(NewsNation) — Defense War Secretary Pete Hegseth is announcing changes to the United States’ military sales at the National War College in Washington, D.C.
In an address to industry leaders, military leaders and government officials as part of a larger effort to reform the military, Hegseth said the “adversary” is “Pentagon bureaucracy,” quoting former War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s 2001 speech.
“Innovation is stifled,” he said. “We must transform the way the department works and what it works on,” calling this a “matter of life and death.”
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The changes are related to defense acquisition and the arms transfer process, and how it’s shared with allies.
Hegseth said the goal is to operate on “wartime footing,” rapidly accelerate capabilities, focus on results, and to build an “arsenal of freedom.”
“I’m not here to reform but to transform and empower,” he said. “We must prepare now.”
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The address is Hegseth’s second major speech to members of the military.
“We went to war with the army we had, not the army he or we wanted,” he said.
This comes as the Trump administration has boosted the military’s presence in the Caribbean to combat drug trafficking.
Hegseth said late Thursday that the U.S. military took out an alleged drug-trafficking boat in the Caribbean, killing three “narco-terrorists.”
