After being sworn in as defense secretary for the second Trump Administration, former Fox News host Pete Hegseth vowed to bring a "warrior ethos" to the U.S. military and purge it of "wokeness." As Hegseth sees it, liberals and progressives deprived the military of the machismo it once had — and it's his job to restore it.

In a think piece published by the conservative website The Bulwark on April 21, however, retired U.S. Army Lt. General Mark Hertling argues that "might" alone is not enough for the military to be effective — and that "will" is equally crucial during major military operations.

"There are some who talk about military power as if it can be counted," Hertling explains. "Troops, aircraft, ships, budgets — these are the metrics that often dominate headlines and shape early judgments about who will win and who will lose in a war…. And one of the most enduring truths — often overlooked in the early phases of conflict — is that power is best understood not as a static inventory, but as a relationship. A useful way to think about that relationship is something I learned, long ago, from a senior officer who was a mentor to me: Power = Will × Resources."

Hertling points to Ukraine as an example of how important "will" is during wartime, stressing that despite the size of the Russian military, "will" plays a crucial role in Ukraine's battle against an invasion by Russian forces.

According to Hertling — who served as commander of U.S. Army Europe under former President Barack Obama — another thing the Trump Administration forgets is the importance of maintaining strong alliances.

"Alliances, whether formal or informal, are not optional; they are essential amplifiers of both will and resources," Hertling argues. "Ukraine understood this from the outset and has nurtured those relationships carefully. The United States, by contrast, appears to be ignoring this critical factor of modern war. In Ukraine and in other global crises, the current administration's approach — publicly questioning alliances, dismissing their value, and at times openly insulting and threatening long-standing partners — has begun to erode one of America's greatest strategic advantages,"

Hertling continues, "Allies are not just contributors of material support; they are sources of legitimacy, shared purpose, and sustained political will. Undermining them diminishes all three. It's a dangerous course, and we are beginning to see why."

According to the former U.S. Army Europe commander, "will" is a major advantage that Iran has in its war with the United States.

"That is why the most effective strategies in war are those that work constantly to align and sustain both resources and will," Hertling writes. "Ukraine has done this with remarkable effectiveness. Russia is struggling to do so. Iran is attempting to, betting that its will is strong enough to overcome its resource scarcity. And the United States, despite its immense material advantages, is increasingly at risk as it assumes that resources alone are enough. They are not."

Hertling adds, "Power comes from the alignment of will and resources — and from understanding that while resources may be measured, will is a result of how we, as a nation, are led."

Editor's Note: The story was updated on Tuesday to include a reply from the White House.

President Donald Trump’s war with Iran is benefiting Russian President Vladimir Putin, even though Putin in theory could and should do much more to protect his Iranian allies.

“Holding Moscow back are the Kremlin’s ongoing negotiations with the Trump administration to end the war in Ukraine,” wrote Foreign Affairs' Alexander Gabuev, Nicole Grajewski, Sergey Vakulenko on Monday. “The Russian leadership hopes to reap benefits from this performative process, at least in terms of limiting U.S. support for Ukraine and slowing the rollout of new sanctions targeting Russia.”

They added, “Under these circumstances, the Kremlin can’t afford to provide stronger, more visible support for Iran.”

This is not to say that Russia’s seeming impotence in the face of a US invasion of its ally is entirely due to Putin's attempts to manipulate Trump. Instead it is “in keeping with a familiar pattern: when Russia’s friends are in need, Moscow issues strongly worded statements and does little else.” They listed as examples Russia’s refusal to intervene in the Armenia-Azerbaijan war of 2023, its refusal to assist Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad against rebels in 2024 and its refusal to interfere when the US abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in 2025. On each occasion, an ostensible Russian ally was left to hang out to dry.

At the same time, “the current war in Iran has unintended consequences that benefit Russia. As the war drags on, the price of energy will likely continue to rise, which will help Moscow earn additional revenue and address a ballooning budget deficit resulting from its war in Ukraine,” Foreign Affairs wrote. In terms of its relationship with the United States, “the war in Iran is yet another distraction for the United States, diverting precious resources and bandwidth that Washington might otherwise have allocated to its European partners and Ukraine. Russia may be unable to protect its partners, but it is still skillful in adapting to strategic failures and reaping important tactical gains from them.”

Additionally, even though Russia is not providing Iran with direct military assistance that could literally prove life-saving, it may be offering secretive assistance in other ways that fly under the radar of the US and do not in other ways disrupt Putin’s other geopolitical goals.

“To be sure, Russia may well be providing assistance that is harder to observe than a weapons shipment, such as offering access to space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance that could improve Iranian targeting,” Foreign Affairs wrote. “Such assistance leaves fewer visible traces than transfers of aircraft or missile batteries, which makes it harder to track and easier to deny, but it is still consequential. Some U.S. administration officials have concluded that Moscow is clandestinely engaged in these activities, as The Washington Post recently reported.”

They added, “The exact scale and depth of this effort is difficult to estimate at this point, but its impact surely pales in comparison to the multiyear, U.S.-led intelligence assistance program that enabled Ukrainian armed forces to kill thousands of Russian soldiers since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022.”

In response to the Foreign Affairs article, White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told AlterNet that “the American people and our allies will be the winners when the objectives of Operation Epic Fury are achieved. President Trump is ensuring that the world is safe again from Iranian terror, which will no longer be allowed to disrupt the free flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.”

This is not the only wrinkle in the longtime relationship between Trump and Putin. Earlier in March, Reuters reported “when President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, some Russian hardliners were cautiously optimistic, hoping his unpredictability and transactional nature might benefit Moscow on Ukraine. But his attack on Iran means many now see him as a growing threat to Russia itself and are questioning if Trump is the pragmatic, potentially pro-Moscow strongman ready to deal in realpolitik that they thought he was.”

Indeed, nationalist oligarch and Kremlin insider Konstantin Malofeyev told Reuters that “the unprincipled United States is a threat to the entire world. This is the United States we are trying to negotiate with regarding Ukraine. Yes, it wants a weak Europe. But it also wants a weak Russia."

Similarly, The Atlantic published a February article in which senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations Thomas Graham and former Moscow correspondent for The Wall Street Journal Allan Cullison wrote that with Trump “dismantling the order that Putin had so long abhorred,” he believed he would benefit. “Putin had thought he could rise to the top of such a system, in which raw economic and military might outweigh diplomacy and alliances. But he was mistaken: The norms and institutions of the post-War order actually masked Russia's vulnerabilities. Putin has gotten the world he wished for — and it's threatening to crush him."

During Donald Trump's 2024 campaign, many MAGA Republicans attacked Democratic nominee Kamala Harris as a warmonger who, if elected, would escalate U.S. intervention in the Ukraine-Russia conflict. One of MAGA's outspoken critics of the Biden Administration's support for military aid to Ukraine was now-Vice President JD Vance, who argued that then-President Joe Biden and then-Vice President Harris needed to spend more time addressing problems in the United States and less time worrying about a far-off country like Ukraine.

But President Trump, since his return to the White House, has taken an aggressively interventionist turn — from overthrowing former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to wanting to buy Greenland to going to war with Iran. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Dakota), Fox News' Mark Levin and far-right MAGA conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer are applauding military strikes against Iran.

In an opinion column published on March 27, however, the New York Times' Michelle Goldberg highlights GOP lawmakers who are admitting, at least in private, that the Iran war is going badly.

"It is not just Democrats in Congress who fear that Donald Trump's war in Iran is going sideways," Goldberg observes. "After a classified Pentagon briefing on Wednesday, (March 25), Republican lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee appeared shaken. 'We will not sacrifice American lives for the same failed foreign policies,' said Nancy Mace, warning about the possibility of American troops in Iran. The committee chair, Mike Rogers, complained that members aren’t getting nearly enough information about war plans. Troop movements, he said, should be 'thoughtful and deliberate.' The implication was that they might not be."

According to Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colorado), a Democrat serving on the House Armed Services Committee, GOP lawmakers are privately expressing misgivings about the Iran war "that they're unwilling to show publicly."

Crow told Goldberg, "This is the first week where I have felt that there's been really any resistance to this war from Republicans."

Goldberg warns that "the big question now is" if an "American ground invasion" of Iran "is imminent."

"Someday, perhaps, when we're picking up the pieces from yet another ill-conceived war, Republicans will explain that behind the scenes, they opposed it," the liberal Times columnist writes. "One of the biggest problems in Congress, said Crow, is the gap between what people say privately and their willingness to demonstrate 'the strength of their convictions' in public. 'I'm always trying to close that gap with folks, and I always remind people that it's never too late to do the right thing,' he said. He may be right, but the sooner the better."

In a report from Axios on Tuesday, inside sources revealed "one of the biggest tactical miscalculations" made by the U.S. military under Donald Trump's watch, and it is a mistake that has likely cost lives in the ongoing war with Iran.

According to the report, the military turned down an offer from Ukrainian officials to sell them technology that could successfully counter Iran's Shahed drones. This technology had been "battle tested" against the drones, as Russia deployed them frequently during its ongoing invasion of the Eastern European nation. A PowerPoint presentation, obtained by Axios, was even created to explain to U.S. officials how effectively the tech could protect military assets and allies in the Middle East.

The military, however, turned down the offer, and insiders familiar with the situation now say that it "ranks as one of the biggest tactical miscalculations by the administration since the bombing of Iran began Feb. 28." Seven U.S. service members have been killed in the Iranian conflict since it began, with each of those deaths linked to counterattacks by Shahed drones. The U.S. military and its allies in the Middle East have also reportedly lost millions trying to intercept them.

"If there's a tactical error or a mistake we made leading up to this [war in Iran], this was it," one anonymous source told Axios.

Shahed drones are notable for how cheap they are to produce and how easily they can be mass-produced. Critics of Trump's approach to the war with Iran have observed that these drones have effectively allowed a country like Iran, with a smaller and less powerful military, to hold its own against a superpower like the U.S. American officials have also reportedly admitted that the Shahed drones are presenting a much greater threat than they anticipated heading into the conflict.

Given the extent to which Russia has deployed repurposed Shahed drones over the last four years, Ukraine is perhaps the country with the most experience countering them, and has developed what Axios called "a low-cost interceptor drone, among other sensors and air defenses, to shoot down Shahed-style drones."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly made the offer to Trump during a closed-door meeting on Aug. 18. Though the president did not actively dismiss the idea at the time, his administration has since made its disinterest clear.

"At that meeting ... in August, Trump asked his team to work on it, but they have done nothing," a Ukrainian official told Axios.

"We figured it was Zelensky being Zelensky. Somebody decided not to buy it," another American official added.

As of Thursday last week, the U.S. had reportedly reversed course and requested anti-drone aid from Ukraine.