Hegseth Didn’t Revive an Ancient Warrior Ethos. He Repeated an American Pattern

(Ali Sanaei – Just Security) It is easy to dismiss Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s recent use of the phrase “no quarter” as barbaric, medieval, or un-American. Barbaric is fair, but the other two descriptions are not historically accurate. Calling his rhetoric medieval flatters the modern world, while calling it un-American flatters the United States. No quarter language belongs to a recurrent American tradition that tends to surface when war is understood not as a contest against a reciprocal enemy, one like us, but as a campaign against a people who are racially inferior, or civilizationally irredeemable. This is why Hegseth’s remark matters. Not because he sounded fierce or merciless, but because he reached for an old American grammar that indicates how some in the Pentagon perceive this war. – Hegseth’s “No Quarter” Statement Repeated an American Pattern