NTK: Time to Resume the Fetal Position

The DSR Network

David Rothkopf hosts nuclear experts Joe Cirincione and Jon Wolfsthal to dissect the Trump administration's destabilizing approach to national security, focusing on Defense Secretary

Key takeaways

• Pete Hegseth's recent state of the force speech prioritized aesthetics like facial hair and waist-to-height ratios over critical issues like munitions shortages and troop retention.
• The administration is launching a new autonomous warfare command and commission led by Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and Newt Gingrich to direct future drone and AI combat strategies.

Main topics

• Military readiness & leadership purges
• Pete Hegseth's defense rhetoric

Notable quotes

He proved once again why he's completely incompetent and should not be anywhere near the Department of Defense.

Conclusion

The episode delivers a stark warning that current US defense leadership

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:04) Nine. 12. 10 28. Two. Speaker 1 (0:14) 153 Speaker 3 (0:17) This is Deep State Radio, coming to you direct from our super-secret studio in the third sub-basement of the Ministry of SNARK in Washington, D.C., and from other undisclosed locations across America and around the world. Speaker 1 (0:34) Hello, and welcome to Need to Know. I am Speaker 3 (0:37) David Rothkopf, and I am joined today by two of our friends, two of your favorites out there, nuclear weapons WMD. experts, Joe Cirincione, who you can follow. What's your sub stack called, Joe? Strategy and History. Strategy and History. You can follow him at Strategy and History. And John Wolsall, who's a fellow at Pax Sapiens. Don't you have a sub stack too? I do. It's called Thinking Nuclear. Thinking Nuclear. Well, that sounds like something none of us want to do, but I'm glad somebody's doing it and you're on it. I want to get to what I see as some serious signs that the nuclear threat situation in the world is actually getting worse, not better. But I want to start someplace else. Because I'm looking at Joe, and he's like super tanned. He's always like tanned because he's out biking or whatever he's doing. And it reminds me of some of the orange people in our government, one of whom, Pete Hegseth, appeared on stage. for his, what he called a state of the force speech, where he gave a rant that truly was SNL worthy or institution for the criminally insane worthy, in which he talked about beardos and weirdos and high testosterone and, you know, making the military more Christian and, Speaker 3 (2:11) It was weird. It was kind of a campaign speech for a Secretary of Defense, who also recently happened to visit Iowa. But let's get some reactions to it from the man in the street. Hi, Joe. What Speaker 4 (2:25) did you think? Speaker 4 (2:27) This was another embarrassing moment in Pete Hayseck's long, embarrassing career. He proved once again why he's completely incompetent and should not be anywhere near the Department of Defense. Instead of talking about the serious defense problems we have, the failing war in Iraq, in Iran rather, the inability of us to maintain forces to be deployed for any length of time, the lack of munitions that could... threaten both the existing war and any future war. The sorry state of our armed forces themselves who are suffering from the same economic conditions we have. So many of them are already on food stamps and Medicare. But instead of talking about all of that, he wants to show that he's a warrior, a cultural warrior. He wants to wage war against these weirdos and beardos, et cetera, et cetera. And in so doing, he just humiliates himself. with the kind of talk that he has. And he continues this very weird obsession with how other men look, with this obsession with manliness, so that being a warrior can be measured by your waist-to-height ratio, right? There you go. Or by whether you have facial hair or not. and whether you can button your jacket the way, as trimly as he does. And of course, he correlates his looks with somehow military capability. And I just want to remind the Secretary of Defense that the only war the United States has won since World War II, the only war we've won, the 1991 Iraq War, was led by a general who was over 200 pounds, and that's General Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. Speaker 3 (4:16) And so you're giving credit to the fatties. And, you know, I think they're glad for that out there. I agree. Both Pete and the president seem really caught up in the looks of men. I mean, really caught up. Trump is always dealing with pictures of men. And he's like, you know, he likes Jackson Dart's thighs. And he's, you know, they're all into this. And Pete Hanks, you know, you think what he's doing. is casting for the next season of Chippendales and not running the Department of Defense, which probably gave you some ideas, John, because you're a very good-looking man. Do you want to go back? No. Speaker 2 (4:53) No. Shucks. Speaker 2 (4:57) I mean, it's not surprising that somebody who was plucked off of Fox News because he looked the type should focus on how people look. And you're right, Joe. I mean, he is an embarrassment. But what worries me is what he's doing to demoralize the armed forces, the people, the men and women who serve. Speaker 2 (5:20) We are in trouble. Our fighting force is not getting the training, the equipment, the support that they need. Suicide rates are high. Retention rates are low. We're losing knowledgeable, experienced, top leadership across the leadership core. Speaker 3 (5:39) By the way, he said he was going to fire 20 % of generals and admirals. Speaker 2 (5:43) I wonder what percentage of those are going to be women and people of color. Speaker 3 (5:49) It Speaker 2 (5:49) would be shocking to me if they were fired at a disproportionately high level, given the way he's prevented people of color and women from going up the promotion that they have been recommended for and that everybody else agrees they should have. By the Speaker 3 (6:03) way, footnote, the past year is the first year in modern history where no woman has been promoted to flag officer rank. Speaker 3 (6:15) So, you Speaker 4 (6:16) know, it's... And to add to this, you know, he makes a big point about how he's going to cut the, not just the general staff, but, you know, the waste and fraud in the Department of Defense. And then at the end of his speech, he announces five new initiatives are going to be expanding the Department of Defense, expanding the budget, including this very weird one that is worth a little bit of our time. I don't know if you have thoughts on this, John. This auto war comm. this new command he's standing up to basically conduct automated warfare with drones and artificial intelligence. And then he announces that he's establishing a new commission to guide the department in the future of warfare. And who is going to head that commission? Mega Republican donor and heavy defense contractor, Elon Musk. Mega defense, mega GOP donor and defense contractor. The head of Adiril, Palmer, Palmer, Lucky, who's also Speaker 3 (7:17) an investment partner of Speaker 4 (7:20) Don Jr. Right. Donald Trump Jr. is invested in that defense contract, which depends heavily on drone and artificial intelligence contracts. And then, of course, the 83-year-old Newt Gingrich. These people are going to tell us what the future of warfare is going to be, more like what the future of their defense contracts are going to be. Speaker 3 (7:41) I mean, did that worry you at all? John, I've talked to you at times about autonomous weapons platforms, and you seem slightly uncomfortable about them. Speaker 2 (7:51) You know, you don't have to look much farther than the 150 dead schoolgirls in Iran from the first days of Donald Trump's war to see what happens when you prematurely mix artificial intelligence and warfare. This has been considered, this is now being considered by the United Nations. a potential war crime that Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump are directly responsible for, because they are the ones who have been pushing the use of AI more rapidly targeting without any military requirement, necessity, proportionality involved. There's no question that artificial intelligence and large language models can be very helpful in preparing and training a cutting edge fighting force. But the American military has done well. when we have responsible people accountable to the democracy at the helm. One of the first people that I worked with when I first got to Washington, the chairman of the board at the Arms Control Association was Stan Rezor. Stan was the secretary of the army when they investigated the My Lai Massacre, because you recognize that the chain of command was more than just, okay, who gets to check the box? There's a moral responsibility when it comes to the leadership of men and women, when you put them in harm's way and when you use... the capability of the United States to pursue military aims. And Pete Hegseth is incapable of that leadership. And so it's not surprising he wants to turn it over to a bot. Speaker 3 (9:17) Yeah, but he's got that taken care of. I don't know why you guys are so hard on Pete. Joe, he's also announced yesterday that he's setting up a new religious oversight group within the Pentagon to report directly to him. And he said, you know, the fact that we're a godly nation is why we will win. And of course, when he says religion, he's not really there for all religions. He's there for kind of an evangelical Christianity, which he thinks goes with a small waistline and high testosterone and making a fierce warrior. Are we, I mean, we're headed for the spray tan crusades. Speaker 4 (9:55) Well, he is a Christian nationalist. He believes this. And his speech is sprinkled with biblical references. And of course, he has famously a crusader tattoo on his chest, a white Christian nationalist emblem. So no, this is deeply disturbing. You can see what he's doing. He complained about it in his speech. Oh, the press says I'm purging the generals. Yes, that's right. He is purging the generals and he's putting people in place who he thinks will obey his orders or those of President Trump in what I believe is