For some time, the Trump/MAGA fascist regime has been actively remaking the U.S. military as a fully obedient fascist fighting force. (See “Forging the Armed Forces as a Hammer of Fascist Repression” and “Armageddon-Loving Christian Fascist Lunatics in Leadership of U.S. Military, Preparing Troops for Holy War”.) They are working to cohere the armed forces on an openly theocratic, patriarchal and white supremacist foundation ready to wage holy war on their enemies. And they're purging opponents inside the U.S. military. 

This has taken a leap with the genocidal war on Iran. 

At the head of this is “Secretary of War,” Pete Hegseth: a stone-cold Christian fascist fanatic who believes in the doctrine of divine providence. This doctrine asserts that there is an all-knowing, all-powerful god in direct control of everything that happens in the universe. At an April 8 press conference on the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, Hegseth said: “Our troops, our American warriors, deserve the credit for this day, but God deserves all the glory. Tens of thousands of sorties, refuelings, and strikes carried out under the protection of divine providence, a massive effort with miraculous protection.” (our emphasis)

Since the start of this criminal war on Iran, Trump and Hegseth have been threatening slaughter and complete destruction of Iran, with Trump's open threats to "destroy a whole civilization." But they've also been talking about the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran as if it is a “Holy War” in the literal sense. Hegseth has been openly calling for, and working to normalize, war crimes—threatening that U.S. soldiers will show Iranian solders “no quarter, no mercy.” (“No quarter” means killing "enemy combatants" with no allowance for surrender. Even calling for “no quarter” is considered a war crime. "No mercy" means to show no compassion, restraint or leniency. It means punishment without forgiveness.)

The U.S. military has always been a machinery of mass slaughter and unjust violence, carrying out war crimes and crimes against humanity in the service of the viciously exploitative system of capitalism-imperialism. This has been true under the rule of both Democrats and Republicans. But the leap to all-out fascism makes this all the more dangerous and deadly. We are talking about an army without even the semblance of any constraints—as we’ll see, anything goes: the brazen violation of laws, the murder of people trying to surrender, and so on down the line.

At the same time, this is creating real instability for a crucial ruling institution of this outmoded and rotten system. There is opposition to all this throughout the military itself as well as ex-generals who have spoken out to some degree.

This underscores the need and potential for people throughout society to be acting urgently on the demand that the Trump Fascist Regime Must Go NOW. And to raise their sights to get organized for an actual revolution to bring a radically different and far better society into being—one whose military would be acting in line with the concrete goal of ending oppression and exploitation, here and all over the world.

Christian Fascist Lunatics in the U.S. Military Call for Holy War

Hegseth and the fascist commander-in-chief Donald Trump act like god is on the side of the U.S. in its criminal war against Iran, and in its moves to dominate the world. Hegseth portrays this as a war fought in the service of the Christian god against adherents of Islam who are depicted as irredeemably evil and deserving of death. Meanwhile, as we wrote last month, “Armageddon-loving Christian fascist lunatics in the leadership of the U.S. Military” have been preparing troops for holy war. One military commander reportedly told a gathering of military officers, “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.” (See the sidebar for how Hegseth has wrapped this criminal war in holy terms.)

Question: how, other than "branding," is this any different than the reactionary Islamic Republic of Iran, whose Constitution proclaims the mission of “extending the sovereignty of God’s law throughout the world,” as part of its military’s essential mission.

Justifying massive death and destruction in holy terms is a call for more wanton violence. As we wrote last month, "This is not just a recipe for unthinking violence and death, without mercy. In a situation that holds the danger of spiraling out into nuclear annihilation, this is dangerous madness and represents the accelerated consolidation of an all-out Christian fascist America."

Bombing a school full of children, as the U.S. did on the first day of the current war on Iran: part of god’s plan. The Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people: part of god’s plan. Wiping out a whole civilization: part of god’s plan. 

This is the opposite of what many, if not most, Christians believe. And there are splits among religious people about this. Trump has even gotten into a major fight with the Pope because the Pope openly criticized Trump's threat that "a whole civilization will die tonight." The Pope called this "truly unacceptable." This came a week after Leo said in a sermon that "Jesus is the King of Peace... He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.” Days later, Trump posted a social media AI graphic with Trump himself portrayed as Jesus healing the sick. He later took this down in response to widespread outrage but posted other graphics portraying Jesus as if he was overseeing Trump's actions. (Further analysis of this sharp split between the Pope and the Trump regime is beyond the scope of this article, but at least in part, Trump seems to be asserting the lunacy that he is god's emissary on Earth. This is a belief widespread among Trump's fascist social base.)

Hegseth Continues Purges of High Level Military Leaders

Key in this fascist remaking has been the purging of top generals and military officers. In his 2024 book, The War on Warriors, Hegseth said “We need to clean house of woke generals.” In Hegseth’s first nine months in office he fired or forced into early retirement 17 generals or admirals, and the figure now is about 20. These include a number of Black people, women or others thought of as “woke.” Hegseth has also blocked or delayed promotions for more than a dozen Black and female senior officers across all four branches of the military.

In early April, Hegseth fired the Army chief of staff, Gen. Randy George. George was supposed to serve a four-year term ending in September 2027. Before his current role, George was senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin under Biden. Such a firing—in the middle of a war—is unprecedented, and marks the urgency behind the rapid reforging of the whole military along fascist lines.

On the same day, Hegseth also fired the Army’s chief of chaplains—a Black man. Years ago, Hegseth identified the existing Chaplain Corps—which was supposed to “spiritually minister” to all soldiers, regardless of what faith they held—as a key link in developing an army of Christian holy warriors. Last December, he launched a campaign to “make the Chaplain Corps great again.” He announced he’d be eliminating the Army spiritual fitness guide that he said “alienates our war fighters of faith by pushing secular humanism.” In his video announcement Hegseth said: “In well over 100 pages, it mentions God one time. That’s it. It mentions feelings 11 times.”

Again, all this is part of a hardening a Christian fascist military trained in unthinking fanaticism to carry out violence and death for god and country. 

A Military that Openly Embraces War Crimes

While officially, the U.S. military code forbids war crimes, the reality is that atrocities are and always have been an integral part of the U.S. way of fighting. Most are covered up, and even those that do come to light rarely result in serious punishment. Nevertheless, this official policy has exerted some constraint on the savagery of U.S. warfighting—especially as they've tried to focus on a "counterinsurgency" strategy of "winning hearts and minds."

But Hegseth argues that the rules of law of war—which prohibit things like torture, killing wounded prisoners and massacring civilians—are an obstacle to his goal of “maximum lethality.” He has written that these rules are “why America hasn’t won a war since World War II,” and that we are “just better off winning our wars according to our own rules.” Hegseth initially came to Trump’s attention when Hegseth—then a Fox News personality—launched a campaign to pardon a Navy Seal non-commissioned officer who had been turned in by his fellow Seals for stabbing to death an unarmed wounded captive.

So right from the start, a major objective of Hegseth’s agenda was to transform the military into an even more openly vicious, lawless and terrifying instrument of a fascist regime that—as the revolutionary leader and architect of the new communism, Bob Avakian put it—“recognize[s] no authority beyond their own exercise of raw power.” Hegseth fired each top lawyer in the Army, Navy and Air Force so that he could bring in people who would facilitate the fascist orientation. 

And Hegseth has normalized blatant war crimes, including the killing 178 people in the seas off Venezuela, all of whom have been noncombatants. Hegseth used the unproven allegation that they were drug runners. Some may have been involved low level drug operations, some were fishermen, but none were doing anything to justify being blown up! In one case, U.S. planes murdered survivors of one of these attacks who were clinging to the remains of their boat. While this aroused criticism and condemnation from various quarters, and the Admiral responsible for implementing this policy did resign—apparently in protest—there was no outpouring of major protest and what opposition there was died down. Now this illegal and immoral murder continues (most recently on last Friday) almost without being noticed. 

A Munitions Crisis Within the U.S. Military

All this is taking place amidst a crisis of diminishing weapons stockpiles within the U.S. military. There are sharp differences amongst the rulers of this system about how to handle this. These reflect bigger divisions about how the U.S. should be working to maintain its dominant position in the system of capitalism-imperialism and in particular, how the U.S. is preparing for a face-off with their main imperialist rival, China. 

This is a big part of what Hegseth says he's getting in position for. We wrote last fall about Hegseth's moves to get the U.S. military on a "wartime footing" in terms of weapons manufacturing. But part of the critique of Trump by the Democratic Party and the other mainstream imperialists, like the New York Times, is that his administration is weakening the position of the U.S. vis-à-vis China. The New York Times wrote last week: "The Iran war has significantly drained much of the U.S. military’s global supply of munitions, and forced the Pentagon to rush bombs, missiles and other hardware to the Middle East from commands in Asia and Europe. The drawdowns have left these regional commands less ready to confront potential adversaries like Russia and China, and it has forced the United States to find ways to scale up production to address the depletions, Trump administration and congressional officials say."

A 2023 war game developed by a military think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, found that, in a conflict with China over Taiwan, the U.S. would run out of key munitions in just a month—and, in the case of one missile, in three to seven days. This war game was done before the giant depletion of American weapons stockpiles caused by the war on Iran. 

In addition to the larger global crises caused by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran with European imperialist countries like France, Britain, etc. there is also a lot of concern that this war has weakened the overall position of the U.S. in the world. To be clear, the U.S.'s dominant position is built on unjust military invasions, coups and torture to enforce a global system of resource extraction and sweatshop exploitation to meet the expand-or-die needs of the American empire. And these are not the interests of the people of the world. As the revolutionary leader and architect of the new communism Bob Avakian has said:

The interests, objectives, and grand designs of the imperialists are not our interests—they are not the interests of the great majority of people in the U.S. nor of the overwhelming majority of people in the world as a whole. And the difficulties the imperialists have gotten themselves into in pursuit of these interests must be seen, and responded to, not from the point of view of the imperialists and their interests, but from the point of view of the great majority of humanity and the basic and urgent need of humanity for a different and better world, for another way.

BAsics 3:8

Problems the Fascists Face

The fascists face a number of strategic contradictions in their moves to remake the U.S. military, which they see as essential to the larger lockdown of a fascist America: The Trump fascist regime isn’t just going for a few policy changes, they are going for a wholesale remaking of society from top to bottom. As Bob Avakian said last Spring:

Fascism is a qualitatively different way that this system enforces its rule over people.

Trump fascism is a regime that openly and aggressively strips away basic rights and blatantly declares that there is no rule of law and due process of law other than what it dictates, and that raw destructive power is what must rule in the international arena, without even the pretense of adherence to international law or concern about the sovereignty, or even the right to exist, of less powerful peoples and countries.

It is a regime that is bent on unleashing unregulated and unfettered capitalist plunder, and in the pursuit of that takes a sledgehammer (or chainsaw) to crucial programs and services that people depend on—ruining livelihoods, wrecking science and health care, undermining and perverting education, and creating chaos that will cause huge numbers of people to suffer, here and all over the world.

Another strategic contradiction for the fascists is that the U.S. military is, at this point, nearly half non-white (combining together Black, Latino and Asian soldiers). It's not like Black and Brown people won't automatically fight to enforce white supremacy—as we see with the police forces all the time. But that's not without contradiction—especially in the military, where the rank-and-file is less ideologically solid with the rulers. When Trump and Hegseth openly resurrect memorials to the slaveholding Confederacy, the message to non-white soldiers is clear.

Finally, the supposed legitimacy of the armed forces is that the U.S. military are the "good guys" in the world. Despite the fact that the U.S. military has repeatedly and wantonly carried out war crimes in its whole way of war, doing this openly can turn off a lot of soldiers. And all these fascist moves have caused some upset within the ranks of the U.S. military itself.

Organizations which help run a GI Rights hotline, dedicated to helping soldiers apply for conscientious objector status reported a major increase in the number of calls into the hotline. (Conscientious objectors can refuse combat duty on religious or moral grounds, and either be reassigned to noncombat posts or receive an honorable discharge.) Steve Woolford, a resource counselor who has taken calls for the hotline since 2001 said that the war on Iran, and Trump’s broader use of the military, has caused a spike in calls. “The biggest increase has come from people who are feeling a lot of opposition to the ways the military’s currently being used. That includes people who feel like they don’t want to be sent into cities and point a weapon at U.S. citizens, they don’t want to be part of what to many of them look like war crimes, shooting down speedboats in Venezuela that wouldn’t be able to make it to the United States, and I would say with the invasion, or whatever you want to call it, ‘Operation Epic Fury’ in Iran, there’s been significant opposition to that.”

Mike Prysner, an Iraq War veteran and now director of the Center on Conscience and War, said in a recent interview, “The number one thing cited by our callers as a breaking point for them was the U.S. bombing of the Minab girls’ elementary school, that being the moment where they realized, ‘I’m not going to take part in the killing of children.’ When the U.S. and Israel launched the war against Iran there was a shift. We used to get a handful of calls a week; now it’s three or four a day… people with really accomplished careers, in very elite jobs like Special Forces, Top Gun fighter pilots, physicians, surgeons. … Our highest-ranking CO client right now is a major in the military.”

This kind of cracking within the institutions of power is all the more possible if they are being challenged by a moral force of millions throughout society demanding an end to the U.S.-Israeli War on Iran! And making real the mass demand: The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go NOW!

A Rare Time When Revolution Becomes More Possible

The moves of Trump, Hegseth and this whole fascist regime are extremely dangerous. But they are also part of a rare time in this country when revolution—a real revolution—is more possible.

In his major new presentation, “HUMANITY ON THE BRINK: A Forced March Into the Abyss, or Forging a Way Forward Out of the Madness?,” Bob Avakian lays out the conditions that make revolution possible. 

A revolution becomes possible, even in a powerful country like this, when three main factors have been brought into being:

A crisis in society and government so deep and so disruptive of the “usual way of doing things,” that those who have ruled over us, for so long, can no longer do so in the “normal” way that people have been conditioned to accept.

A revolutionary people in the millions and millions, with their “allegiance” to this system broken, and their determination to fight for a more just society greater than their fear of the violent repression of this system.

An organized revolutionary force—made up of continually growing numbers of people, from among the most oppressed but also from many other parts of society—a force which is grounded in, and is working systematically to apply, the most scientific approach to building for and then carrying out revolution, and which is increasingly looked to by masses of people to lead them to bring about the radical change that is urgently needed.

These factors for revolution, as a whole, clearly do not exist right now—but, again, this is one of those rare times when these factors for revolution could be brought into being.

He walks through how that first condition "essentially exists now, and this situation is continually intensifying—particularly through the accelerating juggernaut of the Trump fascist regime." But urgently what's needed are people stepping in to be part of the organized forces of this movement for revolution. As Avakian has also brought alive, "With thousands organized into the ranks of the revolution, millions can be won to revolution; and with millions won to revolution, there could be a real possibility for this revolution to win."

With major changes taking place in every institution of this society, the revolution to emancipate humanity is more possible—extremely difficult, but possible. This requires people who hunger for a whole better world to take up the scientific theory concentrated in the new communism to understand why we need this revolution, and how we can go to work for this revolution.