away three of the most seasoned combat leaders of a generation who are in a unique position to articulate battlefield requirements,” the former senior Army official said. “So, I think that the concerns are very real.”

Driscoll and Hegseth hadn’t spoken ‘for some time’

Prior to Driscoll’s resignation, he and Hegseth had not spoken “for some time,” according to another source familiar with their relationship. Hegseth perceived both Driscoll and his deputy who also resigned, Dave Fitzgerald, as not being aligned with his priorities for the Army and the military more broadly, the source added.

“Driscoll and Fitzgerald were focused on the modernization issues and less the social,” the source told CNN, referring to Hegseth’s well-documented emphasis on the military presenting a particular public image rather than longer-term strategic priorities.

CNN has previously reported that Hegseth has been particularly focused on the Army as defense secretary, given his experience as an Army National Guard officer. A Pentagon official previously told CNN that Hegseth “has this deep-seeded distrust of the Army,” and was suspicious of Driscoll “from the very beginning.”

Many within the Army and the Pentagon saw that as a primary reason for his maneuvering his senior military assistant, Gen. Christopher LaNeve, to be the vice chief of staff of the Army. Hegseth removed the widely respected vice chief at the time, Gen. James Mingus, and replaced him with LaNeve. And when Hegseth fired George in April, LaNeve was positioned to step into the role in an acting capacity.

LaNeve’s nomination has not been officially sent to Capitol Hill for confirmation, and it is widely believed that LaNeve does not have the votes to be confirmed as the chief of staff of the Army.

When asked for comment for this story, General LaNeve declined through a spokesperson. The Army referred questions about this story to Leneve’s Army azimuth, that was released in August.

While LaNeve had some experience in the Pentagon before being brought in as Hegseth’s senior military assistant, reviews on his performance were mixed. Still, he rapidly rose to the Army vice chief of staff and now, the acting chief.

Sources in and out of the Pentagon described LaNeve to CNN as “isolated,” “in over his head,” and largely unprepared for the role of the Army’s most senior general officer. The defense official said LaNeve has requested some of his staff sign nondisclosure agreements, a step Hegseth has also taken but something highly unusual for a uniformed leader to require of their subordinate service members.

And with the Army’s push to modernize, sources said it hasn’t been clear LaNeve is up to speed and as intent on those efforts as his predecessor. His “whole shtick,” the defense official said, “is that he’s a ‘back to basics’ guy.”

That has long been his approach, according to the defense official and another source familiar with his time at the 82nd Airborne Division. Like Hegseth, LaNeve has shown an outsized interest in individual standards that are typically delegated to more junior officers and enlisted leaders to enforce. That was put into focus more when in August, LaNeve released an Army azimuth, “outlining the way forward for the Army and establishing the Army’s focus.

LaNeve wrote that the Army must “secure the borders” and embrace “a warrior mindset.” The Army has “aggressively pursued change to prepare for large scale combat operations,” LaNeve writes, and the “work of change continues.”

“Today, we emphasize the fundamentals of soldiering, ensuring a strong grounding in warrior ethos, individual soldier readiness, and small unit tactical skills,” LaNeve said. “As the Army campaigns around the world, we turn our focus to operational readiness to achieve our central task: To be ready to fight and win the battles and wars of the Nation.”

The message and LaNeve’s general “back to basics” approach is “absolutely” antithetical to the progress Donahue, George, Driscoll, and others were striving to make in modernizing the Army, a defense official in Europe said.

“Hegseth did not come into office opposed to modernization, some of Driscoll’s reforms grew directly from Hegseth’s early direction,” the defense official said. “Driscoll kept trying to change how quickly the Army could learn, experiment, and buy. Hegseth kept returning to what soldiers look like, how they behave and who gets to lead them.”

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