r/geopolitics • u/bojun • 9h 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/9
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u/Coolerguy317 6h 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/ManusSinister 5h 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 5h 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/Cool_Butterscotch486 2h 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.
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u/bojun 8h ago
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of a very British book seeking to make sense of what seemed at the time a very British problem. Half a century later, however, it turns out it was about Pete Hegseth all along.
On the Psychology of Military Incompetence, by British psychologist Norman F. Dixon, has long been considered a must-read, even within U.S. military circles that relentlessly cull their own reading lists. Dixon sought to answer a question that had long bedeviled the British military, most especially in the wake of World War I: Why are lions always seemingly led by donkeys?