Trump and the generals

Image of Chicago: drones and helicopters in the sky and military vehicles on the streets, members of the National Guard in camouflage uniforms and close to 300 federal agents from various agencies. Night raids and mass arrests.

National Guard it's already on the streets of Washington, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, cities that are becoming the front lines of Donald Trump's urban war against crime and illegal immigration.

"During 2016, I declared that I am your voice," he said Tramp at a campaign rally in Texas. "Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. For those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your revenge."

Not hiding his absolutist ambitions, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning president renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War, and is now aggressively trying to politicize the military. In his vision, the army has a role that would go beyond the scope of the Constitution.

The militancy displayed by Trump during the demonstrations after the killing of African-American George Floyd in 2020 showed how much he relies on force. Since he lost power, he has repeatedly said that he regrets not deploying the army around the country and that he will not hesitate to do so if he returns to the White House. Now is his chance. He sends the National Guard to symptomatic addresses: to "dangerous cities" and federal states - which are controlled by Democrats. He is trying to normalize the presence of the military in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco or Chicago by describing these cities as "very unsafe places" and hinting that he will continue the policy of using the military.

Trump recently signed an executive order that allows the nation's law enforcement and military capabilities to be used to fight "domestic terrorism and organized political violence," allowing the administration to investigate and prosecute political opponents. Critics say he is illegally using the military to quell opposition to his increasingly unpopular administration.

photo: ap photo

THE GHOST OF THE CIVIL WAR

The American political scene has been filled with unprecedented outbursts of violence in recent years. The United States is not in a civil war, although there are those who think they are on the way, so the question is being asked more and more loudly: what is the position of the army in the environment of sparking polarization? How will the military establishment behave in times of political violence?

The Army is disciplined and under the Constitution is under the control of the President-in-Chief and the civilian oversight of Congress. The military seems ready to intervene in politics if the Union is in danger. The question is, however, who determines what danger is. Trump has the answer: I, the Sun King. In his first mandate, he was convinced that the army was undermining his political agenda and trying to prevent its implementation in practice. Now he would like to put the army under his control.

In an unusual address to a group of about 800 generals and admirals who have been extraordinarily, with maximum security measures, from all over the world gathered at the Quantico marine base in Virginia, Secretary of War Pete Hagseth and Trump gave distinctly Republican speeches, in which they appealed to the army to restore the "warrior ethos."

New priorities are set for military commanders: American cities should be "training centers" of training for future wars, the army must defeat the "wolf culture" behind which are the "enemies from within".

"The situation will not be brought under control until you are involved," Trump said, trying to shift the military's focus from an external to an internal non-combatant, even though this is against the military's constitutional position.

A president who has colossally contributed to making America the most dangerously divided probably since the Civil War, who refuses to promote decorated soldiers who served under commanders he can't stand, is now demanding that the "warrior spirit" be restored to the ranks of the military. About 1,3 million in the active and 765000 in the reserve composition of the US army answer to the civilian leader as dictated by the tradition of two and a half centuries, but Trump is trying to break the tradition and intends to use the army against "Marxists and radical left-wing lunatics" from the Democratic Party.

While the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East continue, while the Russians threaten the airspace of NATO members like Poland, Romania and Estonia and unidentified drones fly over the airports in Copenhagen and Oslo, Trump says that he would like the army to join the fight against crime and immigration and - it is not difficult to guess - the "enemy from within".

"The use of the military in domestic partisan issues distracts from the necessary focus on the war challenges of the 21st century," retired General Charles Dunlap Jr. told The New York Times. "China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and others will not be deterred by battalions of immigration judges or troops preoccupied with immigration duties on city streets instead of training at the National Training Center to fight their peers in high-intensity conflict."

Trump doesn't think so. His new national defense strategy is expected to shift emphasis from preparing for conflict with China to defending and using the military at home. That strategy, critics claim, is just another document promoting Trump's "America First" doctrine and the "Peace Through Strength" agenda.

CRITICISM FROM THE VATICAN

Among the authors are officials who have previously criticized American commitment to Europe and the Middle East, so there are already signals that the US will withdraw part of its forces from Europe. The strategy of achieving the best national defense through strong military alliances abroad is failing. Trump is much more interested in missions closer to America, such as the war on Latin American drug cartels.

The clear intention of politicizing the army for the sake of stabilizing the current government causes violent reactions because it is directly contrary to the fundamental principle that the army must not be partisan, that it must be at the service of the nation as a whole, and not of a political party or leader. The rule is: while you are in the army, you are not engaged in a party. You serve only the law and the motherland. Part of the military establishment, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Cain, is worried about the new defense strategy and the shift in priorities that is leading to divisions within the political and military wings of the Pentagon. Commanders are challenged to find answers to the Trump administration's unusual approach to the armed forces.

Pope Leo the Fourteenth, a native American, also spoke. Since becoming head of the Roman Catholic Church, the pope has avoided commenting on the day's events. But, when asked what he thought about the extraordinary gathering of generals and admirals, the pontiff said: "This way of speaking is worrisome because it shows, every time, an increase in tension... You have a style of government that shows force, in order to increase the pressure. Let's hope that these are only rhetorical figures", concluded the pope, and his comment is rated as the sharpest criticism of Trump's ideology so far.

This is not the first time that Trump intends to realize his militaristic plans. In his first term, Defense Secretaries Jim Mattis and Mark Esper, as well as Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and Joseph Dunford, tried to prevent the president from using the military to strengthen his political position. Those people are no longer there, and those whom Trump appointed in the second term are obedient loyalists. There is no more opposition in Congress that blocked Trump. Republicans hold majorities in both houses of Congress and have ensured the president appoints officials who support his military ambitions, even though the deployment of troops domestically to aid law enforcement is prohibited under an 1878 law.

This is not what the Founding Fathers wanted, military historians say. It is feared that the administration could use the standing army to prevent revolts and establish a dictatorship.

There have been cases of presidents using the military on the domestic scene. In 1957, Dwight Eisenhower sent the division to Little Rock, Arkansas, to guard nine black students enrolled in a "white school", which caused major racial unrest. In 1965, Lyndon Johnson sent the National Guard to Alabama to protect a civil rights march from white supremacists. Those interventions were in the service of the law.

However, Trump has argued that federal forces are necessary to counter the violence. In June, he ordered the deployment of 2000 National Guardsmen and 700 Marines to Los Angeles to break up immigrant protests -- a decision that a federal judge later ruled illegal. Both the governor of California and the mayor were against sending the marines to Los Angeles. In August, he sent the Garda to Washington DC to fight crime.

DEMONSTRATION OF FORCE

There were no major civil disturbances anywhere in the cities to which the National Guard was sent. The data shows that there is less violence in Chicago than in Memphis or Detroit. Crime is on the decline. Murders have decreased by 50 percent in the last four years, the police claim.

The governor of Illinois and the mayor of Chicago are not alone when they claim that the Trump administration is militarizing a city that has not become any safer. "Get out of Chicago! You're not helping us," said Governor J. B. Pricker, who accuses the "petty tyrant" Trump of "invasion and destruction" of American cities. Washington DC's elected leaders protested the deployment of the National Guard in vain.

Trump is not giving up. The Pentagon must be cleansed of the "vock culture", promises Secretary Hegsett, a former associate of Trump-loyal Fox Television who announces that the number of generals and admirals will be reduced by a fifth, and has already fired the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Charles Brown Jr., and retired the first female commander of naval operations, Admiral Lisa Franchetti. The US military now has 838 generals and admirals, 446 of whom hold two- to four-star ranks.

A drastic reorganization of the command structure and military hierarchy follows. It is certain that some generals will pay the price of disagreement with the commander-in-chief by retiring early.

That's how it is in the brave new world of Trump's America. In Serbia, where the army should also be depoliticized, mostly police generals suffer, due to insufficient engagement in the fight against "domestic terrorism and organized political violence". The army generals have already been disciplined by the president.