“We became the woke department, but not any more,” said US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, “This administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department… No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses, no more climate change worship, no more division, distraction, or gender delusions, no more debris. As I’ve said before and will say again, we are done with that shit.”

In a speech to American generals and admirals last week, Hegseth laid out in the bluntest terms his vision of the culture that a successful military requires. What he seemed to mean by “social justice, politically correct and toxic ideological garbage” was the following: first, that the US military had prioritized diversifying its membership and promoting women and people of colour and varied gender preferences at the expense of its core function of warfighting; and second, that the manner in which it had applied the laws of war had unreasonably bound the hands of America’s soldiers in combat.

Though Hegseth framed his diatribe in this consequentialist manner, one may doubt whether consequences were really the motivating factor. For Hegseth has been attacking diversity for years in contexts far removed from the military. As a student at Princeton, for instance, he wrote an article denouncing what he called the “gratuitous glorification of diversity,” and stating that, “I strive to defend the pillars of Western civilization against the distractions of diversity.”

This indicates a position based on ideology rather than consequences. And indeed, it is noticeable that in his speech last week, he provided no evidence to back up his claims that standards had been lowered in a way that harmed military effectiveness. A large section of his speech, for instance, was devoted to the need for improved fitness, and a denunciation of “fat” soldiers. I am not aware of any evidence that a lack of fitness adversely affected the outcome of any recent American wars. Nor did Hegseth produce any.

Still, if one puts all that aside, his speech does highlight a conflict between two differing conceptions of civil-military relations. The first of these sees the military as a distinct caste, with a role that requires it have a separate moral code from that of society at large. As Hegseth put it, “We are not civilians. You are not civilians. You are set apart for a distinct purpose.” The second conception of civil-military relations disagrees with this distinction. Instead, it maintains that to be able to serve the state loyally and effectively, the armed forces must share the general values of society.

Hegseth’s speech very much reflected the first conception. Warfighting, he claimed, requires a “warrior ethos.” He demanded an additional emphasis on physical training, and also a return to traditional grooming standards: “No more beards, long hair, superficial individual expression… You let the small stuff go, the big stuff eventually goes.”

This isn’t total nonsense. In many cases, modern war remains very physically demanding. In Ukraine, for instance, the ubiquity of drones makes it too dangerous for vehicles to transport troops to the front lines. Instead, soldiers have to march 10-15 kilometres to their positions, sometimes even more, all the while heavily loaded with equipment. It is hard work.

Meanwhile, what Michel Foucault called “biopolitics” play an important role in imposing the discipline that a successful military force needs. Armies control their soldiers by controlling their bodies. The emphasis on grooming, uniform dress, and so on, is considered to instil a commitment to detail that is essential in the harsh conditions of warfare.

That said, this stuff is hardly the be-all and end-all of military success. Modern militaries need people with a wide range of skills. While the infantry may have to trudge 15 kilometres to reach the front line, most soldiers are doing less physically demanding jobs. Beyond that, the “warrior” culture that Hegseth exalts has a disturbing tendency to result in abuses of power. In the first place, it encourages the view that soldiers are distinct from the rest of society and in some way “special.” In the second place, it tends to associate virtue with prowess—that is to say physical strength, courage, and skill with weapons—at the expense of other qualities. Military success is elevated above all else.

But the more that soldiers consider themselves above society, and the more they are encouraged to use force without constraint, the more likely they are to act in ways of which society disapproves. In a long exposé in the latest issue of New York Times Magazine, Canadian journalist Matthieu Aikins reveals how US special forces in Afghanistan developed a culture of widespread criminality, with the Green Berets being involved in “unlawful killing, multimillion dollar fraud, and an airstrike that destroyed a hospital full of civilians.”

Hegseth does not seem to be concerned by such matters. In his book The War on Warriors, published in June last year, he wrote that “Our boys should not fight by rules written by dignified men in mahogany rooms eighty years ago. America should fight by its own rules.” And in last week’s speech, he declared that “We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality, and authority for warfighters.”

This statement rests on a pragmatic assumption—that greater liberty to use maximum force will produce better military results. But this assumption is entirely unproven. It does not seem, for instance, that the United States lost the war in Afghanistan because of its rules of engagement.

War is not just a matter of who has the most firepower. As Clausewitz pointed out, success in war depends on a trinity of the army, the government, and the people. Lose the support of the people, and you lose the war, regardless of how good the army may be. In Vietnam, the Americans acted as Hegseth would seem to have wanted them to act—with “maximum lethality” and without “overbearing rules of engagement.” But ultimately, they lost, because the public withdrew its support, in part because many Americans were appalled by the scale of violence that their country had unleashed.

This, then, brings us to the second conception of military ethics—that which says that the armed forces must stay in line with broader social values. The Vietnam example would suggest that failure to do so backfires. A military that society sees as hostile to its values, and whose composition is seen as unrepresentative, is likely to find it difficult to garner societal support. Its funding will wither. It will find it hard to persuade the public to back it in times of war. Its ability to bring wars to a successful conclusion will therefore suffer. Hegseth considers diversity, equity, and inclusion measures to be incompatible with high military standards. But even if this were true (and he provides no evidence), if such measures win the military the public’s support, they are in the military’s interest.

Soldiering is, of course, different from other professions, and as such requires a somewhat different set of virtues. But only somewhat. Hegseth says the mission of his newly renamed “Department of War” is “preparing for war and preparing to win.” If he is serious about this, he should bear in mind that there are distinct dangers in allowing the military and society to develop too far apart.

Paul Robinson is a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy. He is the author of numerous works on Russian and Soviet history, including Russian Conservatism, published by Northern Illinois University Press in 2019.