Pentagon upends relationship with other Washington institutions

The Pentagon’s relationship with the rest of Washington has, to put it mildly, become complicated. 

From severe restrictions on media access to limits on how military officials can communicate with Congress, the Defense Department under Secretary Pete Hegseth has upended the ways the Pentagon has traditionally interacted with other established institutions in the nation’s capital. Think tanks, top-level academic institutions and even some leading defense contractors have been caught up in the Trump administration’s overhaul of who should have access to the Pentagon grounds, how the military conducts business, how it educates its officers, and how its officials interact with civil society. 

Whether those changes outlast the Trump administration is an open question that could hinge largely on the outcome of the 2028 presidential election. Analysts generally agree that a Democratic administration, or one led by a more moderate Republican president and defense secretary, could undo many of the most restrictive policies implemented over the past 15 months, especially those limiting reporters’ access to the Pentagon itself.

“Is it irreparable? No, I don’t think so, because I think these are professionals. The press system will be reinstated and reinstituted under anything but a Trump continuation presidency,” said retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, former policy director for the Senate Armed Services Committee and now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank.

“Think tanks, I hate to say it, we don’t matter. The press and Congress matter,” Mr. Montgomery told the Threat Status weekly podcast on an episode coming out Friday. “That’s the oversight that the American citizens deserve, and the Congress will reassert itself.”

Key Republicans on Capitol Hill pushed back publicly and privately after a Pentagon memo in October outlined a policy shift in which most military communication with Congress would be funneled through the Office of Legislative Affairs under Mr. Hegseth. 

On the surface, there does not appear to have been any immediate change to Congress’ ability to get information from the Pentagon. Military officials have routinely testified before House and Senate committees over the past five months, and those committees have maintained open lines of communication to the Defense Department. 

But the shift underscored a much broader philosophical change. The Trump administration’s Pentagon doesn’t seem to believe it should do business with other Washington institutions in the same way as decades past. 

For example, a separate Defense Department memo last year established a new policy of “thorough vetting” of think tank forums — the kinds of Washington staples routinely hosted by the Brookings Institution, Atlantic Council, Heritage Foundation and dozens of other organizations — before granting military officials permission to attend or speak at those events. That change moved some power away from military services and other Defense Department offices when it comes to deciding whether key military leaders or civilian Pentagon officials could appear at a think tank event. 

Top officials have attended some of those events in the months since. But the change highlighted the administration’s apparent view that some longstanding institutions should be viewed skeptically, not necessarily as partners in the Washington ecosystem.

In late February, another Defense Department memo eliminated nearly two dozen “senior service college fellowship programs” affiliated with top universities such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Georgetown, and also with think tanks known for their research in defense and foreign policy matters such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Brookings Institution, Atlantic Council and others. 

In the memo, the Pentagon said it needed to change its SSCs to ensure future military leaders receive the right kinds of education in their fellowship programs. 

“This decisive change will ensure our leaders receive a more rigorous and relevant education to better prepare them for the complexities of modern warfare and return our force to the original purpose of SSCs: the preparation of senior officers to be critical thinkers that can plan and integrate multi-domain, joint operations at echelon and serve (and think) at the strategic level,” the memo reads in part.

Pentagon versus the press 

The most glaring change has been the Defense Department’s relationship with the press corps. Most reporters’ access to the Pentagon has been dramatically reduced at a time when U.S. forces are engaged in multiple conflicts around the world, including the ongoing war in Iran.

The restrictions on press access, the subject of an unfolding legal battle, could be rolled back by the next administration, though specialists caution that’s far from a guarantee.

“There’s nothing that can’t be changed, that can’t be rolled back if you want to roll it back. There’s nothing set in law,” said Jim Townsend, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy during the Obama administration and now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

But Mr. Townsend added that it’s possible “it won’t go back to exactly the way it was.” Part of the reason for that could be physical changes inside the Pentagon itself.

Last month, the administration announced it would close the “correspondents’ corridor” workspace that for years has been used by reporters covering the military.

The new policy came just days after a federal judge struck down the administration’s broad limits on press access to the complex. Those limits established a system in which reporters could receive press credentials — known as a “hard pass” that granted regular, unescorted access to the Pentagon — only if they pledged not to solicit and publish information not approved for release by the government.

Nearly all news outlets, including The Washington Times, refused to sign the new policy and lost their credentials.

With that policy now invalidated by a federal court — the Defense Department is appealing — credentialed reporters were expected to regain access to the Pentagon. But the administration said it will instead close the dedicated press workspace in the Pentagon for security reasons and move reporters elsewhere on the Pentagon’s grounds.

The space formerly used as the correspondents’ corridor could be repurposed and its dozens of desks and offices given to Defense Department employees, which would seemingly make it difficult to ever restore press access in exactly the same way.