In February 1777 George Washington issued an order requiring that American soldiers be inoculated against smallpox:

Finding the Small pox to be spreading much and fearing that no precaution can prevent it from running through the whole of our Army, I have determined that the troops shall be inoculated. This Expedient may be attended with some inconveniences and some disadvantages, but yet I trust in its consequences will have the most happy effects. Necessity not only authorizes but seems to require the measure, for should the disorder infect the Army in the natural way and rage with its usual virulence we should have more to dread from it than from the Sword of the Enemy.

It was a wise decision. Smallpox was a debilitating, often fatal disease. And Washington’s army, which put many farm boys with little previous exposure to infectious disease into crowded encampments, was especially vulnerable. As Washington said, the situation “seems to require the measure.”

It was, nonetheless, a bold, enlightened move. And why not? Washington, like many of the Founding Fathers, was very much a man of the Enlightenment.

By contrast, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense who insists on being called the Secretary of War, is a bloodthirsty religious fanatic. He’s more comfortable with fascism than with America’s founding principles. And in another attempt to prove his manhood, he announced on Tuesday that he was ending the sissy requirement that members of the military be vaccinated against the flu.

This was, he said, to “restore freedom” to our armed forces:

If you, an American warrior entrusted to defend this nation, believe that the flu vaccine is in your best interest, then you are free to take it. You shouldn’t. But we will not force you because your body, your faith, and your convictions are not negotiable.

Even before we get into the practical damage Hegseth’s move will inflict, note the bizarre framing. Personal freedom is great and should be granted wherever appropriate. But one place where it isn’t and never has been appropriate is in the military. When Americans sign up to serve the nation under arms, they agree to temporarily forego many of the freedoms of civilian life. They must wear uniforms, not street fashion. They must eat Army or Navy food. They must salute officers and obey orders. They must, in other words, adhere to military discipline.

It won’t surprise you to learn that Hegseth is completely hypocritical on this subject. He says that your body, your faith, and your convictions are not negotiable. But he has banned most beards from the U.S. military and cracked down on religious exemptions. After all, bearded men can’t be effective warriors:

He has also demanded that members of the military lose weight, because he doesn’t like how they look:

Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations or really any formation and see fat troops. Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world. It’s a bad look. It is bad and it’s not who we are.

But requiring that serving troops receive a vaccine that helps maintain their military effectiveness and also helps protect their comrades from infection? Tyranny!

This isn’t simply about vaccines and facial hair. These directives are part of a larger project, another step in Hegseth’s drive to cultify the US military.

What do I mean by cultifying the military? I mean creating an environment in which professional integrity, military discipline, and historical precedent are destroyed in service to the personality cult of Donald Trump and his enforcer, Pete Hegseth.

Think of these directives as loyalty tests. Hegseth can indulge his faux concerns about liberty while aligning himself with the science-hating right. If you are an officer concerned about the welfare of your troops and voice your concerns, you are out. Mention that the directive against beards is nonsensical and disproportionately harms black male soldiers with a common skin condition, then you are a woke weakling and are sent packing. If you are a general in possession of critical skills and hard-won experience, but served during the Biden administration, you will be unceremoniously fired.

Simply put, the method in Hegseth’s apparent madness is to destroy the integrity of the professional military corps through destructive and despotic behavior that drives out those – like Admiral Holsey – who hold to their principles.

And this should terrify every American. A powerful military always poses a potential threat to democracy. To keep that threat in check, the military must be presided over by an officer corps that understands that its duty is not to any one person, but to the Constitution and the rule of law. The U.S. military has been largely insulated from political influencesince the nation’s founding. But Hegseth is trying to subvert that.

Gratuitously exposing service members to disease isn’t a small issue. But it’s much more important as a symptom of the ongoing effort to corrupt the military and make it a servant of extremist politics and politicians.

Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize-winning economist and former professor at MIT and Princeton who now teaches at the City University of New York's Graduate Center. From 2000 to 2024, he wrote a column for The New York Times. Please consider subscribing to his Substack.

Reprinted with permission from Paul Krugman.