Political turmoil strains the Army as it marks a milestone birthday

Washington Post

2 days ago

When President Donald Trump took to a dais at Fort Bragg in North Carolina this week, he opened by praising the courage and toughness of the American soldier. But soon, with a phalanx of camouflaged paratroopers behind him, his speech took a dramatic turn.
He declared that people who burn the U.S. flag should be jailed, despite First Amendment protections established by the Supreme Court. He trashed the news media, a favorite foil. And he needled political opponents, including former president Joe Biden.
'You think this crowd would have showed up for Biden?' Trump said, as soldiers laughed and booed. 'I don't think so.'
The partisan display, though downplayed by the president's faithful, has left senior Army leaders disappointed and concerned, said three defense officials. Soldiers are taught that 'the Army as an institution must be nonpartisan and appear so too,' while 'not favoring any specific political party or group,' according to the service's field manual. Doing so 'assures the public that our Army will always serve the Constitution and our people loyally and responsively.'
'We're treating it as a teachable moment,' said one senior Army official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because the issue is sensitive. 'It was not a great look.'
Trump's rally is the latest event since his return to office that has showcased the president's disregard for civil-military norms and thrust the Army, specifically, to the center of his most partisan machinations. The turmoil has run headlong into Saturday's 'grand parade' in Washington celebrating the Army's 250th birthday, a display of its might — replete with tanks, helicopters, bands and thousands of troops in uniform — that has drawn withering criticism from Trump's political opponents.
The spectacle at Fort Bragg was organized by America 250, the same group overseeing the parade. The group, which did not respond to a request for comment, is meant to be nonpartisan and is overseen by a bipartisan commission. In recent months, it has brought on several people affiliated with Trump, including Ari Abergel, a onetime spokesman for first lady Melania Trump, now serving as executive director.
'Make America Great Again' caps and other pro-Trump paraphernalia were made available for purchase during the event over the objections of Army officials, defense officials said. The merchandise booth, as reported earlier by Military.com, is now the focus of an Army investigation. It arrived at Fort Bragg with others tents selling food and drinks, catching military leaders off-guard, and was eventually moved farther from the president's speaking engagement but allowed to remain on the base temporarily, the officials added.
Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, declined to answer questions about the rally but said in a statement that 'Thanks to this President's leadership,' the Army 'is getting the grand celebration it deserves for 250 years of honor, courage, and sacrifice.'
A senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Sean Parnell, called scrutiny of the Fort Bragg rally 'a disgraceful attempt to ruin the lives of young soldiers.'
The Pentagon's press secretary, Kingsley Wilson, responded to scrutiny of how Trump administration officials have interacted with the military by attacking the Biden administration for allegedly injecting 'radical ideology' into the Defense Department. She cited 'drag queen performances' on military bases and the ouster of troops who declined to get the coronavirus vaccine. 'Under Secretary Hegseth's leadership,' she said, 'the Army and every branch of our military is refocusing on warfighting. Enthusiasm to serve, on full display at Fort Bragg and in record-breaking recruiting, has never been higher.'
Since taking power in January, the Trump administration has moved swiftly to bring the Defense Department to heel. Top military officers, including a disproportionate number of women, were fired without cause; a new investigation was opened into the 2021 fall of Afghanistan with vows of 'accountability' for those in charge; the number of generals in the military stands to be slashed; and senior Army leaders have been bypassed for prestigious assignments in favor of officers from other services.
Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran and former Fox News personality, also has terminated diversity initiatives and restored the names of nine Army posts the where renamed under Biden because of their association with the Confederacy.
And in addition to the 4,800 National Guard troops and Marines deployed in California, about 13,000 U.S. troops remain on the southern border in an effort to seal it from illegal crossings. It has relied in part on 20-ton Stryker combat vehicles — a rare sight on American soil that has blurred the line between military operations and domestic law enforcement.
The Army, by far the military's largest branch of service, has launched a broad overhaul of how it is organized, trained and equipped, seeking to modernize for warfare defined by one-way attack drones, artificial intelligence, hypersonic missiles and other weapons that were not common during the two decades of counterinsurgency operations that rose from 9/11. While those efforts began under Biden, Hegseth and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll have moved to slash weapons programs and reinvest in newer systems that could be relevant in the future.
Hegseth, testifying at three congressional hearings this week, sought to highlight the president's 'peace through strength' agenda, casting the moves as popular with many who serve while rejecting the blowback he and the president have received from Democrats and within the military for injecting politics into the historically nonpartisan institution. Hegseth, to the approval of Trump's supporters on Capitol Hill, argued that it was the Biden administration that politicized the military first with its promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and extending opportunities to transgender troops.
'We are restoring the warrior ethos,' Hegseth said at a House Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday. 'President Trump charged me to focus relentlessly on warfighting, lethality, meritocracy, standards, and readiness, and that is exactly what we've done since day one.'
Under Trump and Hegseth, the Army has been shunned in the screening to lead major joint military headquarters across the globe. Trump's choice to oversee operations in Europe, Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, and Africa, Lt. Gen. Dagvin Anderson, are Air Force officers. His choice to lead missions in the Middle East, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, is a Navy officer. So is Vice Adm. Frank Bradley, a Navy SEAL nominated to lead the elite Joint Special Operations Command with its focus on counterterrorism missions and daring raids.
Trump administration officials also are considering nominating a Marine Corps officer, Gen. Christopher Mahoney, to become the next vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pentagon's No. 2 officer, defense officials said. If selected and confirmed, he will join Gen. Dan Caine, an Air Force officer who Trump, in a highly unusual move, plucked from retirement to replace Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., who was fired without cause as Joint Chiefs chairman in February.
There is no requirement for the president to choose an Army general for any of those positions, and all of those nominated are considered credible selections. But in the aggregate, people familiar with internal deliberations said, it looks like an effort by the president to punish leaders associated with the tumultuous fall of Afghanistan, even though they were required to carry out decisions made by the Biden administration.
During the presidential campaign, Trump pledged to fire any general who had a role at the end of the 20-year war, which occurred months after Biden, rejecting senior military leaders' advice, ordered the full withdrawal of U.S. troops as Trump himself agreed to do in a pact he made with the Taliban before his first term ended.
Though Trump has not followed through on his threat, among those bypassed for advancement are two Army officers who had key roles in the evacuation of Kabul: Gen. Christopher Donahue and Gen. James Mingus. Neither could be reached for comment.
Donahue, a Special Operations veteran with time in the elite Delta Force, was dispatched to the Afghan capital after the crisis erupted to manage security operations at the airport. More than 120,000 people were airlifted to safety, but scenes of desperation and violence were common. He was promoted late last year to four-star general but only after an extended hold on his nomination by Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma).
Mingus was director of operations on the Pentagon's Joint Staff, reporting to Gen. Mark A. Milley, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Milley and Trump have a contentious history dating to Trump's first term, and the now retired general has criticized the president on several occasions, making him a singular target of the MAGA movement's ire.
Donahue was seen as a rising star and a leading contender to become the next commander of U.S. European Command, while Mingus was the Biden administration's planned choice to lead U.S. Central Command, both among the military's most high-profile postings.
Kelly, the White House spokeswoman, noted the fall of Afghanistan when asked for comment about the two generals being bypassed. The Defense Department under Biden, she said, 'was fraught with one disaster after another, including the failed Afghanistan withdrawal, which was the most embarrassing day in American history.'
Parnell, the Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement that the Trump administration's oft-stated goal of 'restoring the warrior ethos' requires 'a class of senior military leadership that puts warfighting first.'
'Under the previous administration, our senior military leaders were asked to put ideology before mission and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives before merit,' Parnell said. 'You saw the deadly cost of that distraction play out during the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. That nonsense ends now.'
Trump, Hegseth and Caine are working closely on each senior military nomination, and Hegseth has 'complete confidence' in each one so far, Parnell said.
Heidi Urben, a retired Army colonel and Georgetown University professor, said it is not clear to her whether the Army getting bypassed for top assignment, continued scrutiny of the fall of Afghanistan, and the restructuring and consolidation in the service all are related. But some Army officials may see connections, she said, and there are comparable periods in recent history 'when a particular service felt it couldn't get out of the crosshairs' of the defense secretary or felt like it was falling behind in terms of influence.
'While there may always be a few kernels of truth there, each of the services tend to be very sensitive to any perception that they're losing standing, resources, or influence vis-à-vis the other services,' Urben said.
Jason Dempsey, an Army veteran who studies civil military affairs for the Center for a New American Security, said he has been struck by what he called Hegseth and his team's negativity as they explain personnel decisions. Their 'bombastic' tone, Dempsey said, 'implies that there is more there than meets the eye, and this is a very political move.'
'It reveals that this has less to do with lethality than with retribution,' he said. 'Over time, this is the kind of stuff that actually degrades military responsiveness.'