Someone Should Get Hegseth a Map

Hegseth’s answer tells me that he knows very little about the rest of the world.

Pete Hegseth doesn’t know much about geography:

“Can you name the importance of at least one of the nations in ASEAN and what type of agreement we have with at least one of those nations?” [Sen. Duckworth] asked.

“I couldn’t tell you the exact amount of nations in that, but I know we have allies in South Korea and Japan and ... with Australia,” Hegseth began responding.

Duckworth cut him off to make a major correction.

“None of those three countries that you’ve mentioned are in ASEAN,” she said.

It isn’t surprising that Hegseth didn’t know the answers to Sen. Duckworth’s questions, but that underscores how woefully unprepared he is to serve as Secretary of Defense. Hegseth’s answer tells me that he knows very little about the rest of the world. He seems to think that having the most basic awareness of some major U.S. alliances is supposed to be sufficient. It’s as if he read the Cliff’s Notes version of U.S. foreign policy in Asia before his hearing and then forgot half of it anyway.