Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report, where John has embarked on a well-deserved post-UNGA vacation, and Rishi is treating the first day of October as close enough to Halloween to start putting up his spooky decorations.
Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gives a consequential speech, major AI companies sign a new accord with U.S. President Donald Trump, and FP interviews Trump’s U.N. Ambassador Mike Waltz.
As we’ve highlighted in multiple past editions of this newsletter, Hegseth has overseen one of the most dramatic reshapings of the U.S. military in its history—from goals and remit to personnel and culture, right down to what the department calls itself.
On Wednesday, the defense secretary used his annual “State of the Force” speech in Quantico, Virginia, to tout what he’s done so far and lay out what he’s planning next. Hegseth unveiled several new initiatives aimed at “reviving the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military, and reestablishing deterrence.”
Here’s what you need to know:
Autonomy and technology. Hegseth announced a new combatant command focused on the military’s adoption of autonomous weapons. Known as Autonomous Warfare Command, or Autowarcom, the new command’s goal will be to “scale autonomous and robotic capabilities” across the military in what Hegseth said will be “the fastest peacetime shift in modern military history.”
Hegseth also introduced an initiative called Project Meridian that aims to study the future of warfare. That project will be overseen by Emil Michael, the Defense Department’s chief technology officer, and co-led by Elon Musk, defense tech company Anduril’s founder Palmer Luckey, and former U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, whom Hegseth described as “three of our nation’s best minds.” The project has 120 days to submit its findings and recommendations to Hegseth’s office.
The military will also establish a new office within 30 days to ensure that U.S. military bases develop their own infrastructure, Hegseth said, including independent energy supplies in case of disruption to civilian electricity grids and self-sufficient supply chains of rare earths, semiconductors, and other materials. That program will be known as FORTRESS America, which stands for “Federal Operations for Resilience, Troop Resources, Energy, Supply, and Survivability.”
Culture warrior. Hegseth also used the speech to confirm the full extent of his firings of senior military personnel and officers, saying he had cut 20 percent of the overall force. “Now, the media calls that a ‘purge.’ I call it accountability and long overdue, and frankly, the bare minimum,” he said.
Hegseth defended the more controversial cultural changes he has made to the military, such as requiring male officers to be clean-shaven and instituting testosterone tests. He repeatedly slammed previous policies as “woke” and said there would be “no fatties” and “no beardos, no weirdos” while also using a slur for transgender people. “The ideological clowns are out, the patriotic cowboys are in, with testosterone testing on top,” he said. “Diversity is not our strength—unity is our strength.”
At the same time, Hegseth claimed that sexual assaults and suicides in the department had been reduced and that “Black and female recruitment” had increased. He also hit on another familiar theme by repeatedly criticizing the press—many of whom have been effectively banned from the Pentagon—and accusing journalists “juiced up on Trump Derangement Syndrome” of “treason.”
The final new announcement of Hegseth’s speech was the establishment of an Office of Religious Affairs that will report directly to him with “no staff filters, no bureaucratic dilution—a direct line to the secretary.”
The Pentagon said in a release that the new office “will not compel religious participation, favor one faith, or diminish the rights of personnel of any faith or lack thereof.” Hegseth, in his speech, quoted multiple verses from the Bible and vowed to fight “redcoats,” “communists,” and “Islamists.”
Before Hegseth’s speech, FP columnist Emma Ashford made the case for why he has become “one of the most influential—potentially even the most effective—senior officials within the Trump administration.” You can read that column here.
The U.S. Senate voted on Wednesday to confirm Keith Sonderling as the new U.S. secretary of labor, a role that he has held in an acting capacity since his predecessor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, resigned in April amid allegations of misconduct.
Also on Wednesday, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who is set to retire at the end of her term, forced the confirmation of 10 career diplomats as U.S. ambassadors by unanimous consent. The ambassadors will take up posts in Benin, Gabon, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Malaysia, Cape Verde, Kyrgyzstan, Togo, Malawi, and Nicaragua.
What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.
Allied pains. Another influential official within Trump’s Pentagon has been Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby, who has overseen a reshaping of the U.S. military’s relationship with allies across Europe and Asia. The latest iteration of that came this week, when Politico reported that the United States has left out several key allies—including the United Kingdom, France, and multiple Baltic countries—from a NATO meeting in Poland that Colby is set to chair next month. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment from SitRep.
Plane attack. Details continue to emerge from the apparent attempted hijacking on Wednesday of a Flydubai flight bound for Israel. The plane, which was traveling to Tel Aviv from Dubai, was diverted to Saudi Arabia when passengers overpowered the co-pilot after he allegedly stabbed the flight’s captain. The co-pilot, who is believed to be an Omani national, has been arrested by Saudi authorities and is being questioned, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Cyberattacks. It’s been an alarming month for hacks of U.S. government personnel. The Defense Department confirmed on Tuesday that close to 3 million current and former military personnel were impacted by a data breach of the department’s human resources system, with personal information and even social security numbers potentially exposed. The Pentagon said in a note to affected individuals that it “does not have any indications of misuse” of the data.
Separately, a cybercrime group called ShinyHunters said last week that it had hacked the personal data of thousands of FBI personnel. The FBI said it was “actively and aggressively investigating” the attack. A website used by ShinyHunters reportedly went offline on Wednesday.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg (center left) and Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos (second from right) look on as ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott (left) is checked by a member of the U.S. Secret Service ahead of a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 29.Oliver Contreras/AFP via Getty Images
Despite what many in the Trump administration say and think, Europe has much to offer the world in terms of advanced technology and needs to be more vocal about it, Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl told SitRep in an interview this week. Bonefeld-Dahl is the director-general of Digital Europe, an industry group that represents more than 56,000 companies across the continent.
“Many people think that the U.S does all the technology and that Europe does not really have anything, which is actually not true if you look at some of the technologies,” she said, highlighting 6G telecommunications, drones, and semiconductor machinery as some areas where Europe leads. While much of the focus in Washington is on frontier artificial intelligence models, “if you don’t have a data center, you don’t have it working,” she said. “You need the energy, you need the connectivity, you need the water cooling, you need the machines to do all the chips—so if you look at the stack already now, at least 25 percent is European, unless it’s Chinese.”
Bonefeld-Dahl said both sides need to overcome tensions around tech cooperation and digital sovereignty.
“Just beside all the marketing sit your best friends, who actually make your world run around,” she said. “You need to choose who your partner is, and I don’t see how the U.S. can win the race against China if they don’t have Europe as a best friend.”
Saturday, Oct. 3: Latvia holds parliamentary elections.
Sunday, Oct. 4: Brazil holds presidential and legislative elections.
Bosnia and Herzegovina holds a general election.
Thursday, Oct. 8: Iceland starts hosting the three-day Arctic Circle Assembly.
The winner of the Nobel Prize in literature is announced.
Friday, Oct. 9: The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is announced.
FP editor in chief Ravi Agrawal interviewed U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz on Tuesday for FP Live, where Waltz made the case for Trump’s global strategy. You can watch the full interview and read the transcript here.
And our colleague Sam Skove spoke with Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics on Sept. 18, when they discussed the possible risks of invoking NATO’s Article 5 in response to Russian hybrid warfare and what role Europe should play in negotiating with Moscow over Ukraine. FP Insiders can read that interview here. (Not an FP Insider yet? Subscribe here for your all-access pass to exclusive content, ad-free web browsing, and more perks.)
Trump loves a rebrand. Last week, he renamed “artificial intelligence” as “super intelligence” during his speech at the U.N. General Assembly. Now, he appears to have (accidentally) rebranded the United States itself. A new White House accord on artificial intelligence, signed by half a dozen leading technology executives who met with Trump this week, contained the unfortunate typo “President of the Unites States” under Trump’s signature.
