Trump's military parade taps an ancient tradition of power: from Mesopotamia to Maga

The Guardian

12 hours ago

To Donald Trump, the inspiration is the pomp and pageantry of Bastille Day, France's annual celebration of the 1789 revolution.
For his critics, it is redolent of the authoritarian militarism proudly projected by autocracies like Russia, China and North Korea.
Despite its military prowess and undoubted superpowers status, overt military displays in civilian settings are the exception rather than the rule in US history.
But in bringing to the streets of Washington DC on Saturday the military parade Trump has long hankered after he – consciously or otherwise – is tapping into a tradition that harks back to antiquity.
The first known instances of victorious exhibitions of military might date back to ancient Mesopotamia, whose territory now comprises modern-day Iraq and parts of Turkey, Syria and Iran.
Mesopotamian emperors decorated their palaces and citadels with friezes portraying heroic conquests. Portraits would display a massive potentate striding ahead of his troops and crushing on his opponents' skulls.
Military parades were also integral rituals of the Roman Empire, where generals and emperors who had won battles would march from the field of Mars into the temple of Jupiter, witnessed by thousands of adoring peasants.
The looted possessions of conquered nations were said to be conveyed in chariots, while abducted barbarians were dragged along in chains. Slaves were encouraged to murmur 'Memento mori' (remember that you will die) to their captors, it is said, as part of a drama supposed to link the Roman public to its leaders.
In one depicted image, created in the 19th century by the artist Bartolomeo Pinelli, the Roman military leader, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, is seen leading his triumphant army to Rome after defeating the Gauls, having personally triumphed over their leader in one-to-one combat.
These Roman rituals were later adopted by European countries as they evolved into nation states and sought to project images of power and military potency.
The military parade is widely believed to have been refined in Prussia, a European state that later became part of a unified Germany under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck.
Featuring choreography including salutes, precise spacing between soldiers, and goose steps, the Prussian model became a prototype for other armies in Europe and beyond.
Other European countries had different versions, that have in some cases become annual rituals.
In Britain, starting during the reign of Charles II, Trooping the Colour is held every year on Horse Guards Parade near Buckingham Palace to celebrate the sovereign's birthday. This year's parade, celebrating the birthday of the current King Charles, coincidentally takes place on Saturday, which is also Trump's 79th birthday.
Staring under the Soviet Union and continuing in present day Russia, Moscow plays host on 9 May every year to victory day, commemorating victory over Nazi Germany in the second world war. During the cold war, the parades, featuring Red Army soldiers marching through Red Square viewed by the Soviet leadership, became a symbol of Moscow's implacable hostility to the west in the ideological struggle between capitalism and communism.
Red Square was the venue for what is believed to be the largest military parade ever staged, on 24 June 1945, when 40,000 troops and 1,800 armored vehicles passed through to mark victory over Germany.
This year's occasion, marking the 80th anniversary of the war's end, featured even greater pomp than usual, with troops from China, Egypt, Belarus and several central Asian countries marching alongside their Russian counterparts. China's leader, Xi Jinping, was among several international statesman joining Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, in the reviewing stands.
Comparable displays of military muscle are seen in China. The national day parade in Beijing's Tiananmen Square – marking the anniversary of the Communist regime's ascent to power – is now a once-a-decade affair but used to occur more regularly.
The most recent event, which took place on 1 October, 2019 to celebrate the regime's 70th birthday, was billed as the biggest military parade and mass pageant ever held in China.
Beijing's ally, North Korea, holds annual parades to celebrate the date of the state's founding, as well as separate events to mark the birthdays of its dynastic leaders.
Strikingly, if less well-documented, Pyong Yang's parades are mirrored by equivalent events in democratic South Korea, which stages armed forces day annually on 1 October to mark the anniversary of its troops crossing the 38th parallel during the Korean War.
By contrast, choreographed exhibitions are much rarer in the US.
The most recent parade was instigated by Trump himself during his first presidency when – apparently triggered by having watched a Bastille Day parade alongside the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in Paris – his administration organized a Salute to America event to coincide with the 4 July celebrations in 2019.
That display on Washington's national mall included aircraft flyovers, presentations of military vehicles and an address by Trump at the Lincoln memorial.
It was the first military parade in the US Capitol since a June 1991 extravaganza, watched by an estimated 200,000 spectators, to celebrate expelling Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces from Kuwait in the first Gulf war. Tanks and Patriot missile batteries were rolled out while Stealth fighter jets flew above a parade led by general Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander of coalition forces in the conflict.
The 1953 presidential inauguration of Dwight Eisenhower, a former general of US and allied forces in the second world war, included a parade by 22,000 troops and even a nuclear-capable canon. In similar vein, John F Kennedy, a decorated military veteran, had military hardware on show at his 1961 inaugural.
Others notable military parades took place to mark the end of the first and second world war, as well as the American Civil War.
A ticker tape welcome was afforded victorious troops, including 13,000 members of the 82nd airborne division, in a spectacular victory parade in New York in 1946 that was seen by an estimated four million people.
Similar parades were staged in New York and Washington in 1919, with General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force that had fought in France, leading 25,000 parading soldiers in full battle dress.
In 1865, after Abraham Lincoln's assassination in the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War, his successor Andrew Johnson ordered a two-day grand review of the armies. The result saw about 145,000 soldiers from the armies of the Potomac, Georgia and Tennessee marching down Pennsylvania Avenue, to be reviewed by victorious Union generals, Ulysses S Grant, William Sherman and George Meade.
In general, however, US presidents have avoided explicitly militaristic displays – until now.
A stark contrast to Trump's bullish attitude was offered by his Republican predecessor, Gerald Ford, who declined to take part in the military parades organized for the 1976 bicentennial celebrations, citing the enduring negative sentiment over the Vietnam war.
Ford's posture may seem extreme but it may be more in keeping with the feelings of America's founding fathers towards militarism, according to Jonathan Alter, a historian who has chronicled several US presidencies.
'The United States was founded by men who were admirers of the Roman Republic, which had an important law that military commanders could not bring their troops into Rome,' he explained.
The law, however was violated by Julius Caesar, who crossed the Rubicon river in 49BC with his forces at the start of a civil war that was to result in him acquiring dictatorial powers.
'It was a hugely significant thing, and a violation of 400 years of very important Roman tradition which the founders of our country were quite aware of,' Alter said. 'That's the way military dictatorship lies, if you have the head of state bringing his army into the capital.
'We have a more modest tradition when it comes to showing military power. It goes back to George Washington. There's always been a sense that tanks in the capital are a bad sign, even if it's just for a parade.'