“Be seated now, I want you to remember that no b-----d ever won a war by dying for his country.

“He won it by making the other poor dumb b-----d die for his country.”

That wasn’t the speech given by Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, to a rare gathering of the military’s top brass on Tuesday.

But it might as well have been.

The huge Stars and Stripes backdrop with a single figure addressing the troops evoked the famous film speech delivered by Gen George S Patton to the Third Army.

He exhorts his troops to murder “those lousy Hun b-----ds by the bushel,” using their innards to grease American tank tracks.