The Trump administration’s deployment of national guard troops to Los Angeles to intervene in civilian protests in the face of opposition from the Californian governor is a major escalation that risks the politicisation of the US military, armed service veterans are warning.
Former top military figures have told the Guardian that the decision to put up to 2,000 troops under federal control and send them into the streets of LA is a violation of the military’s commitment to keep out of domestic politics in all but the most exceptional circumstances. The last time a US president federalised the national guard against the wishes of a state governor was in 1965, when Lyndon Johnson deployed them to protect civil rights marchers in Alabama.
“This is the politicisation of the armed forces,” said Maj Gen Paul Eaton. “It casts the military in a terrible light – it’s that man on horseback, who really doesn’t want to be there, out in front of American citizens.”
Eaton, who commanded the training of Iraqi troops during the invasion of Iraq, predicted that the LA deployment would lead to the eventual invocation of the Insurrection Act. The 1807 law empowers the president to deploy the full US military against insurrection or armed rebellion.
“We are headed towards the invocation of the Insurrection Act, which will provide a legal basis for inappropriate activity,” he said.
The largely peaceful protests in LA against Trump’s deportation efforts have entered their fourth day. National guard troops began arriving in the city on Sunday, with authorisation to protect federal personnel and buildings but not to engage in law enforcement activities.
Trump’s move in the absence of a genuine civil emergency has sent alarm through military circles, which have long prided themselves on being above politics. “This deployment was made counter to what the governor wanted, so it seems like a political forcing – a forced use of the military by Trump because he can,” said a retired senior US army officer who requested anonymity in order to preserve their lifelong non-partisanship.
Trump’s memo federalising the national guard for deployment in LA is written in sweeping terms, in effect casting it as a nationwide mobilisation. It says that regular military troops, as well as national guard forces, can be employed by the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to protect federal functions anywhere in the country where protests are occurring.
Most troublingly, the memo also acts pre-emptively – an action never seen before in the US – authorising the military to be deployed against anticipated protests. It says that troops can be sent to “locations where protest against [federal] functions are occurring, or are likely to occur based on current threat assessments”.
On Sunday, Trump signaled that LA was just the start of a much wider deployment. “We’re gonna have troops everywhere,” he said.
Janessa Goldbeck, a Marine Corps veteran who is CEO of Vet Voice Foundation which advocates for veterans and military families participating in American democracy, said that the executive order was an invitation to Hegseth to “mobilise as many troops as he wants anywhere within the US. That’s a massive escalation across the country.”
Geoffrey DeWeese, a former US army judge advocate who is now a legal director within the National Institute of Military Justice, expressed concern about how the national guard would be used in LA. Under the memo, they can act as protection for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, which potentially means that troops could accompany Ice in immigration deportation raids on homes and businesses.
“Ice and the national guard are [both] wearing camouflage, carrying automatic weapons – so how do civilians differentiate them? And what message does it send, when all you see are men and women in uniform, with guns and helmets and goggles and maybe gas masks?”
The military mobilisation that is now unfolding is far from unexpected. Military and constitutional experts who were convened by the law and policy institute the Brennan Center last summer to wargame what Trump might do in a second administration predicted precisely the current train of events.
Trump himself made no attempt to disguise his intentions, repeatedly telling his supporters during last year’s election campaign that if re-elected he would use the military against “the enemy within”.
Concerns about the deployment have been heightened by Trump’s previous actions which already pointed towards a politicisation of the armed services. In February he fired the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and several other top brass without giving just cause.
Retired lieutenant general Jeffrey Buchanan, the former commander of the US Army North, said the dismissals also had a politicising effect. “It will lead to Biden’s generals, and Trump’s generals – or generals who are ‘my guys’ and generals who are ‘not my guys’. That erodes confidence in the military, because the people will think that the military are now politicians.”
Buchanan added: “The military’s ultimate loyalty is to our constitution, not to a particular leader. We’ve had plenty of tensions between military leaders and presidents in our history, but we’ve always maintained this tradition.”
There are also worries about Trump’s upcoming military parade to be staged in Washington DC on 14 June to mark the 250th anniversary of the US army. The date happens to coincide with the president’s 79th birthday.
“Tanks are rolling into DC, $40m is about to be spent, in a giant function to celebrate one man. That’s deeply unAmerican,” said Vet Voice’s Goldbeck.
She added that while the military celebrated its birthdays, street parades were avoided “because that is the action of a dictator. This is all in line with how Trump views the military as a tool at his personal disposal, not as a professional fighting force made up of men and women whose oath is to the constitution.”
