The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - America’s Generals Gathered for...That? || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

It appears Trump and Hegseth have been getting the Led out, because the song 'Ramble On' pretty much summarizes how their speeches went the other day.Join the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/PeterZeihanFull Newsletter: https://bit.ly/4gPT30m

Hey, Al, Peter Zane here coming you from Colorado. This is a topic I was hoping to avoid, but so many people have written in on the Patreon page that I feel like I kind of have to. Today is the 1st of October. Yesterday was 30th September. And yesterday was the day that Secretary of Defense Pete Hague-Seth and the U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the entire coterie of American generals who were flown in for the speeches. Honestly, it reminded me of Gaddafi of Libya or Fidel Castro of Cuba in their later decades when they would stand in front of an audience just blah, blah, blah, blah, about nothing for hours. There didn't seem to be a point to the speech at all.

And the day before, two days before, when Trump was talking about putting himself on the agenda, he said something along the lines as, isn't it nice that so many people are coming from so far away? I'm like, the Secretary of Defense ordered them to come. This wasn't a social call. I was originally very much dreading this speech. I was expecting perhaps a really dark turn in American foreign and strategic policy. Luckily, we did not see that, which is not mean that there was anything that happened to the speech that makes me feel good. I just, that sense of dread I was feeling is no longer there.

So let's start with Hague Seth, because that was the more substantive contents, and then we'll move on to Donald Trump. Pete Hageaseth, least qualified defense secretary in American history. His words, not mine, I just happened to agree with him. He said them during his confirmation hearing. he actually said somebody who doesn't know anything about the sector whatsoever. If they were to go in could actually do better than any of the secretaries of defense that we've had since World War II. He has proven that to be lavably inaccurate at this point. Most of his speech was spent on the culture war.

Basically, it was like he was giving a long monologue back from when he was on Fox News as a correspondent. Very, very short version. He made it very clear that any sort of protections that existed for any sort of group, whether it's women or blacks or whatever, they were all going away. The physical requirements for anyone who is in a combat role will be based on men, which basically will to exclude 80 to 90% of women who are already serving from continuing if these policies are instituted. Keep in mind that the United States is going through demographic decline

and the single largest growth unit in terms of recruitment for the military for the last half decade has been women, especially as we move to a more technical military. So by establishing these criteria, we're basically guaranteeing that we're not going to be able to hit our recruitment numbers, and it's going to make hitting the technical numbers very, very difficult. Probably what this will mean is the United States will have to take a page from what it did during the war on terror, specifically in Iraq, and start playing six-figure salaries to contractors because we can't generate the staff that is necessary. So from a strategic technical recruiting equity and especially warfighting capability, this is just a series of horrible ideas.

He also made it very clear that all of these generals who have decades of experience, if they don't like it, they can quit, which is, you know, how it's supposed to go with policy, but he was kind of rude about it. Anyway, I spoke to a number of people who were in the room, and let's just say that Secretary Hexeth is not exactly well respected because of lack of his credentials. And while some secretaries, like, say Secretary Rollins in agriculture, came in not knowing much, but really put her nose to the grindstone in order to school herself up on the issues in play. Hegseth has done nothing like that. He hasn't even built a senior staff yet.

So he does a lot of proclamations like this speech today or yesterday. And then he goes and does some social media or maybe pumps iron with the troops because that's what a secretary of defense is apparently supposed to be. My favorite line from someone in the room was that if Secretary Hexseth just wanted to remind us all that he was incompetent and not worthy the position. He could have just done that in an email. It's like, harsh. Then, Donald Trump. Oh, okay, so we're going to append the full text of both speeches, Hexeth and Trumps, to you so you can read this for yourselves. But oh my God, if I were to sum it up in one word, it would be bumbling. There were really only about three full sentences in an hour of him yammering on about love's lost

and fights one and how wife is one of his favorite words. And it was obvious when those three sentences came up because he was reading directly from the teleprompter. In his opening paragraph, he said, you guys can do whatever you want. You can laugh, you can cry, whatever. Of course, if you leave the room, then there goes your career.

Inspiring, dude. There were no policy announcements. There was no strategic guidance. There was really no reason to be there aside from the fact that he had a captive audience. And from what I heard from the people who were in the room, everyone was just sitting there stone-faced the whole time because it wasn't even a political speech. It was just rambling. And the line of somebody who shared it with me that

really got me was like, if the president wanted to highlight to us that he was no longer capable, mission accomplished, I'll let you read the speech yourself. I'll let you decide for yourself. The one item that did perk people's ears up is when the president said, that he was considering using American cities as proving grounds for the U.S. military. There is not a successful country in human history that has done that, because once you turn the defenders of the nation on the citizens, then the social contract is broken and you need something new that is based on fear. That is the downfall of the Roman Empire and the Hittites and the Byzantines and any number of things since. You keep your internal security forces and your external security

forces separate at all costs. And yes, yes, yes, Portland annoys me too. But the idea that you're going to use Chicago or Nashville or anything else as a training ground? No. It was almost as if the president was daring the assembled generals to carry out their oath to defend the Constitution of the country from all foes, foreign, and domestic. And I am not comfortable with where this might lead about the only thing I can say about it is that this was one of those bumbling passages that was made in passing that was not the centerpiece of the speech. It was one line amongst a lot of mush. I don't think anyone walked out of that room encouraged by their leadership or the current state of military policy. But considering some of the things that we have seen in military and strategic policy

in the last few months, I still count this as a win.