The new military presence on the southern border, decisions on Ukraine, Gaza and the alliance with NATO will be among the priorities of the new US Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. What other challenges and changes await the Pentagon?
When Defense Secretary Pete Heghseth begins his first official day on Monday morning, he will face a series of overwhelming challenges to address, from global conflicts and border security to administrative tasks.
At the top of the list is to address the priority of President Donald Trump to strengthen the military presence of the United States along the southern border and review if the active forces should be used for tasks of application of the law, something that is rarely done .
Dozens of other issues will compete for their attention, including the development of the huge budget of the Pentagon, decisions on the aid to Ukraine, support to the high on the fire in Gaza, troops deployments in the Middle East. Not to mention Trump's directives to eliminate federal and staff diversity programs, as well as measures to reduce waste and eliminate any remaining supporter of the Joe Biden administration.
In a message to the staff shortly after being sworn on Saturday, Hegseth cited the challenges he sees ahead. Some are the same as their predecessors, such as reorienting the army after decades of focus in the Middle East and determining China better. The continuous conflict in the region, including the October 2023 attack to Israel, has made it impossible to execute that change.
Hegseth also informed service members about other priorities, including strengthening the industrial defense base and getting the pentagon to pass an audit, while ensuring that the United States remains “the strongest and most lethal force in the world.”
He made an unnoticed stop at the Pentagon on Saturday after the swearing ceremony in the Eisenhower Executive Office building. There was no media coverage of his arrival. Later, the Pentagon published an official photo saying that Hegseth was “ready to work on behalf of the United States warriors.”
The support personnel have been meeting with military leaders, including General CQ Brown Jr., president of the Joint General Staff. But Hegesh will experience what many describe as “drinking from a hydrant” while working to quickly catch up what their 2.1 million troops and 780,000 civilians are doing. Among them there are tens of thousands serving abroad, including in combat areas.
Then there are the cultural problems against which Hegseth lashed out as a media personality that did not reach the message of Hegseth to the army. Many expect them to arise in the next few days.
Here are some of the key problems that Hegseth, who was confirmed in a tiebreaker vote on Friday by vice president JD Vancewill face immediately:
Border display
When trying to meet Trump's demand to ensure the border, Hegseth will face an avalanche of information about which troops are available, what assistance the border patrol needs and where, as well as how to host, feed and transport the troops and border staff and how to ensure that none of this affects other national security requirements.
One of its first decisions will be whether or not to recommend that active troops deployed at the border are involved in tasks of application of the law, something that military leaders in recent years have tried to avoid.
Active forces are prohibited from carrying out tasks of the law on American soil under the POSSE Comitatus Law.
In previous deployments, troops have been used for transport, intelligence, logistics, construction of walls and other support tasks, releasing the border patrol to interact with migrants and carry out the tasks of application of the law.
Transgender military
In his first executive order, Trump again eliminated the protections for the transgender soldiers that Democratic President Joe Biden had restored after Trump forbade those members to serve during his first term.
The prohibition faced legal challenges previously, and the lawyers who represented the transgender forces last time are preparing to take it to court again. Although Trump has not announced a prohibition, his decision to revoke protections is seen as a first step towards that.
It is not clear how many troops would be affected.
The Budget and Ukraine
Hegseth will have to become familiar with the complicated construction of the Pentagon budget, which is currently about 850,000 million dollars. Trump ran with the promise to make the United States army more lethal, something that Hegseth has repeated. But they have also spoken extensively about cutting the waste.
Therefore, Hegesh's footprint in the budget will be studied to determine how that is being done.
Interwoven in those discussions will be security assistance to Ukraine. The State Department has ordered a freezing of new funds for almost all the foreign help of the United States, and there was no indication of an exemption for military assistance for Ukraine such as it for Israel and Egypt.
Elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion programs
Hegseth will try to implement Trump's executive order to get rid of the dei programs, while military officers care about whether they will be fired for being “Woke”, as Hegseth has promised to do.
Officials claim that the Department of Defense does not have full -time workers assigned to DEI, so they do not expect to have to fire people, as other federal agencies have made.
Hegesh has also criticized that women are allowed to participate in combat, and has said that the standards have been reduced for them, which is not true. Since then, he has moderated his criticism after receiving considerable pressure from legislators.
He recently told the senators that he is not aware that Trump wants to reverse the decision to allow women to serve in all combat roles. Instead, he has talked about reviewing the standards.
Reproductive attention
After the Supreme Court in 2022 ended the constitutional protections for abortion, the then Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin presented a policy that would allow the members of the service to take license and be reimbursed by the travel expenses to obtain reproductive care – including Abortions and in vitro fertilization – if the military base to which they were assigned was in a state that had prohibited that attention.
It is not clear if Hegseth will want to review that policy even more to eliminate reimbursement provisions. It has been used only, and the department does not break down why the trip was due to medical privacy laws.