High T–Roosevelt?

 A recent piece in the Intercept traces Pete Hegseth's obsession with testosterone levels—and other manifestations of masculine insecurity—to a lifelong desire to model himself on Teddy Roosevelt. 

The writer, Nick Turse, includes an anecdote from early in Hegseth's military career: "Stuffed in Hegseth’s Army-issue green duffle bag when he arrived at Gitmo was a sheet of plain white copy paper inside a black plastic frame with a quote from his hero, former President Teddy Roosevelt."

I was reminded of Anatole France's warning about the looming age of imperial warfare in his book The White Stone (Roche trans.): 

Supposing even that Europe should become pacific, can you not see that America would become warlike? Following upon Cuba, reduced to the state of a vassal republic, Hawaii, Porto Rico, and the annexation of the Philippines, it is impossible to say that the American Union is not a conquering nation. [...] And then there is Mr. Roosevelt, whose dream is to plant the Stars and Stripes in South Africa, Australia, and the West Indies. Mr. Roosevelt is Imperialist and he sighs for an America mistress of the world. Between ourselves, he is planning the Empire of Augustus. He has unfortunately perused Livy. The conquests of the Romans banish sleep from him. Have you read his speeches? They breathe a bellicose spirit. ‘Fight, my friends,’ says Mr. Roosevelt, ‘and fight hard. There is nothing like blows. We are upon earth only to exterminate one another. Those who tell you the contrary are men without morality. Mistrust men who think. Thought enervates. ’Tis a French failing. The Romans conquered the world. They lost it. We are the modern Romans.’ Words full of eloquence, backed up with a navy which will soon be the second in the world, and with a military Budget of 40,500,000 francs!

Bad things happen, in short, when a bunch of insecure fanatics make machismo and social Darwinist braggadocio the governing principle of the world. "We are upon earth only to exterminate each other" sounds like a principle Hegseth would adopt from his master. 

And his new insistence on instituting "testosterone screening" for every member of the U.S. military sounds like a recipe for ensuring that everyone else is just as impulsive and Id-driven as he is. "Mistrust men who think. Thought enervates." 

We need a "High-T Department of War" to fight our illegal invasions of Iran and Venezuela, Hegseth says.

As Harold Pinter wrote in February 2003, as a warning against the looming U.S. invasion of Iraq—another dumb impulsive spasm of macho imperialist hubris and he-man insecurity with devastating consequences for the world, quite similar to the Trump-Hegseth attack on Iran: 

There's no escape.

The big pricks are out.

They'll fuck everything in sight.

Watch your back.