When Pete Hegseth faced the US Senate to become President Donald Trump’s defence secretary, he was grilled on everything from his lack of experience and his drinking to past controversial remarks – including that women should not serve in combat roles.

But the hearing also made something else clear: Hegseth wasn’t just being chosen to run the Pentagon in the ordinary sense.

He was being chosen to wage a cultural and ideological battle inside it – to return what he called “warrior culture” to an institution that he and Trump believed had gone “woke”.

Today, former chief national correspondent for Voice of America, Steve Herman, on the face of America’s new militarism and the role of Christian nationalism in the Trump administration.

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