In his address to generals and admirals late last month, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth vividly described his vision of how wars are won. Soldiers and sailors are prepared to ship out โin the dead of night, in fair weather or foul, to go to dangerous places to find those who would do our nation harm, and deliver justice on behalf of the American people in close and brutal combat if necessary,โ Hegseth said. โIn this profession,โ he went on, โyou feel comfortable inside the violence so that our citizens can live peacefully. Lethality is our calling card, and victory our only acceptable end state.โ
This stress on bravery and lethality in hand-to-hand fighting evoked Spartan and Roman warriors who stared their enemies in the eye and killed them with spears or swords. But the U.S. military is not going to confront the Athenians or Carthaginians in its next war, and the results of that war will not be determined by individual valor. Indeed, if the United States goes to war with China, its closest competitor and greatest geopolitical challenger, the bravery of soldiers on both sides will be largely irrelevant. Since the beginning of the 20th century, industrial-scale wars have been won through superiority in production capacity, logistics, and technological mastery.
Read: What Pete Hegseth doesnโ
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