Economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon over their lack of direction and obsession with violence amid the Iran war.
In his Substack post, Krugman tore into Hegseth's beliefs of applying further damage to Iran as the war now enters its 30th day and talks swirl of a ground war, which President Donald Trump has not yet ruled out. Krugman was doubtful that 10,000 troops could secure the Persian Gulf or prompt oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz again.
"A month into the war, and now they’re talking about pointless ground action and/or war crimes," Krugman wrote.
He pointed to Hegseth's troubling focus on lethality.
"In this case, our Secretary of Defense, which is his legal title, although he calls himself the Secretary of War, continually argues that if only we get even more violent, if only we do even more damage, that this will somehow translate into success in Iran," Krugman wrote. "He clearly relishes the thought of violence himself. He’s now holding prayer breakfasts, and in his prayer breakfast, he called upon the Lord to support us in 'overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.'"
"I think this is deeply un-American, but anyway, aside from the evilness — I don’t think there’s any other way to put it — of the world view, how is this supposed to work?" Krugman asked. "If you look at the plans or ideas that are being bruited for using ground forces now, and that’s clearly very much sort the next step here, for using ground forces against Iran, well, yeah, you can seize Kharg Island, although hanging onto it could be very expensive, but then what?"
It's unclear at this point whether negotiations were actually underway — and what the administration's objectives were.
"Other presidents have been accused of negotiating with themselves," Krugman wrote. "Trump is negotiating with his imaginary friends. There’s no reason at all to believe that these talks are actually happening. But he then pivots midway through the post, to saying, and if we don’t get this, then we’re going to start bombing civilian power plants and water supplies."
Trump's thought process could lead to further harm, the economist argued.
"So give us what we want or we’ll commit a massive, massive war crime, which I hope is not going to happen," Krugman wrote. "But even if it did, why would you think this would open up the Strait of Hormuz? So it’s this lust for violence with no actual coherent story about how that violence is going to produce results. It’s horrifying."
"I really don’t know how this ends, except that it does feel as if this is a quagmire largely in the minds of top Trump officials, Trump himself and Hegseth, who having this utterly unshakable belief that hurting people will produce great results, respond to each failure of violence to produce results by getting even more destructive with no end game in sight," Krugman added.
Pete Hegseth Believes in the Lethality Fairy by Paul Krugman
"Overwhelming violence of action" as the solution to all problems
Read on Substack