Pete Hegseth's new directives for US military personnel are undermining the standard set by previous administrations, a Nobel Prize winner has argued.
Hegseth has implemented a contentious grooming standards directive that authorizes military members to receive government-funded laser hair removal treatments while restricting eyelash extensions and certain nail polishes, justified "in support of Army readiness."
Hegseth announced a ban on military personnel attending graduate programs at nearly two dozen elite universities including Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Yale, and Georgetown, which he characterized as bastions of "wokeness" and "wicked ideologies" in February.
More recently, Hegseth ruled that military personnel would be allowed the right to refuse a flu vaccine, a decision which has been criticized by Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman.
Krugman believes these recent directives have undermined the US military standards and that they instead provide a service to President Donald Trump and, by extension, Hegseth.
Krugman wrote in his Substack, "This isn’t simply about vaccines and facial hair. These directives are part of a larger project, another step in Hegseth’s drive to cultify the US military. What do I mean by cultifying the military? I mean creating an environment in which professional integrity, military discipline, and historical precedent are destroyed in service to the personality cult of Donald Trump and his enforcer, Pete Hegseth.
"Think of these directives as loyalty tests. Hegseth can indulge his faux concerns about liberty while aligning himself with the science-hating right. If you are an officer concerned about the welfare of your troops and voice your concerns, you are out. Mention that the directive against beards is nonsensical and disproportionately harms black male soldiers with a common skin condition, then you are a woke weakling and are sent packing.
"If you are a general in possession of critical skills and hard-won experience, but served during the Biden administration, you will be unceremoniously fired.
"Simply put, the method in Hegseth’s apparent madness is to destroy the integrity of the professional military corps through destructive and despotic behavior that drives out those – like Admiral Holsey – who hold to their principles.
"And this should terrify every American. A powerful military always poses a potential threat to democracy. To keep that threat in check, the military must be presided over by an officer corps that understands that its duty is not to any one person, but to the Constitution and the rule of law. The U.S. military has been largely insulated from political influence since the nation’s founding. But Hegseth is trying to subvert that."