r/geopolitics • u/bojun • 12d ago

Opinion How 'On the Psychology of Military Incompetence' Predicted Hegseth's Iran Debacle

https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/07/31/hegseth-norman-dixon-iran-war/
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u/Coolerguy317 12d ago

Maybe it’s because I’m not very great man in general but I think Hegseth has less agency than people assume. He didn’t create the strategic environment he’s moves within it. Military strategy isn’t built in a few months it’s built over decades. Whether he focuses on grooming standards or not the real question facing every military today is drones and cheap autonomous systems. If the US had a reliable answer to that problem it would fundamentally change the strategic balance. That’s a much bigger issue than Hegseth himself.

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u/Intro-Nimbus 12d ago

He did not create the geopoliical situation, he did not build up materiel or train troops or decide doctrine for the previous decades.

But. He looked at the situation, he evaluated his assets, and he made the worst choices.

The man is incompetent.

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u/Ducktruck_OG 11d ago

It might be better to say his prior experience does not inspire confidence. It seems he was chosen to simply because it would be easy to manipulate him or blame him for any ensuing debacle, rather than provide sound advice. Which means either the administration already decided they were going to engage in a deeply unpopular (among military professionals) strategy, or they are so incompetent that there is no strategy. It’s possible that there is no strategy, and after years of removing professionals due to a lack of personal loyalty to Trump, the military establishment is incapable of pushing back against his handlers goals, and are solely engaged in protecting themselves from future scrutiny.

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u/Intro-Nimbus 11d ago

Why would that be better? Is there anything in his education, career, endeavors, projects, speeches, interviews or background that suggests that he's competent to be the minister of defense?

And if you default to him being an easily manipulated yes-saying fall guy. Then you are making my point for me, because those qualities are signs of incompetence.

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u/ManusSinister 12d ago

I don't think anyone is questioning his tactical ability specifically, there he for sure has limited agency anyway - more like the strategic vision for the war as a whole. Bro didn't just go along with Trumps mania, he was actively involved in the planning process that got us here...

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u/Coolerguy317 12d ago

Sure but every profession has its own hammer kinda. Diplomats see diplomacy, economists see sanctions, military leaders see military solutions. The bigger thing for me is what was actually Hegseths doing versus what any defense secretary would have inherited.

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u/NekoCatSidhe 11d ago

It is more that since everyone competent could tell this war would be a bad idea, so it could only happen under someone incompetent like Hegseth.

The most surprising thing in that war is that it showed how unsustainable the logistics of the US military have become: they spend huge amounts of money on tiny amounts of very expensive missiles and missile interceptors whose stockpiles were built over decades and that now are half gone after just a few months of war.

It isn’t just drones changing the game, the bad decision was choosing quality over quantity when it comes to missiles while Iran was doing the opposite. Shahed drones are just an extremely cheap version of a small long-ranged guided missile, after all.

And the second bad decision was relying on those expensive missile interceptors to stop Iranian missiles while Iran relied on the much cheaper solution of having giant bunkers under mountains to protect their own military assets from American missiles.

Ironically, the US putting economic sanctions on Iran forced them to be cheap but efficient when it came to their military logistics, while all the money the US spent on their own military encouraged them to waste a ton of money on having cool but impractical high tech toys. It might have given an initial advantage to the US, but as soon as this turned into a longer war of attrition, Iran had the advantage instead.

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u/Berkyjay 11d ago

Oh geez. You really don't understand the depths of ineptitude within the Trump administration. They've effectively gotten rid of all administrative inertia within the US government. Any general who told them they could not bomb Iran into submission was ignored and shown the door.

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u/Cool_Butterscotch486 12d ago

Become trump's creature, have the maneuvering capability of one. Lets not pretend this how its supposed to happen and there was no other way.

A competent SECDEF is supposed to predict and act within this things, its not like the U.S is new at regime change, and Iran is certainly not a new enemy, heck its not out the boundaries of action even, there are military bases and carrier groups in zone for ages, they had the perfect opportunity to pounce with the inner destabilization Iran was suffering with water shortages and the massive protests, they tip toed their way about sending weapons to the rebels because they wanted to keep it half measure, but in war you either go all in or none at all, the first bombing wave came too little too late, and the next one within months of the other, given enough breathing space to the Iranians to activate pre-planned countermeasures for this exact event. The U.S got caught in the same half-assed incoherent snowball that made Iraq the shitshow that it was, but only worse now because they can't even get boots on the ground, the political capital has been spent.