Trump reveals plan to use US cities to train military and end ‘woke culture’

President Donald Trump revealed that he wants to use American cities as training grounds for the armed forces and joined defence secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday in declaring an end to “woke” culture before an unusual gathering of hundreds of top US military officials who were abruptly summoned to Virginia from around the world.

Mr Hegseth announced new directives for troops that include “gender-neutral” or “male-level” standards for physical fitness, while Mr Trump bragged about US nuclear capabilities and warned that “America is under invasion from within”.

“After spending trillions of dollars defending the borders of foreign countries, with your help we’re defending the borders of our country,” Mr Trump said.

Mr Hegseth had called military leaders to the Marine Corps base in Quantico, near Washington, without publicly revealing the reason until this morning.

His address largely focused on his own, long-used, talking points that painted a picture of a military that has been hamstrung by “woke” policies, and he said military leaders should “do the honourable thing and resign” if they do not like his new approach.

Meetings between top military brass and civilian leaders are nothing new, but the gathering had fuelled speculation about the summit’s purpose, given the haste with which it was called and the mystery surrounding it.

Admirals and generals from conflict zones in the Middle East and elsewhere were summoned for a lecture on race and gender in the military, underscoring the extent to which the country’s culture wars have emerged as a front-and-centre agenda item for Mr Hegseth’s Pentagon, even at a time of broad national security concerns across the globe.

Mr Trump is used to boisterous crowds of supporters who laugh at his jokes and applaud his boasts during his speeches. But he was not getting that kind of feedback from the generals and admirals in attendance.

In keeping with the nonpartisan tradition of the armed services, the military leaders sat mostly stone-faced through Mr Trump’s politicised remarks, a contrast from when rank-and-file soldiers cheered during Mr Trump’s speech at Fort Bragg this summer.

During his nearly hour-long speech, Mr Hegseth said the US military has promoted too many leaders for the wrong reasons based on race, gender quotas and “historic firsts”.

“The era of politically correct, overly sensitive don’t-hurt-anyone’s-feelings leadership ends right now at every level,” he said.

That was echoed by Mr Trump, who said “the purposes of America military is not to protect anyone’s feelings. It’s to protect our republic”.

“We will not be politically correct when it comes to defending American freedom,” Mr Trump said. “And we will be a fighting and winning machine.”

Mr Hegseth said he is loosening disciplinary rules and weakening hazing protections, putting a heavy focus on removing many of the guardrails the military had put in place after numerous scandals and investigations.

He said he was ordering a review of “the department’s definitions of so-called toxic leadership, bullying and hazing to empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second guessing”.

The defence secretary called for “changes to the retention of adverse information on personnel records that will allow leaders with forgivable, earnest, or minor infractions to not be encumbered by those infractions in perpetuity”.

“People make honest mistakes, and our mistakes should not define an entire career,” Mr Hegseth said. “Otherwise, we only try not to make mistakes.”

Bullying and toxic leadership has been the suspected and confirmed cause behind numerous military suicides over the past several years, including the suicide of Brandon Caserta, a young sailor who was bullied into killing himself in 2018.

A Navy investigation found that Mr Caserta’s supervisor’s “noted belligerence, vulgarity and brash leadership was likely a significant contributing factor in (the sailor)’s decision to end his own life”.

Mr Hegseth used the platform to slam environmental policies and transgender troops while talking up his and Mr Trump’s focus on “the warrior ethos” and “peace through strength”.

Mr Hegseth said the department has been told from previous administrations that “our diversity is our strength”, which he called an “insane fallacy”.

“They had to put out dizzying DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) and LGBTQE+ statements. They were told females and males are the same thing, or that males who think they’re females is totally normal,” he said, adding the use of electric tanks and the Covid vaccine requirements to the list as mistaken policies.

“But when it comes to any job that requires physical power to perform in combat, those physical standards must be high and gender neutral,” he said.

“If women can make it, excellent, if not, it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it. That is not the intent, but it could be the result.”

Mr Hegseth’s speech came as the country faces a potential government shutdown this week and as Mr Hegseth, who has hammered home a focus on lethality, has taken several unusual and unexplained actions, including ordering cuts to the number of general officers and firings of other top military leaders.

Mr Hegseth has championed the military’s role in securing the US-Mexico border, deploying to American cities as part of Mr Trump’s law enforcement surges, and carrying out strikes on boats in the Caribbean that the administration says targeted drug traffickers.