Washington – When the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth started his first official day on Monday morning, he would have to face a difficult array of issues to deal with global conflicts and border security to administrative tasks.
At the top of his list, President Donald Trump’s priority to strengthen American military appearance along the southern border and review it is whether active-fee forces should be used for law enforcement-something like this Should be done.
Dozens of other issues will compete for his attention, including the Pentagon’s large -scale developing budget, decisions about assistance to Ukraine, support for ceasefire in Gaza, contingent deployment in the Middle East. Along with not mentioning Trump’s instructions to get rid of the federal government of diversity programs and personnel, it proceeds to cut the garbage and remove any dull biden administration backers.
Shortly after taking oath in Saturday, the force in a message to the force, Hegseth cited the challenges he looked forward. There are some that also face their predecessors, such as rebuilding the army for decades of a Middle East focus and preventing China better. The continuous struggle in the region, including the October 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, has made it impossible to execute that change.
Hegseth also told the service members about other priorities, which included the defense industrial base and the Pentagon to pass an audit, while sure that the US became “the strongest and the most deadly force in the world” Has happened
He built an undeclared stop for Pentagon on Saturday after the swearing -in ceremony at the Executive Office Building of Eisenhwar. There was no media coverage of his arrival. The Pentagon later released an official picture, stating that Hegseth “was ready to work for the US warriors.”
Already, assistant employees are meeting with military leaders, including the chairman of General CQ Brown Junior, Joint Chief of Staff. But Hegseth will get to experience what many people describe as “drinking from firehose” because he works to work quickly as to what 780,000 citizens are doing 2.1 million service members and departments in the department. . Tens of thousands of thousands are serving abroad, including Combat Zone.
Then there are cultural issues that Hegseth took away as a media personality, which did not make it the army in Hegseth’s message. Many people hope that they will come to the surface in the coming days.
There are some major issues here which Hegseth, which was confirmed in a tiebracing vote by Vice President JD Vance on Friday, will immediately face:
Border perpetuation
In an attempt to meet Trump’s demand to achieve the limit, Hegseth will have to face information about what is available for soldiers, what help of Seema patrol is required and where, as well as home, feed and transportation How to and how to transport boundary personnel and how to ensure that no other national security requirements affect.
One of his first major decisions is whether he would recommend that active-duty soldiers deployed on the border have been included in law enforcement, a step that has been pushed by military leaders to escape in recent years.
Active-duty forces are banned from performing law enforcement duties on American soil under the Pose Committees Act. Trump has signed an executive order, in which it has been directed that his defense and homeland security secretaries have reported back within 90 days that they feel that the law of 1807 is called the Rebellion Act, which is called the Rebellion Act, The US soil allows soldiers to be used for American law enforcement during emergency situations.
During the previous deployment, soldiers have been used for transportation, intelligence, logistics, wall-construction and other support tasks, which has liberated the border patrol to interact with migrants and to conduct law enforcement duties. .
Transgender military
In his first executive order, Trump again snatched away security for transgender soldiers that Democratic President Joe Biden had restored after Trump was banned from serving during his first term.
The ban first faced legal challenges, and last time the lawyers representing transgender forces are ready to re -take to courts. While Trump has not announced the ban, his decision to cancel security has been seen as a first step towards him.
It is not clear how many soldiers will be affected. The Defense Department has no accurate figure on the number of transgender troops because every transgender person is not in the same condition of medical infection and not every transgender person identifies such a military paperwork.
The department has questioned how many transgender soldiers are for services; Services have said that they have no way to track.
Budget and Ukraine
Hegseth will have to get acquainted with the complex construction of the Pentagon budget, which is currently about 850 billion dollars. Trump fled to a pledge to make the US Army more deadly – some hegseth echoed. But he has also talked about cutting the waste on a large scale.
Therefore, Hegseth’s impression on the budget will be studied how it is being done.
Ukraine woven in those discussions will be safety assistance. The State Department has ordered a freeze on new funding for almost all American foreign aid, and there was no indication of exemption for military aid for Ukraine as it was for Israel and Egypt.
The Biden administration provided more than $ 66 billion in military assistance and weapons during the war with Russia. It had left about $ 3.85 billion in money authorized as Congress to send more weapons to Ukraine from existing US StockPiles – a amount that is not affected by foreign aid freeze. But now it is up to Hegseth and Trump to decide whether to spend it or not, and Trump has not said what he will do on Ukraine aid.
Variety, Equity and Inclusion Rollback
Hegseth captured Pentagon’s push to implement Trump’s executive order to get rid of DEI programs, coming as military officers and fretting whether he would be expelled to “wake up” , As Hegseth has promised to do it.
During the hearing of his Senate, Hegseth confirmed his commitment to focus on ambush and eliminate vokes, arguing that the dei does not prefer “divided” soldiers and “meritocracy”.
Officials said that the Defense Department has no full -time laborers assigned to DEI, so they do not expect people to do not expect to set fire, as other federal agencies have.
But senior leaders are pouring on their websites to remove pages that mention diversity. Reduction in clear guidance, employees were often pulling down the websites in inconsistent ways. For example, the army temporarily removed its sexual assault guidelines before coming back online.
Hegseth has also said against women in his books and on podcasts and said that the standards were reduced, which is not true. He has since criticized MPs after sufficient pushbacks.
He recently told the senators that he did not know that Trump wants to return the decision to allow women to serve in all fighter jobs. Instead, he has talked about reviewing the standards.
Reproductive care
Constitutional security for abortion ended after the Supreme Court in 2022. -If the military bases were assigned to the military base, including the Bhurpat and in-Vitro fertilization, there was a state that banned that care.
It is not clear whether the Hegseth will try to further modify that policy to remove the reimbursement provisions. It is rarely used only, and the department does not break what was for the journey due to medical privacy laws.