Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has enlisted Newt Gingrich to help lead a Pentagon study on the future of warfare.
Hegseth, during a “State of the Force” address Wednesday at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia, announced “Project Meridian,” which is aimed at identifying the weapons and technologies the military may require down the road. The initiative “is not about developing new strategies or new policies,” Hegseth said, but rather identifying “the domains that we must conquer, and capabilities we must master.”
Gingrich, Elon Musk, 55, and defense technology entrepreneur Palmer Luckey, 34, will co-direct the 120-day project, working with Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael and business leaders.
Gingrich, the 83-year-old Republican former House Speaker and Georgia congressman, may seem like a curious choice for the role, given that he was able to avoid serving in the Vietnam War. Gingrich took deferments as a student—he graduated from Emory University in 1965, then Tulane in 1968 and 1971 with graduate degrees—and as a father. His wife at the time was his former high school math teacher, Jackie Battley, whom he later cheated on and divorced.
Gingrich, who portrayed himself in Congress as a hawk, was among those labeled “war wimps,” given their tough talk but lack of service. Gingrich apparently wrestled with his decision for some time.
“Vietnam was the right battlefield at the right time,” he told The Wall Street Journal in 1985. “Given everything I believe in, a large part of me thinks I should have gone over.” But, he explained: “Part of the question I had to ask myself was what difference I would have made.”
In the 1980s, Gingrich was a member of the Congressional Military Reform Caucus, an ideologically diverse group aimed at having Congress debate military concepts rather than primarily funding and materials.
Gingrich has weighed in on several military matters since leaving Congress in 1999. Notably, he supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, in 2011 called Palestinians “an invented people,” and the same year called for regime change in Iran.
Hegseth’s announcement comes after seven months of the Trump administration’s war against Iran, which the president claimed at the outset would only last a few weeks.
“There are obvious biases and risks to asking ourselves to both ask the questions and answer them,” Hegseth, 46, said. “So today we are leveraging a unique source of American advantage, one our adversaries do not have: our innovators, our senior leaders, and our technologists. Big thinkers and doers who will forecast the creative solution to tomorrow’s conflicts.”
“And that’s why today…I’m announcing Project Meridian, an effort led by America’s best minds to study the future of warfare.”
