Years ago I read a book entitled The Donkeys a 1961 polemic by British author, historian, and politician Alan Clark, that offered a scathing critique of the British high command's leadership during the first two years of World War I. Foreign Policy magazine just published an article , “The Book That Predicted Pete Hegseth’s Failures,” [1] which naturally grabbed my attention. The article relates the bizarre behavior (testosterone, anyone?) of Pete Hegseth whom I’ve written about before. [2] I searched for peer-reviewed articles on the pathology of Hegseth, but could find none other than the analysis of Hegseth’s own books in the New York Review of Books, [4] in addition to several other general articles about his character. [see Resources below. The Guardian article is particularly scathing.]
Hegseth is not stupid; neither were the Donkeys. Dixon’s book [3] was published fifty years ago makes that point. At first glance, exhuming the corpses of the Victorian era to perform a post-mortem on our own dying strategy might seem a redundant academic exercise. Dixon’s volume is, after all, deeply rooted in the antiquated mores of the British public school system and the somewhat archaic Freudian clichés of the mid-1970s. Yet, as the American defense landscape shifts under the weight of Trump and Hegseth’s leadership, Dixon’s inquiry into why lions are seemingly led by donkeys has ceased to be a historical curiosity and has instead become a prophetic warning. The book reached back to the mid-nineteenth century to explain the failures of the British military, yet today it reads as a pre-emptive autopsy of the contemporary American defense establishment.
The origins of Dixon’s inquiry were deeply personal. Having spent a decade in the Royal Engineers, including a stint in bomb disposal during the Second World War, Dixon was fascinated by the recurring patterns of senseless goings-on that characterized military disasters. He was not satisfied with the bloody fool theory of history, which suggests that catastrophic failure is merely the result of low intelligence. Instead, he sought to identify the specific psychological traits that attract certain individuals to the military—traits that the institution then exacerbates by design. We find a modern manifestation of these ancient patterns in the rise of figures like Pete Hegseth, the self-proclaimed secretary of war whose appointment echoes the central casting logic of the past. Dixon’s work allows us to move beyond simple critiques of intellect and toward a deeper interrogation of how personality defects are institutionalized and rewarded by an organization that values the ritual of war over the objective of victory.
Dixon’s book serves as a bridge between the tragic mud flats of Passchendaele and the modern Pentagon. It suggests that the stultifyingly bad features of military organizations tend to produce a leveling down of human capability, creating an environment where the mediocre flourish and the gifted are cramped. There are exceptions of course, Colin Powell being a shining example. As we examine the contemporary fixation on outward appearances and the purging of intellectual dissent, we are forced to realize that the ghost Dixon identified—the donkey in the high-collared tunic—is still very much in the machine. To understand the current American trajectory, we must understand the specific psychological framework Dixon uses to explain why the most powerful militaries in history so frequently stumble over their own rigid feet. How much of that stumbling should be attributed to Trump and his own self-aggrandizing and desire to surround himself with obsequious sycophants I suspect figures into the current situation.
The strategic importance of Dixon’s theory lies in his decision to shift the blame for military failure from low intelligence to personality defects. By evaluating high achievers like Douglas Haig, the commander of British forces for most of the First World War, Dixon proved that incompetence is not a matter of cognitive lack but of a particular mindset that is profoundly ill-suited for the fog of war. McNamara is another pertinent example. This shift allows for a deeper interrogation of institutional leadership, moving the conversation away from IQ and toward the socialization of character. The pillars of this mindset are what Dixon euphemistically termed bull and a pervasive anti-effeminacy. Bull involves a ritualistic obsession with outward appearances, a preoccupation with the dominance-submission relationships of the military hierarchy, and extreme orderliness. In a peacetime environment, these traits foster discipline; in wartime, they become catastrophic distractions that block the reception of vital information. A current example would be the obvious failure to realize the importance and inevitable closure of the Strait of Hormuz in spite of recommendations to the contrary.
This pattern is perfectly reflected in Hegseth’s focus on hair length, the rooting out of beards, and the mandated testosterone testing for warfighters. These are not merely eccentricities; they are manifestations of a sex-role identification that Dixon identified as a cornerstone of the incompetent mind. This anti-effeminacy extends beyond simple prejudice against women in combat roles; it historically manifested as a disdain for taking cover or wearing protective gear, viewing such survival instincts as unmanly. Crucially, Dixon noted that this trait even extended to the rejection of protective convoys for merchant shipping during wartime—a technical reality that mirrors the modern failure to prepare for the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. When leadership prioritizes the image of the lethal warrior — we will bomb them into oblivion, for example — over strategic depth, they create an organization that is psychologically predisposed to reject the very innovations required for survival.
This authoritarian rigidity creates a prickly skin in leadership. Incompetent leaders are characterized by an inability to suffer criticism and a predilection for subordinates whose loyalty far outweighs their competence. We see this today in the melting down of officials when faced with responsibility for failure and the chiding of the press as unpatriotic for objective reporting. When the outward signifiers of masculinity and ritualistic obedience become the primary metrics for success, the military ceases to be an instrument of war and becomes a theater of performance. This creates a systemic bias against the best and brightest, favoring those who fit the specific, traditional mold of the clean-shaven warrior while leaving the nation vulnerable to enemies who do not share these psychological hang-ups.
The value of looking at military history as a continuous line of psychological repetition is that it reveals common denominators of failure that transcend era and technology. Two of Dixon’s primary case studies, Lord Raglan in the Crimea and General Buller in the Boer War, provide the template for the central casting leader. Both men possessed immense physical bravery, yet both were defined by a total lack of moral courage. Raglan, an aristocratic introvert, was appointed not for his command experience—he had none, not even of a company—but because he had been Wellington’s secretary and possessed the requisite aristocratic connections. He was so detached from his troops that he rarely walked among them, and his inability to process noise was so profound that he referred to the enemy as the French out of an incurable habit rooted in his past.
In the Boer War, General Redvers Buller presented the image of the grimly resolute commander—big-boned and square-jawed. However, behind this appearance was a man who was irresolute, indecisive, and without faith in his own plans. Both Raglan and Buller shared an emotional antipathy toward intelligence and the press. Raglan shunned spies as ungentlemanly, while Buller, faced with the disaster of Spion Kop, went into a state of paralytic inactivity, avoiding the very information he needed to save his men. These men were allowed to keep their posts despite mounting corpses because their social status and central casting appearances convinced the hierarchy that they looked the part. The institution prioritized social cohesion and aesthetic reliability over lethal efficacy.
The so what of these failures is that they prove how the military hierarchy protects its own at the expense of the rank and file. Both Raglan and Buller were masters at making scapegoats of their subordinates. When the Light Brigade was destroyed by confused orders, the blame was diverted to the dead Captain Nolan. When Buller’s irresolution led to the slaughter at Spion Kop, he focused on the shortcomings of others while enjoying his champagne and ample food. This refusal to admit failure prevents the organization from learning, leading to a repetition of the same frontal assaults and underestimations of the enemy. The ultimate expression of this rigid mindset was the meat-grinder of the Western Front, where the rejection of innovation became a matter of institutional pride.
Innovation is the natural enemy of the authoritarian military mind. Dixon notes that the authoritarian is biologically and psychologically predisposed to reject technical advances that threaten established ritual. In the First World War, General Haig’s insistence on the value of the horsed cavalry in the age of the machine gun was not just a tactical error but a psychological defense. This rejection of technology was mirrored in the Siege of Kut under General Townshend. Townshend was an egomaniac who identified with the great captains of history while ignoring the movement and economy of force they championed. He chose to bottle his army up in Kut for no strategic reason other than a personal desire for the glory of a siege, which he had experienced previously at Chitral.
Townshend’s pathology reached its zenith after the surrender. While he was transported in the greatest comfort to Constantinople, his 13,000 men began a 1,200-mile march across the freezing heights of Asia Minor. Townshend lived a life of luxury as a captive on the fashionable island of Halki, high on a cliff in a comfortable villa, while his troops were marched to their deaths. In the Turkish hospitals, those too ill to march were given injections of a brandy-colored fluid—a lethal mercy to stop them from fouling their beds. Townshend, the lovely man and self-styled father-figure, never lifted a finger to ameliorate their plight. He was more concerned with his own promotion to lieutenant-general than the mega-deaths occurring under his command.
The historical rejections of the tank find their modern parallels in the disdain for drone warfare and the irrational desire for Trump-class battleships or steam-powered catapults. These are symptoms of a mindset that views war as a sport played by traditional rules. More than four years after the Ukraine war showed the need for drone-centric forces, the United States lags behind a war-beset European country in output because the current administration spurned Ukraine’s offer of drone assistance. The authoritarian mind views the drone as unsoldierly, preferring the ritual of the massive hull and the catapult. This produces a systematic scapegoating of the best and brightest in favor of those who fit the parade-ground mold, ensuring the organization remains a device for receiving information it is psychologically incapable of processing.
In a media-driven age, the danger of prioritizing sex-role identification over strategic depth has never been greater. Pete Hegseth, though only reaching the rank of major in the National Guard, has successfully carried a junior officer’s mindset into the highest levels of military administration. He ticks every box in Dixon’s framework for military incompetence. The summoning of every senior U.S. military commander from around the globe to listen to a harangue on fatness, hair length, and beards is the quintessential expression of bull. It prioritizes the outward signs of a warrior over the intellectual and technical realities of modern conflict. This is the ultimate triumph of the parade ground over the battleground, a theater of the absurd where doing a pull-up for the cameras is substituted for strategic dexterity.
Hegseth’s specific actions—the purging of the professional press corps, the rewriting of casualty totals on a whim, and the fact that his Pentagon has not held a press briefing for nearly three months during wartime—are classic symptoms of the authoritarian desire to shun publicity and avoid criticism. These behaviors are indicative of a rigidity that underestimates the enemy and ignores technical reality, much like the Allied failure to prepare for the closing of the Strait of Hormuz despite decades of war-gaming. When a leader is chosen because they are straight out of central casting, the organization risks being led by someone who values the appearance of strength over the actual exercise of intelligence. Hegseth’s melting down when lawmakers point out his responsibility for failure is merely the modern version of the prickly skin Dixon identified fifty years ago.
The comparison to General Elphinstone in Kabul is particularly chilling. Elphinstone was a gentleman of aristocratic connections who was physically decrepit and prone to fatal procrastination. He spent more time worrying about the construction of a bridge than the survival of his army, and his indecision led to the total destruction of his force. Like Elphinstone, the modern authoritarian leader procrastinates on technical innovation—such as drone output—while obsessing over unsoldierly details like beards. This sex-role identification creates a systemic bias against unconventional thinkers, favoring those who fit the traditional mold. The result is a lane of corpses in the snow, or its modern equivalent: a military that is technologically outpaced by smaller, more agile nations while its leaders posture for the cameras.
The strategic importance of maintaining public and intellectual control over the military hierarchy cannot be overstated. Without this control, the military organization naturally drifts toward a leveling down of capability, where the mediocre are promoted for their conformity and the gifted are pushed out for their dissent. Dixon’s legacy is the recognition that while his science may be dated, his observations on the stultifyingly bad features of these organizations remain relevant. The traits that make a military work in peace—discipline, uniformity, and ritual—are the very things that act against performance at the most crucial times of war. The ghost in the Pentagon is not one of limited intelligence, but of a specific personality type that finds safety in the rules of the past while the future is being decided by drones and algorithms.
The modern US military, operating under a Hegseth-ian mindset that prizes being white, male, and clean-shaven over being creative and unconventional, is at risk of repeating the senseless goings-on of 1854 and 1914. If the organization continues to favor the central casting leader over the intellectual innovator, it will remain a device for receiving information that it is psychologically incapable of processing. The result will be a continued lag in technological adaptation and a reliance on frontal assaults against enemies who have already moved into the drone era. The cost of such wrong decisions grows exponentially with technology, meaning the next great military disaster will be reckoned not in hundreds, but in mega-deaths.
Ultimately, military incompetence is preventable, but only if we are willing to interrogate the psychological makeup of those we put in charge. As long as we allow the ghost of the donkey to haunt the Pentagon, we will continue to pay for the errors of generalship in blood. The fifty-year echo of Dixon’s work is a reminder that the profession of arms is not honored because the best part of the nation has ceased to follow it; it is not honored because the institution itself has become a sanctuary for the rigid and the regressive. To ignore the psychology of the authoritarian mind is to invite the tragedy of the next great military disaster, one that no amount of testosterone or parade-ground bull will be able to avert.
[1] Johnson, K. (2026, July 31). The book that predicted Pete Hegseth’s failures. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/07/31/hegseth-norman-dixon-iran-war/ If it’s behind a paywall, I have created a pdf copy linked here. from my subscription.
[2] https://rarebits.blogspot.com/2026/06/the-architecture-of-american-impunity.html
[3] Dixon, Norman F. On the Psychology of Military Incompetence. New York: Random House, 1994. Revised edition of the original 1956 publication. If you would like a pdf copy to read I have one for friends and relatives who can contact me via email. Others should check at their local library.
[4] Hansen, Suzy. "Made in the USA." The New York Review of Books. Last modified June 19, 2026. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2026/06/11/made-in-the-usa-in-the-arena-pete-hegseth/. Again I have a pdf copy for friends and relatives from my subscription if it’s behind a paywall.
Other Resources regarding Hegseth psychology:
A Very Dangerous Person’: Alarm As Pete Hegseth Revels in Carnage of Iran War." The Guardian. Last modified March 8, 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/08/pete-hegseth-pentagon-trump-iran.
"Just a Moment..." Just a Moment... Accessed August 1, 2026. https://newlinesinstitute.org/gender-peace-security/how-hegseths-speech-reveals-a-shift-toward-masculinizing-u-s-policy/.
Mayer, Jane. "Pete Hegseth’s Secret History." The New Yorker. Last modified December 2, 2024. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/pete-hegseths-secret-history.
McMaster, H. R. (2011). Dereliction of duty: Johnson, McNamara, the joint chiefs of staff. HarperCollins.
Olds, Josh. "Hegseth’s Testosterone Testing Plays into MAGA Mythology." Baptist News Global. Last modified July 27, 2026. https://baptistnews.com/article/hegseths-testosterone-testing-plays-into-maga-mythology/.
