WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered a sweeping speech to junior officers and enlisted troops, announcing new military commands and projects, including one to be led by Elon Musk, Anduril Industries Inc. founder Palmer Luckey and former House speaker Newt Gingrich to research the future of warfare.

In a “State of the Force” speech at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, Hegseth said Musk, Luckey and Gingrich — all of whom attended his remarks — would lead an initiative called “Project Meridian” that was “focused on discovering, developing and fielding the weapons and systems that our children and our grandchildren will need in their lifetimes.”

Musk’s SpaceX and Luckey’s Anduril are both major U.S. defense contractors. Gingrich, a vocal defender of President Donald Trump, has written a book on technology and entrepreneurism. Musk also led the ultimately unpopular DOGE effort to cut the federal workforce by hundreds of thousands of people but now appears to be back in Trump’s favor.

He said the research will be overseen by Emil Michael, the former Uber executive who is now the Pentagon’s top technology official. It will harness “the best forecasters of future conflict” that “do not solely reside inside the Pentagon,” Hegseth said, as artificial intelligence, autonomous weapons and cheap mass-produced drones increasingly shape modern battlefields.

“Its purpose is to creatively look to the future and identify the domains that we must conquer and capabilities we must master,” he said.

Hegseth didn’t offer more details on the new research program.

Hegseth’s speech wove between detailing new initiatives, offering religious themes, insulting bearded and transgender troops, and accusing American media outlets of “treason” for “anti-American” reporting about Trump’s war against Iran.

In similarly combative remarks to generals and admirals last year, Hegseth focused on culture-war themes and physical fitness standards, and early Wednesday posted on social media videos of him working out with hand-picked troops all wearing “This is War” T-shirts.

On Wednesday, Trump’s defense chief also outlined the creation of a new Autonomous Warfare Command to oversee the management and deployment of U.S. military drone and defense robotics. He also said he wanted major U.S. military installations to be able to generate their own power in the event of a cyber attack on the U.S. power grid.

Hegseth, a devout Christian who has regularly held prayer services at the Pentagon, said he will also establish an office of religious affairs for the military. For years, he said, the religious experience of U.S. troops was “an afterthought” and that “political correctness and secular humanism got a vote.”

The defense chief also announced new partnerships with academic institutions to grow a new “corps of cadets.” High-profile Christian colleges such as Liberty University and Hillsdale College are among the first to partner with the Pentagon, he said. Others institutions include Louisiana State University, Mississippi State University and Tuskegee University, a historically Black land-grant university.

Hegseth, who got his Bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and Master’s degree from Harvard University, has curbed graduate-level professional programs available to U.S. military personnel at Ivy League universities.

Hegseth also said that for the first time in four decades the military will build new bases inside the U.S., with state governments competing to host thousands of troops.

Sites have not been identified for new installations, which the secretary said would cover “hundreds of thousands of acres.” Hegseth said the bases would be designed in keeping with Trump’s executive order on civic buildings, serving as “a proud fortress of our republic, built with timeless classical architecture.”

The Pentagon is weighing potentially large cuts to the U.S. military presence in Europe. “We’re growing our joint force by tens of thousands of service members and we’re pivoting our focus to where it belongs: to defending our homeland and our hemisphere while outmatching any global threat.”

Rather than assigning returning troops to existing bases, Hegseth said, “We’re going to build them beautiful new bases from the ground up.”

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(With assistance from Tony Capaccio.)

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