As the U.S. Army celebrates its 250th anniversary on Saturday, a long-planned military parade in Washington is running headlong into rising concerns about the scope of President Donald Trump’s use of military power.
In the nation’s capital, some 6,700 U.S. soldiers are bunking in now-empty federal office buildings, drilling for festivities ordered up by the White House to coincide with Mr. Trump’s 79th birthday. The event – estimated by the Army to cost taxpayers up to $45 million – is expected to feature nearly 7,000 troops, 50 aircraft, and 28 tanks.
This grand parade caps a week in which the commander-in-chief took the controversial step of deploying active-duty troops on domestic soil – against the wishes of state officials – officially to protect federal agents and buildings against protests over his immigration policies.
Why We Wrote This
As the U.S. Army celebrates 250 years since its founding, a grand parade overseen by President Trump comes amid signs of strain for the military. The latest source of turmoil: his efforts to deploy troops on domestic soil.
This weekend, President Trump’s affinity for shows of power and pageantry is expected to collide with a nationwide wave of public protests. Some 1,800 “No Kings” rallies have been planned across America to express opposition to Mr. Trump’s policies, particularly around immigration enforcement and the perceived misuse of troops.
For the U.S. military, all this comes at what is already a period of significant upheaval. From geopolitical tensions to shifts in military technology and recruiting, challenges for America’s armed forces are rising.
Now, the U.S. military has been called into action again – this time to help keep the peace on domestic soil, and, critics charge, its forces have been put in the position of serving as political props.
Kyleanne Hunter, the CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and a former Marine, says she sees among service members “great concerns with how this is putting young women and men who have raised their hand to serve in an unfortunate and uncomfortable position of now being a political tool rather than doing their primary job.”
Mixing battle-ready troops with unpredictable protesters creates risks for both sides, experts say.
President Trump framed his decision to deploy troops to Los Angeles as part of a larger imperative of maintaining “law and order.” He insisted that by moving quickly to tamp down violence, he saved Los Angeles from far worse. California’s Democratic leaders contend that the protests were under control with the help of local law enforcement until Mr. Trump got involved.
In a sign of how recent events have stoked political divides, Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill erupted in outrage Thursday after California Sen. Alex Padilla was pushed to the ground and handcuffed after shouting a question during a Homeland Security news conference in Los Angeles.
Deploying US troops at home
Pressing questions about the military’s role – and its proper use on U.S. soil – are now playing out in real time.
Under normal circumstances, state governors activate National Guard units within their own states to help with natural disasters or large-scale events requiring extra security. So President Trump’s decision to overrule California’s governor and send National Guard troops and active-duty Marines to Los Angeles without a governor’s request was an extraordinary move, experts say.
Nathan Howard/Reuters
To have a mission “in conflict with what a state governor is asking for, that’s, in my experience, pretty unusual,” says retired Lt. Col. Jay Morse, a former Army lawyer.
The president can co-opt National Guard forces under the Insurrection Act and against the will of state authorities when violence threatens the enforcement of federal law, adds retired Lt. Col. Daniel Maurer, another former Army lawyer.
Mr. Trump appears to be claiming “inherent” authority, meaning he doesn’t have to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy National Guard troops when he deems it necessary. But on Thursday, a federal judge blocked his deployment of Guard troops. The administration quickly appealed, and just hours later, an appeals court ruled that the president’s deployment of National Guard troops could continue while the case is being reviewed.
President Trump is in a stronger legal position when it comes to the active duty Marine Corps mission that he has also deployed, Colonel Maurer says, because President Trump has the right, and duty, to protect federal assets, federal officers, federal property, and judges.
This “very limited mission,” as the California deployment stands now, Colonel Maurer says, does not violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits military forces from engaging in law enforcement. Still, there are ongoing questions, he adds, about “exactly what degree of force Marines are allowed to use in defense of federal assets.”
Ryan Sun/AP
Testing boundaries between politics and the military
Alongside the deployments, some are raising concerns about other ways they say the Trump administration is politicizing the military.
At Fort Bragg in North Carolina on Tuesday, President Trump alternately whipped up cheers and boos as he excoriated his political adversaries, blurring the line between official military duties, which are supposed to be apolitical, and a partisan campaign rally. There was Trump merchandise on sale at the event, a potential violation of Pentagon policies against political activity by those in uniform. The official U.S. Army field manual emphasizes that nonpartisanship among soldiers fosters public trust.
Mr. Trump’s appearance was preceded by a confluence of highly unusual events that raise questions about order and discipline among U.S. military forces, says Colonel Maurer, now an associate professor at Ohio Northern University’s Pettit College of Law.
There were, for example, reports that troops attending the Fort Bragg event had been pre-screened for their physical appearance and political views, then asked to stay away if they seemed too liberal.
“This is deeply concerning because now you have soldiers identifying their political preferences” to their commanders, says Colonel Maurer. “It’s not like they’re creating a blacklist of Democratic, liberal-leaning members of the 82nd Airborne Division. I don’t think that’s happening. But the appearance of it is unsettling.”
Al Drago/Reuters
In testimony on Capitol Hill this week, Secretary Pete Hegseth said U.S. troops appreciate the administration’s efforts to rid the military of “woke” ideologies that he says have weakened morale. He pointed to higher recruitment rates, which he calls the “Trump bump,” though analysts note that recruitment was already on the rise before Mr. Trump took office.
“We know men are men, women are women, standards will be high, and we’re getting rid of the distractions, the ideologies, the politicization that was in our ranks,” Mr. Hegseth said. ”That’s all the people who want to serve want – that clarity.”
Trying to avoid a culture war
Yet in this effort to boost what Mr. Hegseth calls a “warrior ethos,” many veterans see troops being used as pawns in the same kind of culture war that Mr. Trump has long accused Democrats of waging.
In a recent snap poll of its members, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America reported roughly 70% of respondents – almost 3 in 4 – said they have concerns over the optics and implications of President Trump’s deployment of active duty Marines to Los Angeles, Ms. Hunter says. Another poll, the AP-NORC poll published on Thursday, found that 60% of its nearly 1,200 respondents said the military parade in Washington was “not money well spent.”
One main concern is whether all this will contribute to a growing civil-military divide, Ms. Hunter says. “Is it going to make it more difficult for civilians to understand the military, and the military to understand civilians, further dividing the country?”
This, in turn, could affect recruiting just as the military is regaining its footing, says retired Maj. Gen. Charles Dunlap, a former top military lawyer for the Air Force and now executive director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke University Law School.
“Overuse in these kinds of domestic activities may undercut the recent [recruiting] success because some – and perhaps many – potential recruits may not be interested in being put in situations where they must confront fellow Americans,” he says.
Aude Guerrucci/Reuters
Divisions over whether diversity is divisive
The Army, long in the vanguard of greater racial and gender equality, is now wrestling with what Trump officials have decried as polarizing diversity and inclusion measures.
At the Pentagon, under orders from Secretary Hegseth, this has involved poring over websites to remove mentions of diversity, renaming ships like the U.S.N.S. Harriet Tubman, and resurrecting the names of bases that once honored Confederate war heroes.
Amid this week’s political turmoil, the Army announced that while some of its military posts were reverting to their old names, they would now use those names to honor other soldiers, bearing the same surname, who had served well.
Fort Lee, for example, originally named for Confederate General Robert E. Lee, will now be officially renamed for Medal of Honor recipient Pvt. Fitz Lee, a Buffalo Soldier, the nickname for the Army’s cavalry units of all-Black enlisted soldiers set up after the Civil War.
That compromise seemed either an example of the military’s skillful navigation of a polarizing topic—the naming of military posts and ships—or trolling.
Now, 250 years after its founding as the American colonists’ Continental Army, with Russian aggression and Chinese military might on the horizon, there will be much more serious challenges ahead.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently warned that the Army, in particular, may need to shrink its troop numbers to invest in emerging priorities such as new Navy ships and space-based missile defenses.
“You have these huge operational imperatives to modernize,” says Melissa Dalton, former under secretary of the Air Force.
Still, these pressures don’t discount the role the Army will play in America’s defense going forward, says Ms. Dalton, now senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “They’re not out of the game.”
For now, the hope is that through these transitions, the military remains true to its foundation, she adds, forged as a reflection of the American people themselves.