Hegseth redirects SOF toward great power competition at SOF Week 2025

It's not a stretch to say the American soft community is navigating a significant transformation

adapting from a primarily counterterrorism focus to a broader role in great power competition

According to Pete Hegseth, this transition presents numerous challenges related to the budget

force structure, technology adoption, personnel development, and the need to create effective partnerships

The addition of Pete Hegseth as the keynote speaker for the opening ceremonies of Soft Week 2025 was a bit of a surprise

Not originally scheduled, the announcement came less than 24 hours before he took the stage in front of a largely standing room only audience

A group he said reminded him about what makes the Soft community special

Humans are more important than hardware. More than any other military formation

I saw it in a small way as a conventional infantryman 20 years ago soft about people It starts and ends with the troops downrange Each of you and your commitment to the mission is more important than any of the cutting hardware and software we going to see on the convention floor and I look forward to seeing it

The 29th person to hold the title of Secretary of Defense told the room full of American and Allied special operations troops

that his focus is on restoring an ethos he believes was lost under the previous administration

Everything starts and ends with warriors from training to the battlefield. We are leaving wokeness and weakness behind

No more pronouns, no more climate change obsession, no more emergency vaccine mandates, no more dudes in dresses

Exith also talked about his early experiences in his role, visiting with the troops and getting in some early morning workouts

something he admits can be challenging with SOF operators The problem is it went from let do PT with the troops to every special operations group in the world trying to smoke the SecDef

I find myself almost blacking out by the end of the workout and then having to hand out coins and try to stay right ways up

Appreciate that. The former Fox News Weekend anchor also pointed to the president's request for a trillion dollar defense budget

citing it as a direct means to revive the defense industrial base

as well as reforming the DOD's acquisitions process with a focus on rapidly fielding emerging technologies

President Trump has declared and delivered on a generational investment, rebuilding our military much like Ronald Reagan did in the 1980s

Our goal is to put the best systems in the hands of our warfighters

because you, our warfighters, should never be in a fair fight. Despite some recent very pointed rhetoric about America NATO partners the former Army major and Princeton graduate did emphasize his belief in the importance of building international partnerships

Soft's ability to work by, with, and through international partners pays huge dividends on our border, in the Indo-Pacific, and around the world

Partners, as I see so many of our partners right here in the front

are central to how SOF works. They have to believe that America is strong, that peace through

strength is real. Then they want to come into our orbit and be force multipliers

As for what's happening closer to home, Hexeth told attendees, border security is national

security. Going on to say he expects the U.S. to achieve full operational control of the southern

border, adding that SOF is making a distinct contribution. However, he did not provide

details about American SOF units involved in border security operations