As impressive as the recent military celebration of its 250-year founding was, it was necessarily focused upon its history, upon its past. The challenge is for the future.

The good news is that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth promised Congress that the new commander in chief is committed to “cleaning house” to effectively modernize his military. And unlike in much of the past, the new defense leader is actually following through to reorient the world’s largest bureaucracy and reverse decades of decline, especially at the top. (RELATED: The Spectacle Ep. 232: Making the Military Great Again)

Hegseth started at the very top by directing a 20 percent reduction in the number of four-star general and flag officer positions across the Pentagon, Army, Navy, Airforce and the rest, including one-star general officers in the National Guard. His plan is to cut nine top four-stars, 80 three-stars, and 33 National Guard stars to simplify the chain of command and speed combat readiness, weapons modernization, and warfighting capabilities. (RELATED: Some Generals Should Be Fired. Start With Eric Smith.)

DOGE analysis found $10 billion in Pentagon waste, which Hegseth promised to reinvest in “readiness, capability, training, and the troops.” He pledged to target the contractors and consultants who actually outnumber civilian employees and were found to produce most of the waste. (RELATED: Real Military Reform Begins)

But the fundamental problem is deeper. Too many in the Pentagon’s entrenched bureaucracy still support such backward-looking plans as found in the Army of 2030 program rather than emphasizing the month-to-month flexibility needed in real wars. The Air Force is still too set on manned aircraft. The Navy still favors big-target but vulnerable carriers rather than smaller ships, robots, and drones. Space Force prefers big and expensive rather than simple, like the radar plane. Much of the problem is Congress, which writes projects into law locally and then supports the status quo.

The war in Ukraine has forced the Army to understand that today’s battlefield is more like World War I than the WWII open tank battlefield still in place today.

21st Century Warfare vs. Department of Defense

The Army is forced to pay for tanks now available, but were requested in 2015, that they cannot use today. As we noted in February, five years ago, a pre-Trump Elon Musk warned the Air Force that the manned airplane was obsolete and must be replaced by drones. Today, the manufacturer is at least trying to sell a version of the new F-35 that could be both manned and unmanned. The Navy is more open to the idea that many small ships might be better than big targets like airplane carriers, but the new John F. Kennedy version, due since 2024, is still in process, and another is planned for 2029.

The naval war to protect one of the world’s top shipping lanes through the Red Sea is especially revealing. A single Houthis factional force within little Yemen has basically fought the U.S. Navy to a standstill since 2023. It began with destroyers and, as Houthis ship attacks continued, moved up to one and then to two carrier groups of five ships with 7,000 sailors. No U.S. warships were hit, but three airplanes and two crew members were lost at sea. (RELATED: Why the Marines Can’t Fix the Houthi Problem)

The Houthis survived incoming U.S. air attacks and downed a dozen $30 million Reaper drones. When President Donald Trump took office, he authorized the second carrier, a half dozen B-2 bombers, a squadron of F-35 fighters, and 53 days of bombardment. That resulted in a cease-fire agreement with Houthis but only for U.S. ships, not safety for the main Red Sea traffic, which was the reason for the intervention.

The Army has pretty much avoided such active confrontations, but almost everyone, including Hegseth, concedes a major restructuring would have to occur to successfully fight a modern land war like the one in Ukraine. But Army Chief of Staff Daniel Driscoll conceded to Congress that “there will not be one date” for even the “first batch” of reforms to be completed. A congressman supported the administration’s “dynamic movement” that included an 8 percent reduction in personnel but reminded the chief that such “significant changes will impact people’s lives” and the Pentagon needed to “get their story straight.”

As far as air and space, the surprise Ukrainian attack on Russia’s strategic bomber fleet destroyed 41 of its warplanes across four far-flung airfields with inexpensive, mostly land-based drones that question the whole strategic response structure, especially for homeland U.S. missile defense. (RELATED: Putin Caught in an Expanding Spiderweb)

The recent Israel drone attacks — some from Iran’s own territory — raise similar issues. A new Golden Dome national missile defense — first proposed 40 years ago — has been approved by the president with a four-year deadline that all the experts expect will take much longer. (RELATED: Could Trump’s Golden Dome Fulfill Ronald Reagan’s Dream?)

The Pentagon has issued plans to create and update drone training and supply, but one expert noted that even such rushed efforts “often take years to make it through the requirements writing process.” “Then they’ll need to get budgetary approval. That’ll be another two to three years,” he said. “And that’s the definition of fast within DoD today: five years to even start prototyping — not delivery, but prototype.”

Even worse, Ukraine has shown that keeping drones effective over time requires that the drone manufacturer not be in the U.S. but must be close to the battlefield to adjust to the changes needed to thwart the enemy’s changing defenses.

Hegseth has made an excellent start challenging the bureaucracy, but, as he knows, there is a long way to go, and he urgently needs support rather than second-guessing from the status quo.

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Donald Devine is a senior scholar at the Fund for American Studies in Washington, D.C. He served as President Ronald Reagan’s civil service director during his first term in office. A former professor, he is the author of 11 books, including his most recent, The Enduring Tension: Capitalism and the Moral Order, and Ronald Reagan’s Enduring Principles, and is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator.