I re-watched all of my Harry Potter collection along with the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and couldn’t find any reference to this man. So, being like a dog with a bone I revisited all 73 episodes of Game of Thrones; but, no luck there either. So, given his all too often mention in the media I tried IMDb, but drew a blank there too. He’s not featured in any TV series, movies; not even a mention for a West End or Broadway production. So, I googled him (sounds somewhat obscene, but it actually means researched through the internet), and alas, I found him mentioned in a short, non-descript article by a non-descript news media, in a not so much nondescript country, New Zealand.

At first I thought the article was about a remake of the highly successful Lord of the Rings, and that Hegseth was playing Sauron, the Dark Lord of Mordor who is seeking to conquer Middle Earth using the power of the One Ring. I was able to find a recent picture of him, and he definitely looks like he has a disembodied eye.

As I read through this well-articulated piece of political speak, I soon discovered that Hegseth is known as a Secretary of War, from a faraway country called the United States of America. It is virtually an unknown country in our part of the world, and considered somewhat alien to our peaceful, co-existing multi-cultural society.

Hegseth, speaking ex cathedra as Sauron’s doppelgänger, is seeking a loan from the people of New Zealand  to help pay off the $25 billion USD debt that the United States has accrued because of their attempts to overthrow the Iranian regime.

The leaders of Middle Earth, have remained quite mute on his request, and the majority of the population have chuckled away at the temerity and brazen audacity of Hegseth’s demand and subsequent threats if we didn’t comply. I suppose blackmail is a too stronger term to describe his rhetoric, but demanding 3.5% of our GDP to support his country’s imperial ambitions (and more often than not serious misadventures) is what we in Middle Earth would say over a few beers “They’re really taking the piss, aren’t they?”

If Sauron AKA Hegseth realized his dream and New Zealand lifted its military spending to 3.5% of GDP that equals $15.575 billion in NZ dollars per year. In Middle Earth that’s a lot of dosh! In fact it is around $NZD2812.50 per person, per year, into the coffers of the United States Military Industrial Complex. Phew!

So, I decided to consult my local psychic Andromeda, to see if he could help me contact Gandalf, and get advice on the best way to spend $15.575 billion NZD. Gandalf was very helpful, and like myself, had not heard of Pete Hegseth.

But, he suggested that rather than give a foreign alien state $15.575 billion we could fundamentally transform living standards in Middle Earth by targeting critical infrastructure deficits, expanding healthcare access, and alleviating housing and cost-of-living pressures. More specifically Gandalf recommended we increase the capital available for hospitals—nearly equivalent to the country’s entire multi-year health infrastructure pipeline, by allowing for the construction of multiple new regional hospital towers, the reduction of elective surgery wait lists, and the expansion of Pharmac’s medicine subsidies.

He said, the money could fund the construction of tens of thousands of social housing units through Kāinga Ora, and subsidize infrastructure levies to bring more Greenfield sections to market, and provide sweeping income tax relief. He went further and said that we could fully deliver massive regional transport links like the Waikato Expressway extensions, while fast-tracking critical climate resilience upgrades to local roads and significantly upgrading the national rail freight network. He became highly excitable as he projected that we could wipe out the total balance of New Zealand’s student loan debt, completely free up tuition for universal higher education over multiple years, and heavily fund modern trade academies.

Finally, in a state of exhaustion my psychic channeled the last of Gandalf’s messages. He said that Crown debt could be used to permanently reduce the amount of taxpayer revenue lost to interest payments, freeing up hundreds of millions of dollars in future operational budgets, and providing significant relief to the poor, disenfranchised and marginalized subjects of Middle Earth.

These are not my words they are from the wisdom of Gandalf: One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”  All hail, Pete Hegseth! Who is Pete Hegseth?