The great theatre of Donald Trump's U.S. military parade

Globe and Mail

15 hours ago

With armed forces on the streets of cities on both U.S. coasts this weekend, the country is marching into a new American era faster than at the standard military rate of 120 steps per minute.
The Saturday evening military parade through Washington to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States Army realizes one of President Donald Trump's fondest hopes: a bravura procession occurring, by coincidence if not by cosmic convergence, on the minor but evocative holiday of Flag Day and on the day he turns 79 years old.
It comes as the Marines he has dispatched to Los Angeles continue to patrol the streets, in an uninvited effort to keep the peace that California government officials insist they can achieve themselves.
The Army, once commanded by George Washington, and Marines, celebrated in their lyrical hymn for their bravery from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, have special purchase in American sentiment. As a result, their presence in two of the country's most distinctive cities − one of the hard reality of politics, the other of the dreams and mythology stirred by the movie industry − provokes unusually strong feelings.
Like almost everything else in a land riven by divisions and disputes, the twin mobilizations have provoked a civilian battle, in part because there are more American troops deployed in Los Angeles than in Syria and Iraq combined, in part because massive displays of military personnel and firepower in American streets are not part of the country's tradition.
The President's supporters see the Washington parade as an expression of his power and will, an affirmation of his command of both capital and country in his effort, as the sentiment often is expressed, but not universally embraced, to return the country to its founding values. Mr. Trump's opponents see it as a pair of needless assertions of executive excess in direct contradiction to the republican principles of those very founders.
With arrays of helicopters, tanks and other battle vehicles, there will be great theatre in Saturday night's procession, a marked contrast with the drama on the streets of Los Angeles. But at the centre of these stereo spectacles is the President himself, playing his constitutional role of commander in chief in a fashion that provokes debate about whether he does so in a way that is in conflict with the constitutional principles his predecessors have respected.
In truth, politics, the presidency, and the military are more intertwined than commonly acknowledged − ties that Mr. Trump, who attended a military academy in his high-school years but received deferments from service during the Vietnam War, seems determined to reinforce.
The country traditionally has honoured military service, and for a generation in the middle of the 20th century, it was regarded almost as an indispensable requirement for high elected office. A dozen presidents, including George Washington, Ulysses Grant and Dwight Eisenhower, were generals. Several more, including Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor, Theodore Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy, burnished their images or made their names in battle.
Overall, 31 presidents had military service, and most presidents from the Civil War to the end of the 19th century were veterans of that bloody conflict. But four of the past five presidents had no military record; the only exception was George W. Bush, who served in the Texas Air National Guard.
But for all that military service − for all the ubiquitous rote 'thank-you-for-your-service' greetings to Americans in uniform today − there has been a skepticism about great shows of military strength, much the way wealthy members of the country's establishment often have been wary of displaying their riches.
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Eisenhower, a five-star general before becoming president, brushed aside as unseemly suggestions that the country conduct a military parade during the Cold War. He thought it indecorous and, because the United States was the predominant superpower, redundant.
'The notion of putting tanks on the street as a symbol of our power is unseemly,' former Republican senator William Cohen of Maine, a onetime defence secretary, said in an interview. 'Nations run by autocrats do that. We haven't. I'm happy to celebrate the people, Black and white, who have served in the Army. But it's overload to put tanks on the street.'
It's also expensive. For years, deep, unsightly ruts remained in the streets of Washington created by heavy vehicles in the parade to commemorate the end of the 1991 Gulf War. Estimates put the cost of the road repairs alone for this procession at US$16-million.
Large demonstrations of military power have been undertaken by the old Soviet Union, China and North Korea, often to smug ridicule in the West.
'These parades are designed in North Korea to reinforce the army's loyalty to the leader and to praise the leader,' said George Lopez, a Notre Dame University international-relations scholar who was part of the United Nations panel of experts monitoring Pyongyang's violation of sanctions growing out of its nuclear program.
'This isn't something we do,' he said. 'We aren't having legions of people returning from a conflict right now. It's unclear to whom we are sending the message that we are powerful.'
Trump friends and foes alike believe the message of the march of thousands of troops in period uniforms from the Revolutionary War to today (plus one dog, a Blue Heeler named Doc Holliday) is to the American people.
'This has nothing to do with patriotism and everything to do with Donald Trump getting his wish to politicize our military in order to advance his personal political agenda,' said Democratic Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, who had four tours of Marine Corps duty in Iraq. 'For anyone who doesn't know, troops hate marching in parades.'