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McFate Discusses Defense Secretary Hegseth’s Plan to Modernize the US Army on Fox News Live

May 16, 2025

Fox News

Sean McFate

Sean McFate


Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth is ordering a comprehensive transformation of the Army aimed at countering China and accelerating the Pentagon's new Golden Dome strategy. Sean McFate, adjunct professor in Maxwell's Washington programs, discusses the plan on Fox News Live.

“I think this is a necessary decision. This is a come-too-late decision. The Department of Defense has been growing and growing, so now our DoD budget is larger than the next nine biggest countries' militaries in the world combined,” says McFate.

“We have a lot of legacy systems that really were designed for the Soviet Union still in our arsenal and I think the Army is finally trying to peel them away, and they're taking the lessons learned from Ukraine—that cheap, adaptive technology, like off-the-shelf drones, can beat super-expensive exquisite technology, whether they be Apache helicopters or tanks,” he says.


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