The United States Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, kicked off this Friday with a video of a morning physical training session alongside soldiers and marines.
He posted a video on his official account on X where he described the troops as “the true backbone of America”. He addressed the soldiers with a motivational speech: “It is an honor to be here. This is the best view, I am convinced, looking at all of you.”
"They could be doing many other things, but they choose to serve. They choose to serve this great country in uniform, in areas of danger, in the name of the American people," the Secretary stated before the assembled troops.
The Secretary of Defense has garnered all the attention in Singapore during an intense training day with soldiers stationed on the USS Boxer, as reported by El Mundo.
The strategic training of the U.S. Army.
Hegseth emphasized the strategic importance of that preparation: "Thanks to what you do and how you do it, I can sit at a table to talk about deterrence and American strength."
The gesture also occurs during the full deployment of the Southern Spear Operation, active since September 2025 in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific under the command of the Southern Command.
The operation involves over 4,500 marines, ships like the USS Iwo Jima, the USS Fort Lauderdale, and the USS San Antonio, and has been interpreted as a direct signal of geopolitical pressure toward Cuba and Venezuela.
Hegseth himself boarded the USS Iwo Jima in September 2025 to address the deployed marines, describing the mission as a "real exercise," and in January, the same ship hosted Nicolás Maduro after his capture.
On May 23, Southern Command continued operating in the Caribbean with the USS Iwo Jima and the USS Lake Erie off the coast of Venezuela, conveying an implicit message directed at Havana.
The contrast with the Cuban high military command
Cuba and the United States are experiencing a military escalation of tension. The image of the U.S. Secretary of Defense exercising with his Marines is, in itself, a message about the gap between the two armies.
The minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) of Cuba, Álvaro López Miera, is 82 years old and has held the rank of Army Corps General since 2001.
The other senior leaders of the FAR—Joaquín Quintas Solá, Roberto Legrá Sotolongo, and Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas—are older figures who appear publicly at formal events in dress uniform, without any record of physical activity or joint training with their troops.
It is hard to imagine that aged and remote leadership replicating Hegseth's scene: getting up at dawn, putting on athletic clothes, and sweating alongside its soldiers.
The military deployment in the Caribbean has cost between 2,000 and 3,000 million dollars since August 2025, according to estimates from Bloomberg and specialized analysts, and by April 2026, it had carried out more than 50 interdiction operations in the region.
Hegseth concluded his speech to the troops with a phrase that encapsulates the doctrine he has advocated from the Pentagon: "May God guide you in your mission. You have much good work ahead in the name of the American people. We are with you all the way. Go get them."
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