In describing the U.S. war in Iran, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth often sounds less like a leader burdened by the grave public trust of killing in the nation’s name than like a man performing for an audience. On ”60 Minutes,” he said “the only ones that need to be worried right now are Iranians that think they’re gonna live.” Days earlier, Hegseth described the torpedoing of an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka — an attack that killed more than 80 sailors — as “quiet death,” with a relish that has no place in the public voice of American war.
Some will hear lines like that and dismiss them as swagger from a man temperamentally unsuited to his office. The deeper problem is the view of war those lines reveal. Even after at least 13 American service members have been killed and more than 1,300 people in Iran have died, Hegseth does not speak of war as responsibility, burden or tragedy. He speaks of it as a stage for display. Killing becomes a demonstration of dominance. Destruction becomes its own performance. Force is no longer something to be borne with gravity, but something to be delivered with bravado and style.
A professional military is not defined simply by its capacity to destroy. Any armed group can kill people and blow things up. What is supposed to distinguish the American profession of arms is discipline: the willingness to govern force under law, restraint and accountability even amid the violence of war. A serious military does not celebrate destruction as proof of strength. It does not market combat as a flex. And it does not treat the rules and habits that govern force as optional or unserious.
That ethic has to be built into training, norms and concrete rules that tell people how U.S. military force is to be used. The law of armed conflict and rules of engagement are part of that structure. Hegseth has not merely used crude language about killing; he has repeatedly derided the rules and restraints that govern the use of force. His dismissal of “stupid rules of engagement” makes the point plainly. So does his recent vow to show “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.”
“No quarter” is not just another burst of bravado. It has a legal and moral meaning. A secretary of Defense should know better than to use it lightly. And because he sets a tone for how force is understood inside the institution, language like that does more than offend. It signals contempt at the top for the restraints the force is supposed to uphold.
Rules of engagement are one expression of those restraints. They are not bureaucratic clutter. They embody the basic idea that how force is used matters. Publicly mocking them is beneath the profession.
Military service asks young Americans to kill, to destroy, to risk their own lives and to take the lives of others. That is exactly why restraint matters — not as public relations or legal decoration, but as moral boundary. The burden is morally tolerable only if force is governed: by law, by discipline, by an obligation to reduce civilian harm where possible and by a refusal to let violence become its own justification. That discipline is part of what makes such violence bearable both to those ordered to carry it out and to the country in whose name it is conducted.
Hegseth’s language would be ugly from anyone. Coming from the secretary of Defense, it is deeply corrosive. The civilian leader charged with overseeing the nation’s wars should be reinforcing the restraints that govern force, not sneering at them. Instead, he treats caution as softness and discipline as weakness. He recasts the power to kill in the nation’s name as swagger and performance.
Hegseth’s language does not stand alone. It fits a broader culture in which war is framed less as burden than as performance. President Trump made that frame explicit when he asked ABC’s Jonathan Karl how he liked “the performance.” The White House has posted videos splicing combat footage with action movies, sports highlights and video-game imagery, turning a war with real casualties into something meant to be consumed, shared and cheered online. War has become content.
I have lived close enough to war’s costs to know this is not abstraction. I have hugged parents who lost children serving their nation. I have stood at friends’ headstones in national cemeteries. War brings Americans home in flag-draped boxes and leaves others altered for life. That is why this language matters. It cheapens those burdens, elevates the wrong values, and degrades the institution itself.
That degradation matters most when real questions about civilian harm or operational failure arise. A force whose leaders treat war as performance will find it harder to speak honestly about tragedy when it comes. A leadership culture that prizes killing above restraint will be less credible when it asks to be trusted in the aftermath of catastrophe.
ProPublica has reported that under Hegseth, parts of the Pentagon’s civilian-harm mitigation architecture were effectively gutted — a reminder that the concern here is not only rhetorical. Swagger does not explain every mistake. But it does corrode the moral culture in which mistakes are prevented, confronted and accounted for.
The American military has spent decades trying to distinguish itself from forces that equate cruelty with strength and propaganda with professionalism. It should not now be encouraged to sound like them. A professional military does not prove its strength by reveling in destruction or turning war into content. It proves its strength through restraint, discipline and moral seriousness amid violence. Lose that seriousness, and the profession does not become tougher. It becomes something smaller, cheaper and less worthy of the sacrifices it asks of those who serve.
Jon Duffy is a retired Navy captain. He writes about leadership and democracy.
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Ideas expressed in the piece
Hegseth treats war as performance rather than grave responsibility, using celebratory language about killing such as describing an attack that resulted in more than 80 deaths as “quiet death” with unwarranted relish that reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of military leadership.
The secretary has repeatedly dismissed the rules and restraints that govern military force, deriding “stupid rules of engagement” in ways that signal contempt for the discipline expected of professional armed forces and undermine the moral culture necessary for accountability.
Beyond rhetoric, the approach has practical consequences, as ProPublica reported that parts of the Pentagon’s civilian-harm mitigation architecture were effectively gutted under Hegseth’s leadership, transforming concerns about restraint from mere language into substantive institutional degradation.
The broader Trump administration culture frames war as entertainment content, with the White House producing videos splicing combat footage with action movies and video-game imagery, which cheapens the genuine burdens borne by service members and their families.
True military professionalism is defined not by capacity to destroy but by discipline, restraint, and moral seriousness under law, and a leadership that prizes killing above these values becomes less credible when accountability for civilian harm or operational failure is required.
Different views on the topic
Operation Epic Fury represents disciplined, precisely focused warfare with clear strategic objectives—destroying Iranian missile capabilities, naval assets, and preventing nuclear weapons development—rather than open-ended nation-building, and the operation has been months in planning with deliberate execution[1][2].
The approach reflects a determination to achieve American interests without prolonged commitment or unnecessary complexity, with Hegseth arguing that effective military action does not require deploying “200,000 people” and staying “for 20 years,” but rather concentrated force applied with specific, achievable goals[1].
Military effectiveness has been demonstrated through measurable results, including more than 5,000 targets struck, Iranian ballistic missile fire decreased by 90 percent since the operation began, and drone usage down 95 percent, indicating successful degradation of Iranian offensive capabilities[2][3].
The direct language about American military superiority and willingness to use force reflects appropriate confidence in capabilities and resolve, signaling to adversaries and allies alike that the United States is serious about protecting its interests and those of regional partners without equivocation[1][2].
The administration’s focus on clear military objectives and avoiding the constraints that limited past operations represents a corrective to what are viewed as ineffective rules of engagement that prevented strategic success in previous conflicts[1].
