Hegseth announces new autonomous weapons command while repeating attacks on ‘woke’ culture during speech to troops

By Davis Winkie, Haley Britzky, CNN

(CNN) — Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced a new Pentagon autonomous warfare command in a speech on Wednesday to troops at the military base in Quantico, Virginia, a sequel to the speech he delivered last year to senior officers that focused on fitness and culture.

Hegseth said the new Autonomous Warfare Command, which will focus on AI robotics and autonomous weapons, will be led by a four-star general, a sign that it will have a key role in future military operations.

“The autonomous and robotic revolution has enormous implications for equipment, doctrine, organization, and the assumptions that have governed warfare for decades,” Hegseth said. “Lasting change must be anchored in military command structures.”

The Pentagon chief cited lessons learned from the war in Ukraine as motivation for the new command and said that a complementary effort known as Project Agincourt will work to clear the way for the new command and overhaul how the military acquires, tests, and fields drones and other similar weapons.

A memo released by the Pentagon said that the new command aims to go online in October 2027.

The speech also included Hegseth repeating a number of his past criticisms of military culture and saying that he had ordered further cuts to the ranks of senior officers to continue to remove “woke” policy.

He doubled the percentage target for cutting general and flag officer positions in the ranks to 20%, up from a 10% reduction of generals and admirals he had directed in a May 2025 memo.

Hegseth has fired more than two dozen senior officers across the military — many with little to no explanation, to the dismay of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The military services have also reduced the number of available four-star jobs, forcing some senior officers to leave the military.

Frustration over the firings was in part responsible for the resignation of former Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. CNN previously reported that Driscoll “brought up concerns with the administration surrounding Army transformation and readiness and Hegseth’s blocking those efforts specifically by firing the generals who were responsible,” in his resignation.

Some of the speech’s attendees included Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and Palmer Luckey, founder and head of defense tech company Anduril. Hegseth announced that the three will chair a new future of warfare study group known as Project Meridian.

Another set of initiatives laid out in Hegseth’s speech aim to modernize US bases and get them onto their own power grids, boost the resilience of defense supply chains, build reserves of key commodities like fuel and medicine, and solicit “pitches” from governors on where the Pentagon should build a new mid-sized military base to house up to 25,000 troops.

The address comes on the anniversary of his September 30, 2025, speech at Quantico to many of the military’s generals and admirals. In that speech, Hegseth railed against what he described as “the woke department,” describing his preferred vision for how the military will look (no “fat troops” or “beardos”) and act. He said the Trump administration would “rip out the politics” of the Pentagon and that the “only mission” would be “warfighting, preparing for war and preparing to win.”

Hegseth repeated many of those criticisms on Wednesday, while also using a slur to describe transgender service members as he outlined his continued efforts to reshape the force.

“We are no longer the woke department or the weak department,” he said. “Simple translation of that: No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals, just warriors, just tough, ready, committed troops.”

This year’s attendance list was different. Hegseth’s office invited around 600 junior officers and noncommissioned officers — lower-level leaders who carry out the day-to-day work of the military — to attend Wednesday’s event as his primary audience.

In Wednesday’s speech, he blasted the media’s coverage of US military operations, likening it to “treason” while also conceding that a “free press” is “important.”

As Hegseth listed his oft-aired grievances against the media, past Defense Department leadership, so-called “woke” military leaders and Ivy League universities – the young leaders largely sat silently and stone-faced. The group included personnel from all branches of the military.

The few moments of clearer reaction from the crowd came when Hegseth impersonated President Donald Trump, saying the kind of people needed in the military are those from “central casting,” and when the room applauded for Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg, who is overseeing an ambitious effort to revive America’s defense industrial base.

Hegseth’s address leaned into the Christian religious messaging that has characterized much of his Pentagon stint. The secretary quoted Bible verses and detailed new reforms to the military chaplaincy intended to raise their profile within the Pentagon bureaucracy.

“Decisions about faith and religion were made by secular careerists in cubicles and lawyers running around with red tape,” he argued.

The defense secretary also cited internal Pentagon data to say that 95% of the military “recognizes an Almighty God,” in seeming supporting his focus on the chaplaincy.

One of the newly announced initiatives — “America’s Corps of Cadets” — tapped Hillsdale College and Liberty University as new “Distinguished Military Colleges” that will receive Pentagon resources to train new officers for the military. In addition to the two conservative-leaning Christian colleges, the initiative also includes Louisiana State University, Mississippi State University, and the historically Black Tuskegee University.

Hegseth’s Wednesday speech also comes on the day US troops completed their withdrawal from Iraq. The move marked the end to the Iraq chapter of the US mission that launched in 2014 to combat ISIS as the terrorist group swept across the region, capturing major cities in Iraq and Syria.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

Davis Winkie’s work at CNN is supported by a partnership between Outrider Foundation and Journalism Funding Partners (JFP). CNN retains full editorial control of the reporting.

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