Amid the Democrat congressional villain display of Tuesday’s secretary of defense assurance sessions, one fight between Pete Hegseth and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., resonated mainly strongly with me as a retired Army officer.
When Warren argued against Hegseth in his earlier works, “generals may be prohibited from working for the security industry for ten years” Warren tried to put Hegseth in a twist by asserting that he would not observe his own law, but Hegseth defused the circumstance brilliantly by replying,” I’m not a standard, senator”.
The revolving door between our government’s top ranks and the military-industrial intricate, which I believe will be a major problem for the Department of Defense in 2025, caused by laughter, came to mind.
It is generally understood that one of Hegseth’s biggest challenges will be to relax the most destructive effects of the military-industrial advanced, from cost overruns, to decades-long delays in weapons creation, to rely on in-theater specialist support, to mismatches between requirements and capabilities, to every other vice of the world of defense acquisition. Hegseth must overcome the Herculean paradigm he has been holding dear to him in this endeavor by cleaning out the Pentagon’s Subordinated Stables, but there is also a lesser-known and related social paradigm that he must transcend.
My personal encounters tell this research.  , I retired from the Army as a whole commander. My career included both peace and war assignments, frequently in tactical models that deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as serving time and time again in the feared Pentagon and Congress ‘ feared budget wars. After an incredibly fulfilling military career, I decided I wanted to move in an entirely different direction, and I went to law school after retirement, becoming a corporate lawyer ( I know, what was I thinking?! ). I entirely abandoned the military and the security sector and not looked back. However, I had several friends who stayed in support and made symbol level, and I kept in touch with most of them.  ,
My company taught me a very significant session. There is a social expectation in our current military that if you earn the rank of a basic or admiral, depending on your service, you will quickly become a member of the defense company “gravy train.” You will be receiving numerous lucrative offers from defense companies when you retire from active duty, earning you countless monetary rewards. Because of the conversations I’ve had with those same friends, I’ve even had one where I didn’t find that sentiment offensive because it was accepted as normal, only, and fair in my military career. After all, you spent all those years sacrificing for your state, why shouldn’t you be able to cash in on your victory?
As a human solicitor, I have had these same friends call me upon pensions, asking for advice on sitting on boards of directors, negotiating work or consulting deals, receiving stock options, etc. — all the benefits of being on the soup train of defence outsourcing. My friends and former comrades in arms were so excited that they ultimately received the compensation they believed they had earned and were fully entitled to.
I then realize that this is seriously flawed. In fact, when I was a captain in the Army staff and a former general officer boss attempted to sell his new company’s goods to me, I actually saw this social rot. Even so, he anticipated that I would refer to him as” sir.” I am not exaggerating when I say this nauseated me, but such is the military-industrial challenging.
Let me repeat what I said earlier. THIS IS A CULTURAL ISSUE. The mindset of the modern, senior U. S. military officer ( and increasingly, very senior NCOs ) is that obtaining a lucrative defense sector job post-retirement is a reasonable, normal, and expected perk, and there is literally nothing wrong with it, legally or ethically.
NO ONE IS SURE OF A BLUE ABOUT THIS. That is the issue.
Official Department of Defense ethics guidelines aim to reduce the impact of the revolving door, of course. These regulations are fungible, waiverable, and subject to the dictates of Department of Defense attorneys ( who are frequently sympathetic to their former bosses because, hey, the gravy train also applies to lawyers ). The idea of” selling to your original company” is subject to interpretation, and” cooling-off times” allow for more rapid reconciliation into the military-industrial difficult roller coaster. No, the issue I’m referring to here is much less a legal one than a fundamental cultural one.
Hegseth must change the cultural norm that favors the wasteful use of taxpayer funds as a reward for senior military service. In a corrupt system of defense procurement, we must somehow make it unseemly and highly repulsive for very senior officers to exchange their military honors for riches. Would you bring your new girlfriend home to Mother if this was considered a form of legal prostitution? Yes, it is legal, but would you still do so?
The military-industrial complex’s seemingly unsolvable problem will be a key component in resolving that cultural mind shift. Something needs to be done, and it starts and ends with making the practice of trading services for dollars a repulsive one.
I’m sure that countless readers are internally voicing their disapproval of the fact that military experience is a fundamental component of the defense sector and a fundamental requirement for purchasing weapons systems that work on modern battlefields. I completely agree with this sentiment. Only former warriors can provide advice to civilian engineers on what exactly works in battle.
However, we do not require admirals and generals to accomplish this. Former O-4s, O-5s, and E-7s can do this work. Because most flag officers are generationally disengaged from the realities of the tactical modern battlefield, they are actually better qualified than those more junior officers and NCOs. Instead, those flag officers are recruited solely for their influence, their ability to persuade former subordinates, and their iPhone contact lists — not because of their technical, tactical, or managerial skills. This is influence-peddling, plain and simple, and it is no different than the habits of the worst K Street lobbyists.
I sincerely hope the secretary of defense is confirmed as Pete Hegseth. I believe he is the pugnacious, “dirty boots” warrior-outsider that the corrupt defense establishment desperately needs. One of his biggest challenges will be to reform the defense procurement system, and a significant part of that reform will be the removal of our senior military leaders from the desire for the post-retirement, gravy train defense contractor.
Let’s rekindle the Department of Defense’s excellence, and that means starting with making the practice of trading senior military honors for money repugnant.
