Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is standing up a first-of-its-kind Pentagon advisory board focused on homeland defense, filling a gap he exposed after scrapping 14 legacy committees earlier this year.
The Homeland Defense Board, announced in the Federal Register on Sept. 11, will give the Defense Department something its establishing documents say no other federal advisory committee currently provides: integrated, independent counsel on military readiness for threats inside the Western Hemisphere, from adversary nations to drug-trafficking networks to domestic security emergencies. Hegseth will serve as chair, The Hill reported.
The board's vice chair will be the Pentagon's assistant secretary for Homeland Defense and Americas Security Affairs. Up to 20 members will fill out the panel, drawn from what the establishing documents describe as "eminent authorities" in homeland defense, military strategy, interagency coordination, critical infrastructure and cybersecurity, strategic competition, and Western Hemisphere policy. Each military department will contribute one civilian officer and one field-grade or mid-grade officer.
The board's founding documents lay out the rationale in blunt terms. Over the past ten years, the Pentagon argues, threats from peer and near-peer adversaries, rogue states, non-state actors, and what the documents call "hostile asymmetric activities" have grown "more intense and complex." Yet no existing federal advisory body was positioned to offer the military-specific guidance that the department needed.
The documents take direct aim at the Department of Homeland Security's own advisory council, noting it "focuses exclusively on civilian law enforcement, border management, and emergency response" and "lacks the mandate to advise on Title 10 or Title 32 deployments", the legal authorities that govern active-duty and domestic National Guard operations. The State Department's International Security Advisory Board, oriented toward diplomacy and arms control, was described as "unequipped" to evaluate military campaign plans or defense strategies across North and South America.
Even internal Pentagon staff studies fell short. The establishing documents called contracted and staff-produced analysis "insufficient, as it fails to provide the consensus-based, independent, and external peer review required at the highest levels of strategic decision-making." Without the new board, the Pentagon said, the department "risks strategic blind spots in its primary mission to protect the Homeland."
That is a striking admission from the world's largest defense bureaucracy, and it explains why Hegseth chose to build rather than simply reshuffle.
The new board did not appear in a vacuum. In March 2025, Hegseth purged all members of the Pentagon's roughly 40 existing advisory committees and ordered a 45-day "zero-based review", a ground-up audit requiring each panel to justify its continued existence. By May 2025, the review was complete. Fourteen advisory groups were flagged for elimination.
Among the casualties was the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, a panel first established in 1951. Hegseth accused the committee of "advancing a divisive feminist agenda." The decision drew predictable criticism, but it fit a broader pattern: clearing out committees the secretary viewed as relics or ideological projects and replacing them with bodies aligned to current operational priorities.
That willingness to overhaul the Pentagon's advisory infrastructure has been a hallmark of Hegseth's tenure, one that has created friction inside the building. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll's recent departure underscored the tensions that accompany sweeping institutional change at the department's highest levels.
The HDB arrives at a moment when the military's domestic footprint is larger than it has been in years. An ongoing military campaign at the U.S.-Mexico border, strikes on suspected drug-carrying boats around Central and South America, and a large-scale National Guard deployment to American cities, including more than 3,000 troops in Washington, D.C., supporting law enforcement, all fall within the board's advisory scope.
Those operations sit at the intersection of defense policy and domestic security, precisely the seam the Pentagon's documents say existing advisory bodies could not cover. Title 10 governs active-duty forces; Title 32 governs National Guard troops operating under state authority with federal funding. Decisions about when and how to deploy troops under either statute carry enormous legal and political weight, and until now no dedicated advisory panel existed to pressure-test those decisions from the outside.
Hegseth has faced scrutiny on multiple fronts during his time leading the Pentagon. Senior military leaders have warned him that overseas commitments risk stretching forces thin, raising questions about readiness at home, the very concern the HDB is designed to address.
NPR reported last week on growing fears that President Trump could deploy federalized National Guard troops around polling locations ahead of November's midterm elections. The HDB's establishing documents do not reference elections, but the board's mandate to advise on domestic troop deployments means it could become a forum for evaluating such proposals, or for providing the independent review the Pentagon says it currently lacks.
Congressional Democrats have not been shy about targeting the defense secretary. Rep. Ted Lieu has demanded Hegseth's resignation, and the press has challenged his management style at every turn. A federal judge recently blocked a Pentagon press escort rule, handing the New York Times a courtroom win and adding another front to the political battles surrounding his leadership.
Through it all, Hegseth has continued reshaping the department's internal machinery. The zero-based review, the advisory-panel purge, new fitness and readiness standards, including a testosterone screening initiative for troops over 30, and now the HDB all reflect a secretary who treats institutional inertia as the enemy and acts accordingly.
Whether the Homeland Defense Board delivers the "consensus-based, independent, and external peer review" its founding documents promise will depend on who fills those 20 seats and how freely the panel operates. No members beyond Hegseth and the vice chair have been named. No meetings have been announced.
The Pentagon spent a decade without a dedicated advisory body for homeland defense. Now it has one, built by a secretary who proved he was willing to tear down what wasn't working before he started building what he believed was missing. Washington could use more of that instinct.