The Warrior Myth
America’s most effective military strategy hinges on balancing lethal force with unwavering professionalism, a dynamic threatened by a renewed emphasis on “warrior ethos” at the expense of moral clarity.
The question of how the U.S. military should conduct itself is under new scrutiny, as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has declared his priorities for the Pentagon will be lethality and returning the military “to the war fighters.” In the summer of 2014, I led a company of Green Berets—from the 5th Special Forces Group—in Afghanistan’s Kunduz province, a context that underscored the complexities of this debate. President Barack Obama had recently promised an end to combat operations, a signal the Taliban interpreted as a window of opportunity. They believed the drawdown of coalition forces meant they could operate with impunity, and that our Afghan partners, weakened by fasting during Ramadan, would be unable to launch large-scale offensives. My company, alongside commandos from Afghanistan’s 5th Special Operations Kandak, decided to challenge that assumption.
Over the course of a week, we assaulted Taliban strongholds, striking where they felt most secure. During one operation in Dasht-e-Archi district, a combined American and Afghan team encountered heavy machine-gun fire immediately after dismounting from helicopters. Our soldiers responded decisively, neutralizing several enemy fighters and capturing a Taliban machine gunner. It was then that my team leader radioed me with a chilling report: his Afghan counterpart was contemplating a war crime.
The captured fighter was severely wounded, “circling the drain” as we say in the profession. An Afghan lieutenant argued that the man deserved no mercy and proposed his commandos finish him off. While understandable in the heat of battle, the proposal was unequivocally illegal and morally reprehensible. The team leader successfully intervened, preventing an execution. Our medics stabilized the man who had moments before attempted to kill them with a PKM machine gun. This decision wasn’t about what the enemy fighter deserved, but about the kind of soldiers we were—and the kind of partners we wanted the Afghans to become.
That night’s events illustrate a fundamental duality. We needed to destroy the enemy with swift, lethal violence—an imperative at the core of any army’s existence. But we also needed to act as professional soldiers, setting aside emotional impulses and upholding the law and the moral standards of the U.S. Army. Anger, resentment, and the desire for retribution are inherent to the human condition, and even the most moral individuals can be pushed to their limits by the stresses of combat.
During my 23 years as a paratrooper and Green Beret, primarily during the War on Terror, I encountered countless frustrating situations. In the early days of the Iraq War, civilians routinely confronted American soldiers, demanding answers about basic services: “When will the electricity come back on? Where can I get ice?” After repeated encounters, even the most idealistic among us began to feel resentment. But within our disciplined force, someone would invariably offer a more empathetic perspective: “That Iraqi is upset because he has no power, and he’s just trying to feed his family.” This ability to check malignant impulses before they metastasized was crucial. Through shared expectations, we held one another accountable, offering counsel to those at risk of lashing out, and, when necessary, seeking justice when our own violated our norms—as was the case with the 2006 killings of three Iraqi detainees by soldiers from the 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, a unit that had previously included a young lieutenant named Pete Hegseth.
Today, the debate over military conduct is being reignited by Hegseth’s leadership. He has declared a focus on lethality and returning the military “to the war fighters,” stating at the Army War College in April that “Everything starts and ends with warriors in training and on the battlefield. We are leaving wokeness and weakness behind.” While his experience as an infantry platoon leader in Iraq and a staff officer in Afghanistan informs his perspective, he is now tapping into a narrative that President Biden and his predecessors overly restricted rules of engagement, potentially hindering success in the post-9/11 wars. Anything that doesn’t align with his vision of lethality is dismissed as a “woke distraction,” and those advocating for restraint are labeled as remnants of a previous era.
Some aspects of this agenda are common sense. A department responsible for fighting wars should undoubtedly empower those who risk their lives in combat. However, Hegseth risks creating a false dichotomy—the idea that one must choose between lethality and professionalism. This view comes at a cost to both operational effectiveness and moral clarity.
Hegseth positions himself as a champion of the common soldier, protecting them from careerist officers. As a Fox News commentator, he has publicly supported service members accused or convicted of war crimes. Eddie Gallagher, a former SEAL, was acquitted of murder but convicted of posing with the body of a wounded prisoner and demoted (he later appeared to admit involvement in the killing on a podcast). Mathew Golsteyn, a former Green Beret officer, was charged with murdering a released Afghan detainee. Clint Lorance, a paratrooper officer, was convicted of ordering his soldiers to kill Afghan civilians. Golsteyn and Lorance both maintained their actions were legal.
Notably, these individuals were turned in not by “woke Pentagon officials,” but by fellow “war fighters.” Nevertheless, during Donald Trump’s presidency, Golsteyn and Lorance were pardoned, and Gallagher’s demotion was reversed. This represents an extreme position: that supporting American troops means avoiding any second-guessing of their actions.
The suspicion that senior officers prioritize appeasing superiors over the well-being of their soldiers is not new. Anton Myrer’s 1968 novel, Once an Eagle, contrasted the careerism of Courtney Massengale with the integrity of Sam Damon. Similarly, Jean Lartéguy’s The Centurions, a classic about the French wars in Indochina and Algeria, depicts a desire for two separate armies—one for public display and one for the brutal realities of combat. These works foreshadow the sentiment among some Iraq and Afghanistan veterans that lawyers, politicians, and timid generals hindered their victories.
Hegseth’s perspective stems from his experience as a platoon leader, where maximizing his subordinates’ ability to inflict violence was paramount. However, it also reflects a lack of experience at higher levels of leadership. The complexities of procuring weapons, balancing priorities, and maintaining international relationships were not his direct responsibility. Just as a Fortune 500 company wouldn’t hire a recent graduate as CEO, the Pentagon doesn’t assign new lieutenants to command divisions. The military typically provides emerging leaders with increasing responsibility while senior commanders temper their instincts.
On June 6, the 81st anniversary of D-Day, Hegseth posted on X about doing physical training with soldiers from the 75th Ranger Regiment. While such displays may boost morale, he appears more focused on projecting an image of a “jacked-up model warrior” than on the less glamorous work of running the Pentagon. Every branch of the military faces complex challenges—such as accelerating Navy vessel construction, which requires navigating budget constraints, personnel limitations, and nuclear safety regulations. Addressing these strategic challenges is what troops need from their defense secretary.
As a junior officer, I often felt frustrated by commanders who seemed disconnected from the realities on the ground. Sometimes, this was due to my own youthful arrogance, but often it was legitimate. I witnessed decisions made at the highest levels that wasted initiative, resources, and lives. I also understand the frustrations soldiers feel with Pentagon bureaucracy. Anyone who has been stationed at Fort Bragg knows the lengths the Army goes to avoid disturbing the red-cockaded woodpecker. Military personnel are burdened with annual training on topics like phishing scams and classified information handling, which can feel oppressive. Even the exhaustive training sessions required before the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 2011 were more disruptive than the policy change itself.
Despite these complaints about “weakness” and “wokeness,” America’s military remains most effective when it maintains both its professionalism and its warrior culture. In 2005, General Erik Kurilla, now the head of U.S. Central Command, was involved in a close-quarters fight in Mosul, sustaining multiple gunshot wounds while his sergeant major disarmed an insurgent in hand-to-hand combat. Kurilla embodied the warrior ethos, but he also insisted on holding SEAL Team 6 members accountable for deceiving superiors about the circumstances surrounding the death of a British aid worker during a failed rescue attempt in 2010.
Disciplined American forces consistently outperform those that embrace an unbound warrior mentality. In 2021, Senator Ted Cruz and others criticized U.S. Army recruiting commercials for not being “masculine enough” compared to those of the Russian Airborne Forces, only to see those same Russian forces largely decimated at Hostomel, Ukraine, nine months later. Perhaps Senator Cruz could have learned from the 2018 rout of hardened Russian veterans who challenged the U.S. military in Khasham, Syria.
Military history is replete with examples of cultures—Sparta, the Confederacy, early 20th-century Germany—that relied on martial spirit but ultimately lost to armies possessing both a warrior ethos and strategic advantages. Losing armies often blame external factors: after World War I, disgruntled Germans refused to acknowledge their unrealistic war aims and slow armament innovation, instead claiming they had been “stabbed in the back.” This mindset leads to dangerous outcomes, as Germany demonstrated two decades later.
While most wars are fought for conquest or plunder, Americans are more comfortable with the use of force when it is perceived as virtuous, an extension of our national values. This moral dimension is a strategic asset. When American forces are seen as acting immorally, national objectives are undermined, support erodes, and enemy propaganda is fueled.
Sometimes, broader strategic goals require commanders to limit soldiers’ actions. In Afghanistan in 2011, many disliked the constraints imposed on nighttime raids at the request of President Hamid Karzai. However, these constraints reflected the fundamental premise of the war: that Americans were liberators, not occupiers. Operating at the invitation of the local government meant adapting tactics and procedures to align with local sensitivities.
Leadership at the Defense Department must avoid overcorrection. Failing to recognize the brutal realities of combat and embrace a warrior ethos risks losing future wars. But a cultlike devotion to that ethos, divorced from broader values, risks losing our way.
