It was a year ago, September 5, 2025. Donald Trump decided to change the name of the “Secretariat of Defense” to that of “Secretariat of War”. At the same time, the American president announced an almost exponential increase in the armed forces budget, going up to 1,500 billion dollars in the coming years.
Already under the Joe Biden era, the military budget in the United States was equivalent to the entirety of that of the next ten nations. That Trump, at the same time, continues to proclaim himself “president of peace” and found it cruelly unfair that Norway and its committee did not deign to grant him the Nobel, shocking almost no one at the time. He boasted – he still boasts – of having stopped at least eight conflicts. He saw himself as a specialist in ending conflicts.
To head the newly appointed department, Trump chose a former military man, also a former Fox News journalist, named Pete Hegseth. The primary objective was to put an end to the excesses of wokism in military circles. Quickly, however, Hegseth announced the dismissal and blocking of promotions of more than 80 generals and admirals, or approximately 10% of the senior ranks of the American army.
This is the first time that such an exercise in truth has been required
At the same time, his former Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, a protégé of Vice President JD Vance, resigned. The American media then evoked a real purge within the military institution. Faced with the revolt, Trump and Hegseth stand together. The president never questions the decisions of his minister, even if they cause cringe in the Republican camp. For Trump and Hegseth, loyalty is all that matters.
A witch hunt
We recently learned that around fifty officers, as well as civilians belonging to the army, were subjected to a “polygraph” test, a detector which measures the psychophysiological reactions of an individual when he is questioned, in order to determine whether he is telling the truth or lying. The reason? Leaks to the press concerning the alarming decrease in stocks of munitions, particularly missiles, in the army, due to the war against Iran. This is, to date, the first time that such an exercise in truth-telling has been required of serving US Army officers. The polygraph is a machine generally used by the CIA to try to detect whether an agent is reliable or not. Not to confuse soldiers or humiliate them. The so-called revelations about munitions in the Washington Post being otherwise perfectly accurate. The fact that the public became aware of it will certainly have thrown Trump into a customary rage. And Hegseth with him. The fact remains that, in all its history, the Pentagon had never experienced such a witch-hunt atmosphere.
This affair must obviously be placed in a context of accumulation of bad news both on the Iranian front and on the poor form of the American army, in particular its navy. The arrival of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln with its rust-pocked hull along its entire length in the port of Pattaya, Thailand, will have nourished American comedians like Jon Stewart, providing them with ideal material to attack their target of choice: Donald Trump. To add to this, the setbacks, a few months ago, of another aircraft carrier, the Gerald Fordwith a toilet breakdown and a fire on board. All this adds to an immense feeling of weariness regarding the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, even the feeling of being placed in a situation of sitting duck (from “settled duck”).
Last week, in fact, Iran began to directly target American ships. The shots were thwarted thanks to naval maneuvers, but the risk is immense. At this stage of the conflict, an American ship hit by an Iranian missile or drone will pay dividends in terms of image for the United States.
