Trump’s Military

Early last year, a number of people were saying confidently that the military would resist Donald Trump’s dictatorial impulses. The people who study civil-military relations, however, said no, they would obey and pointed toward Latin American military juntas as the reason we shouldn’t want anything else.

For those of us who have attributed a pride in their service, loyalty to their oath, and evaluative ability to the military, it’s been a painful year. The debacle of attacking Iran, along with the expenditure of munitions and now the decay and repositioning of aircraft carriers while Trump brays on about magnets and water and his esthetics of aircraft carriers, it’s gotten a bit much.

I was ready, over the weekend, to rip into the civ-mil community, and then I realized. It is indeed not the military who must resist, but rather their civilian masters in Congress.

We should be hearing howls of indignation from Congress over the treatment of the personnel on the Abraham Lincoln and loud warnings about leaving a less than minimal presence in the South China Sea. Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona has been making some noise. Republicans, of course, are silent.

Paul Krugman wrote what I was thinking of writing. It’s available as a podcast, too.

What is going on here? he asks and attributes it to a president who is not mentally well. Krugman, like me, comes to the conclusion that it is ultimately Congress’s responsibility to tell Trump to back off naval architecture and get a plan to take care of our servicemembers. But, of course, we go to war with the Congress we have, not the Congress we would like to have.

I still would like to hear from the flag officers who have resigned or been fired. I would like to hear from the head of SOUTHCOM who retired early when they started hitting small boats around South America. That campaign seems to be moving further south.

Ultimately, I’m glad military officers are unwilling to go political. But the remaining officers seem to be willing to go along with what look to the rest of us to be crimes against humanity.

There’s a lot to unpack here, including the pusillanimity of congressional Republicans, but for now, read Krugman.