The Pentagon's new leader was chosen on Friday night, January 24 when the U.S. Senate narrowly confirmed former Fox News host Pete Hegseth as defense secretary for the Trump Administration. And Hegseth, according to Politico, is starting his new job during a chaotic period.
The U.S. Army, Politico reporters Jack Detsch and Joe Gould explain in an article published on January 29, "rushed to satisfy" executive orders from President Donald Trump. And in the process, there was "so much confusion that top officials directed a halt on new contracts and then walked it back."
Detsch and Gould explain, "Top officials misinterpreted Trump's order on diversity, equity and inclusion and set an Army freeze on deals for new weapons. The Pentagon clarified, on Tuesday, (January 28), that it wasn't going to issue a pause. The move upended the defense industry and signaled a broader uncertainty around the presiden's sweeping actions."
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Trump's "quick-decision approach to governance," according to the Politico reporters, "has sent agencies scrambling."
Former U.S. Army official Becca Wasser, now a senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security, warns that this chaos isn't doing the Pentagon any good.
Wasser told Politico, "What kind of signal does this send to the defense industrial base, which is already plagued with a number of challenges? A lot of that stems from a very unclear demand signal from the U.S. government."
Similarly, a defense industry executive, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told Politico, "We are interpolating based on memos that are government-to-government and attempting to turn that into useful information."
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Read Politico's full article at this link.