Dear Mr. Hegseth

Congratulations. The good news is that unless something extraordinary happens, you will be confirmed to the post of secretary of defense in the next week or two.
Today, our Air Force has 58 percent fewer active-duty fighter squadrons and 51 percent fewer bombers than during 1991’s Operation Desert Storm.
President Trump comes into office with a mandate to reverse the radical progressive ideology and actions that his predecessor took. You, in turn,  have a significant mandate to reverse the wokeness and DEI ideologies that have reduced the lethality and readiness of the force enormously.
The bad news is that the average tenure of secretaries of defense is between 11 and 20 months. Only a very few last longer.
So how will you spend the next year or two? It’s entirely a question of priorities and those you must set yourself.
The entrenched Pentagon bureaucracies — military and civilian — will try to enmesh you in a month of “orientation” briefings. You can sit through a few, but not many. Set your own agenda which should focus on the things you and Mr. Trump want and need to do.
First and foremost, how quickly you or the president can set up a board of senior officers to vet and fire all of the generals and admirals who have bought into the “wokeness” nonsense that Biden inflicted on the force. That board should be set up as quickly as possible and begin to act immediately. You may have to fire a lot of other officers, but you can start with them.
Second, you will now be one of the most senior intelligence “consumers,” and you will have to gauge quickly how good the intel that’s coming from the CIA and the military intelligence agencies may be. It’s not a question of how well they satisfy your beliefs but now accurate the intel is. It may take all of your time in office, but reforming those agencies if they need it (and they do) — hopefully with the help of John Ratcliffe at CIA — must be a top priority.
Third, our deterrence strategy has failed. We ca...