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Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Saturday outlined four distinct lines of effort for the War Department to take to guarantee peace through strength for the United States and its allies in the coming years.
One Pentagon official speaking on background said his remarks at the Ronald Reagan National Library’s annual defense forum in Simi Valley, California, represented a preview of the Pentagon’s forthcoming National Defense Strategy.
The NDS follows the National Security Strategy, which the White House released last week.
“Make no mistake about it: President [Donald] Trump is hellbent on maintaining and accelerating the most powerful military the world has ever seen; the most powerful, the most lethal and American-made … the Arsenal of Freedom,” Hegseth said.
He added that the War Department is also working to get back to basics on the topics of restoring the warrior ethos, readiness, accountability, standards, discipline and lethality.
Hegseth also said that the Trump administration and the War Department are committed to putting America first and avoiding getting into seemingly unending foreign entanglements, as well as prioritizing the nation's security, freedom and prosperity of its citizens.
“We're doing it in a way that leaves not only our nation better off, but the world. Out with utopian idealism, and in with hard-nosed realism,” he said.
To achieve those goals, Hegseth said it's necessary to prioritize the aforementioned “four key lines of effort” at the War Department: defending the U.S. homeland and its hemisphere; deterring China through strength rather than force; increasing burden sharing between the United States and its allies and partners; and supercharging America's defense industrial base.
Speaking on the first topic of defending the U.S. homeland and its citizens, Hegseth said that since Jan. 20 and under Trump's direction, the War Department has made increasing security at the southern border and gaining 100% operational control a top priority.
“We did so by surging forces, where our troops partner with [the Department of Homeland Security] and [U.S Customs and Border Protection] to seal the border,” Hegseth said, adding that the number of illegal border crossings today is at virtually zero.
He added that the War Department is proud to support law enforcement in the deportation of dangerous criminals here illegally and that the War Department and its interagency partners are leaning on their Mexican counterparts to do their part to combat illegal immigration and drug trafficking.
Hegseth also said that the U.S. border should be the last line of defense rather than the first, and that’s why the War Department is prioritizing combatting narco-terrorist throughout the Western Hemisphere.
“These narco-terrorists are the al-Qaida of our hemisphere, and we are hunting them with the same sophistication and precision that we hunted al-Qaida,” Hegseth said, adding that our allies in the region are also aiding in combating narco-terrorism.
—Reported by Matthew Olay
Pentagon News
