Pete Hegseth is worried about the Pentagon’s ‘Soviet-style bureaucracy,’ but the military’s $285 billion maintenance mess is all-American

Shortly after he became Trump’s Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth warned that the American military risked a late Soviet-style decline.

Speaking before a group of defense executives in November 2025, he teased comparisons with the USSR and even the Chinese Communist Party as he described an “adversary” that poses a serious threat to the United States of America.

“The adversary I’m talking about is much closer to home,” he said.

“It’s the Pentagon bureaucracy — not the people, but the process.” This March, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R.

Ford, pulled into port at Souda Bay, Greece, scheduled for more than a week of repairs.

More than 200 of its sailors were receiving treatment for smoke inhalation, a result of a laundry room fire that spread through the ventilation system into the carrier’s sleeping quarters.

The USS Gerald R.

Ford was at sea for 10 months, long past its deployment length, and was reportedly dealing with electrical problems and delayed maintenance that led to overworked equipment.

That was on top of sewage problems on the ship that left its crew unable to use its toilets.

According to Linda Bilmes, a Harvard Kennedy School public policy lecturer and author of The Ghost Budget: U.S.

War Spending and Fiscal Transparency , the USS Gerald R.

Ford represents a larger problem for the U.S. military: a massive tract of infrastructure and facilities without the proper structures to maintain them.

“Here you have $13 billion spent on the highest tech carrier in the entire navy, and somehow there wasn’t a sufficient amount of money spent on maintaining the laundry conditions and the toilets,” Bilmes told Fortune .

“That’s just one example, but you have to question whether the resources are being allocated in a way that provides maximum benefits.” A report published last week from the U.S.