Hegseth highlights ‘Iron Dome for America’, other first priorities as new SecDef
Kicking off his first Monday in the office as the new secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth briefly spotlighted his team’s earliest leadership priorities — including executing on President Trump’s new vision to institute a powerful U.S. missile defense system.
“Our job is lethality, and readiness and warfighting,” Hegseth told a small group of reporters on the steps outside the Pentagon’s River Entrance.
After narrowly winning Senate confirmation late Friday, Hegseth was officially sworn in on Saturday at a ceremony attended by his family and close colleagues. That day, he released a message directly to U.S. military personnel articulating his aims to help them rapidly field emerging technological capabilities to deter China and other competitors.
When his motorcade arrived at the Pentagon on Monday, Hegseth was greeted by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown and media.
“In talking to the chairman and so many other folks here, [I know] we’re in capable hands. The warfighters are ready to go,” Hegseth said.
Pointing to a slew of executive orders President Donald Trump signed last week — and specifically those regarding military-involved mass deportations and U.S.-Mexico border security operations — the new SecDef noted how the administration is “hitting the ground running” to carry out the commander-in-chief’s major mandates.
“The lawful orders of the president of the United States will be executed inside this Defense Department swiftly and without excuse. We will be no better friend to our allies, and no stronger adversary to those who want to test us and try us so,” Hegseth told reporters.
“And today, there are more executive orders coming that we fully support on removing [diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives] inside the Pentagon, reinstating troops who were pushed out because of [Covid-19] mandates, and an Iron Dome for America,” he said.
He didn’t elaborate much more on that soon-to-be-published guidance.
However, one promise Trump made to voters while on the campaign trail involved creating an American version of Israel’s Iron Dome to protect the U.S. homeland from next-generation air- and space-based threats.
Israel’s Iron Dome capability is designed to defend against short-range weapons, while the system that Trump wants would likely be focused on shielding against longer-range missiles or other platforms. The Defense Department currently operates Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Space Force Base in California that were originally set up to defend against limited ballistic missile launches from countries such as North Korea. Trump could potentially move to expand the GMD architecture, or take other steps, as part of the “Iron Dome for America” initiative.
It’s unclear at this point whether the president’s envisioned system would be totally separate from or a complement to the Space Development Agency’s in-the-making Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture.
“We are reoriented. This is a shift. This is not the way business has been done in the past,” Hegseth said.
“Every moment that I’m here, I’m thinking about the guys and gals in Guam, in Germany, Fort Benning and Fort Bragg, on missile defense sites and aircraft carriers,” he added.
Fort Moore in Georgia was previously known as Fort Benning before being renamed in 2023. Fort Liberty in North Carolina was previously called Fort Bragg.
Responding to questions from reporters, Hegseth also said that “more rapid fielding [of capabilities and] more rapid opportunity to train as we fight will be something we want our units to do across the spectrum.”
