President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are waging a war against their own military.

Donald Trump might not be able to win a war abroad, but he’s found an easier target for his bullying back at home: his own military.

Trump’s war on Iran is currently mired in an interminable stalemate, where negotiations have stalled.

In the face of this humiliation on the world stage, Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are throwing scapegoats from within the U.S. war machine under the bus.

Trump fired Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, part of a much wider military purge. As The New York Times reported, Hegseth fired or sidelined more than two dozen generals and admirals over the past year. The Pentagon then fired Jacqueline Smith, ombudsman for Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper which the White House accused of being “woke.”

It’s not uncommon for a president facing a tough war to fire unsuccessful commanders and bring on a new team. Abraham Lincoln famously relieved Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan of command of the Union Army in 1862. Harry Truman fired the insubordinate Douglas MacArthur in 1951.

Like these earlier presidents, Trump is struggling with the headwinds of a war that isn’t going according to plan. But the similarities end there. The latest firings aren’t motivated by a desire to build a better army. They are fueled by Trump’s vanity and refusal to take responsibility for his failures. Throw in Hegseth’s ideological zeal, and you’re left with an especially toxic state of affairs.

The latest firings are fueled by Trump’s vanity.

The president has long nursed the dream of turning the Navy into a showcase for his personal taste. This fantasy was partially inspired by his boyhood love of the 1950s TV program Victory at Sea. Trump boasted about his plans for new ships in December: “The U.S. Navy will lead the design of the ships, along with me because I’m a very aesthetic person.” In the days after Mr. Trump announced plans for the new battleships, defense experts raised questions about whether they would ever be built.

Trump’s growing disenchantment with Phelan proved a perfect opportunity for Hegseth to install Hung Cao, a former military officer, now the acting Navy secretary. Like Hegseth, Cao is an ideological warrior (see “Squid Fry,” p. 17). Both men are as keen to fight the enemies of MAGA as they are foreign foes.

Even in an institution as conservative as the military, Hegseth’s ideological purge is getting pushback. Axios quoted military officials who described the firing of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George and Army Gen. David Hodne as “insane.” Another officer was quoted about the George firing, “Here is a four-star general who is actively working to get equipment and people into theater – to protect U.S. forces – and you fire him? In the middle of a war?”

But Hegseth’s actions are only “insane” if you think his main priority is winning the war in Iran. It is much more likely that Hegseth’s real agenda is creating a MAGA-dominated military. That’s one war he has a good chance of winning, as long as Congress remains supine.

JEET HEER is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation, where this story first appeared.