When Faux Civ-Mil Conflict Can Become Real: Canadian Edition.

 Twice in the past week, I have been asked by the Canadian media about a seeming split between the civilians at the top of the Canadian government and the military.  Last week, it was about how the military seemed to be moving ahead with Golden Dome and the civilians not committing to it.  This week, it is about the military moving ahead to be ready to receive a heap of F-35s while the civilians are still thinking about it.

To be clear this is mostly a comms problem, but politics is about comms and comms shapes politics.  The basic reality on these two things is that the military is doing what it is supposed to be doing--implementing past decisions.  The CAF is modernizing NORAD--the sensors Canada has to warn the US and Canada about incoming attacks--just as successive governments have promised and funded.  The CAF is preparing for the delivery of the first batch of F-35s, which the government of the day (the previous one) purchased.  In both cases, the preparation/work is for both the present day and the future deployments, and if the government changes its mind, then that future stuff will be wasted effort.  BUT the work has to be done and the military is not doing more than it is supposed to be doing.

 The challenge is the civilians are mostly trying to avoid making major decisions or announcing them about the future of Canada's contribution to American missile defense (called Golden Dome by the brand-focused President) and the future of the F-35 program.  Why avoid such announcements?  To not upset voters who wanted a more Elbow's up policy?  To hold onto some bargaining chips vis-a-vis the US?  Or just crappy comms?  That last one seems to be consistent with Liberal defence policy past and present. 

Alas, the media seeks the military seemingly ahead of the civilians and wants to catch them in a conflict.  This might have the impact of the military being less forthcoming when they are essentially doing their job, and that's bad for everyone.  It might also increase distrust between the civilians and the military, which is also not good.  

There are plenty of real civ-mil crises going around or in the future that we don't need to whip one up.  The bigger US-related one is that the military may be reluctant to follow the civilians' preferences of distancing from the US in other ways (see Phil's great piece).  Plus I do wonder how much oversight the new MinDef is doing.  

The larger point remains--the two big procurement projects of the moment (until the subs happen) are not causing tremendous friction between civilians at the top of government and the military... yet.  If the civs cancelled the F-35, then sure.  But the military is not doing anything inappropriate at this moment on these issues.  Sorry.   

 

 

 

Golden Dome and NORAD: Not Quite Time to Panic

 

 With PM Carney meeting with Trump, perfectly timed for my US Foreign and Security Policy class which meets tonight to discuss US-Canada relations, it is, of course, time to panic about Canada joining Golden Dome.  See the headline to the piece at the Globe and Mail:

 

The substance of the article eventually gets to the reality: Canada has long had a commitment to helping the US defend North America via NORAD.  We provide much of the sensors so that the Americans can be alerted to incoming missiles.  That's it.  But Trump confuses things (demented people are often confused as are ignorant people who are untethered from reality).

 

So, here are some key facts about all of this:

1.  Golden Dome is mostly a branding exercise by Trump with a bit of self-deception.  The US has been investing a shit-ton of money on defenses on ballistic missiles [ABM] since Ronald Reagan's self-deception dream of the Strategic Defense Initiative.  Every 20 years or so, a Republican administration gets hot for ABM and very little actual progress is made on protecting all of the US from ballistic missiles or even a significant chunk (this stuff is very hard).  Oh, and engaging in an arms race here is incredibly dumb as it is super costly, that defense is always more expensive than offense.  Iron Dome's success in Israel is very deceptive--smaller target, many layers of stuff besides the one weapon system named Iron Dome, and mistakes/misses don't do that much damage.  Any missile attack on the US (or Canada) will be viewed as a nuclear attack, and that means the stakes are so much higher.  Even if the system could get 95% of the incoming weapons (which is pretty unrealistic), 5% of the incoming nukes will ruin a lot of people's day.  Still, we all want better situational awareness about what is going on in the high north, and this is the cost of doing business.

2.  Canada has been a key part of these missile defense efforts because we are in the way--that the missiles will come over the country on their way to the US.   So, the sensors are either in or above Canada to a large degree.  And with our warning systems getting old and with new technologies for attacking (hypersonic missiles [we die faster], cruise missiles, etc), we need to update the warning systems.  That promise has been made by both major parties and by multiple administrations and that money is being spent now and into the future.  So, Canada is not doing anything new or unexpected in this area.  Indeed, selling NORAD modernization has been a major priority of the governments the past several years.   Staying out of the ABM system has meant that Canada has no guarantee that the US will shoot down, say, an errant North Korean missile.  Getting inside of the system will give Canada a bit more influence and assurance that the very unlikely missile would get whatever opposition NORAD could muster.

3. We really don't know where Trump is coming up with $61b or $71b.  If he is ok with Canada spending its own money on components of the system--the stuff we are already spending, then things will be ok.  If he is asking for Canada to give $60-70b to the US Treasury to subsidize the US project, well, then the relationship is screwed.  That would be the equivalent of more than a year's worth of Canadian defence spending.  Politically and economically, it is impossible.  

So, please, let's not panic about Canada "already" planning on being part of Golden Dome.  It is already planning on continuing to be part of NORAD.  Even as we want to be more economically independent from the US, there is no way we can be militarily independent when it comes to the defense of North America.  Canada needs US help protecting its high north (the US has many more tankers and these have longer ranges, the US has many more fighters and better air to air fighters--F-22s), and the US needs to have info about what is doing in and beyond Canadian airspace.  NORAD has been working for quite some time, and the big concern is if Trump breaks it because he sees it as unfair.  If Trump can be convinced that Canada is keeping its promise to give the US what it needs, then it should be ok.

 

Who Is Captured By Identity Politics?

 The right wing doth project too much, episode 2342397.  I saw this and I couldn't help but wonder is this bad faith or someone being so captured that they don't see what they are doing:

 The comeback by WeatherWatcher430 is brilliant.  But I want to take this seriously for a moment.

The idea here is that tweeter thinks that all left wing folks should support Jewish women and Black men regardless of the content of their ideas or, dare I say it, the content of their character.  The right inverts MLK Jr's dictum, as they believe that the left does not believe in merit, that the left just supports people due to their identities.  It apparently breaks their brains when the left folks can distinguish between Jewish women and Black men who have ideas and arguments that make sense to them and support their larger values and those Jewish women and Black men whose ideas are counter to the left's values.

Generalizing about an entire group, whether it is progressives having a unitary view about other people's identities or it is all women or Black americans or whatever, is actually really problematic and is the road to racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and the other horsepeople of hate.  And, yes, I am guilty of generalizing about the right wing, but I think that makes more sense because the right wing tends to be authoritarian in nature, producing ultimately far greater message (and thought) discipline than the left.  I will try harder in the future to distinguish those on the right who are not captured by hate, those who are not fans of autocracy, those who are not willing to go along with the autocratization of the US (or of Canada, as Pierre Poilievre is borrowing much of Trump's script, having learned nothing from the most recent election).  

All I ask the right wing is: get your bad faith characterizations of the left consistent--either the left betrays their kind by not being sufficiently focused on identities uber all OR they are focused on identities uber alles.  Choose a stereotype and stick with it, FFS. 

 

 

Addressing the Mandatory National Service Question and, yes, the Guy Recommending It

 I have accused LtG (ret). Michel Maionneueve of having me live me live rent-free in his head, as he ended up featuring me (the unnamed Liberal-funded academic who was seeking to cancel him) in the origin story in his memoir.  By responding to his latest piece, this time at Macleans, I have to admit he is living rent-free in my head just a bit.  Before I get to that new piece, just a couple of thoughts of this whole thing.

First, when I find myself not being able to resist responding to a specific individual's online musings, I try to avoid their stuff.  I am trolled easily, so the best way to avoid that is to avoid the bait.  This is why I don't read the blog posts of Walt/Mearsheimer or else this blog would spend way too much time on them. And this is why I don't read MM's regular columns in the National Post.

Second, as we approach the anniversary of MM's emergence as a pundit of some kind thanks to his awful speech at the Vimy Gala (the gala is always near and before Remembrance Day),  I marvel at how he started the speech by saying he was cancelled, that he managed to turn the controversy that I helped to generate (oops) about it into a perch at the National Post.  It also reminds me that there aren't too many people who are Canadian experts on civil-military relations to comment on this stuff, so my value over replacement pundit is still positive.  

Third, tonight's class is on the politicization of the armed forces in democracies around the world, and, well, MM is very much a part of that dynamic/effort--retired GOFOs playing upon their military service to suggest that the military is supporting the partisan stance that the speakers are advocating.  So, writing here is a way to sharpen my thinking before tonight's class. 

On to the show, Maisonneuve is arguing that "Canada Needs a Mandatory National Service."  I am not going to grade this piece like I graded his response to my op-ed about the Conservative Party ought not to platform retired senior military leaders.  But he entirely omits Canada's history of draft riots, so that this essay would not get a decent grade. How would Quebec react to a new draft?  Nothing on this. 

MM starts by talking about meeting his wife in the service, and I have to ask, since no one else has, is whether she was his subordinate at the time.  I have long wondered if is his pique about culture change is driven by the damage done to his identity as a part of a generation of senior officers who preyed upon subordinate women to sate their sexual appetites.  I simply do not know if Maisonneuve is another Jon Vance or not.  And to be clear, I do not mean this as the ad hominen attack it might appear to be (see his op-ed targeting me for some great examples), but as a real question for journalists--is this guy taking controversial stances because he was a perpetrator of the abuse of power that caused so much damage to the CAF?  Ok, sorry for that tangent, but he mentions his wife at the top of the post.   

My biggest gripe with piece is not that he is making a factless argument about something that has been well-researched, but that he starts off by talking about the decline of confidence in public institutions with no self-awareness.  A key dynamic around the world including Canada has been
for right-wing populists to denigrate public institutions.  His Vimy Speech was exactly that--an effort to reduce trust in government, in the media, and in the military.  And so I must post a meme a student created for tonight's class to illustrate the dynamic so very well (I have the the students create memes to push them to think creatively about the readings ... and to compel them to do the readings).  

 

Anyhow, Maisonneuve makes the usual arguments that having a draft including a variety of forms of national service--it would give the kids a sense of purpose, improve their discipline, teach them about Canada and importance of defending it (well, that last one only for those who don't opt for all of the other forms of service that aren't military), and so on.  He cites a bunch of countries that have drafts, but does not cite anything about how those have worked out.  Do the youth in those countries have a higher sense of national purpose? Do they have a better command of civics and identify more with their fellow citizens than democracies sans drafts? Sweden would be a great experiment--they had a male-only draft, got rid of it just before Russia got especially aggressive, and brought it back for men and women fairly recently--did all this stuff about national identity and such swing with these changes. We social scientists love variation as it gives us leverage over the question.  

I frankly do not have time to read the literature on this, but he should have.  However, I have bumped into conscription during my research for both the recent book and the next project.  I was not asking about national unity or how it improves the discipline of Gen Z folks, but rather oversight and such.  Conscription came up in South Korea and Finland.  I wonder what we should take from the South Korean case--that their military was asked to suppress its parliament and resisted--was that due to conscription? If so, a point for Maisonneuve.  In Finland, conscription, despite its vaunted role in national unity, was a sore spot in civil-military relations, as the civilians keep asking the Finnish military for data on what activities cause conscripts the most injuries, and the military has resisted sharing that info.  So, no, I don't really know if conscription is a magical exilir fostering unity, discipline, and such.  But then again, MM presents no evidence.

MM does not address any of the tradeoffs involved (just as he didn't mention Canada's troublesome draft history).  For instance, if you draft, say, 20k people, where are you going to put them?  Who is going to train them?  Doing conscription does not automatically solve personnel shortage problems--it complicates them.  The CAF has had trouble training the soldiers/aviators/sailors it gets in, this is a key source of the recruitment problem because it does not have enough trainers, that it did until very recently incentive people to be trainers, and the regiments tended to send their crappiest people to be trainers or recruiters.  If you dedicate significant personnel to train the temporary members of the CAF, who will train those who are joining to make the military a career?  The newly trained reservists, who had been drafted, can't/won't be the new trainers.  There are probably ways to finesse this and figure out how to do both--train the professionals and train the drafted future reservists--but it is a real problem and should be addressed by anyone advocating conscription.

Another funky implementation problem is that MM includes in his proposal "Those selected would enter training and take courses on civics and Canadian history."   Who would be doing that?  Pointy headed profs who are stuck in ivory towers?  If not them, then who?  And what material do they use?  Given that Maisonneuve has denigrated scholarship in his past writings, I am unclear about where the civics/history would come from.  What would count as the good and necessary history that would be taught?  Would it be the anti-critical, Canada did everything great, we have nothing to apologize for stuff that he mentioned during his Vimy Gala speech?

A pet peeve: he also joins the chorus of threat inflation: "If anyone wanted to come into the North and seize our natural wealth right now, there would be little we could do to stop them, short of a strongly worded diplomatic protest."  Please.  There is no risk of that because it is really, really hard to operate up there.  If the Russians can't get the logistics right for invading a country right next door, how are they going to do it over the Arctic?  I learned this summer at our Institute that this threat inflation, while handy for getting the Canadian public to be willing to spend more on defence, is really scary to the people of the North.  We aren't doing them any favors with this threat inflation. 

Finally, MM is wildly exaggerating the impact of a draft.  He mentions a lottery along the way, but then concludes by saying:  "Once every young Canadian has worn a maple leaf on their shoulder, I think they’ll feel pride for their country [my emphasis]."  This ignores the fact that his proposal actually would only bring in a small percentage of the youth into the military as (a) many would choose other forms of national service that probably wouldn't involve uniforms with flags on the shoulders and (b) the lottery would mean that only a portion of the population would serve at all. It also ignores the fact that more than a few people might hate their experiences as a draftee.  But a flowery ending is probably best for an op-ed, rather than something that is internally consistent.

We are left with only one question: who edits these things at Macleans?  I am not saying that Maisonneuve can't submit stuff to Canada's various publishing outlets.  I am not even saying that Macleans shouldn't publish his stuff even though he has been essentially a far-right actor pushing out mis and disinformation.  I am saying that someone should have edited the piece so that it had more facts, less unsupported generalizations, and greater consistency. 

 

Zombies? Run! Oh Wait, I'm The Zombie!!!

Brains!!!!!

 We need a change of pace from the dire state of American politics and of international relations.... so let's talk post-apocalyptic hellscape  I saw an ad for a Zombie Run, and, with little info, signed up.  A few weeks later, I drove about 50 minutes east of Ottawa with someone who was game for some braiiiiinnnns!  We found an amazing Caribbean food shack in the middle of nowhere (well, google found it and we liked the 4.9 rating).  And then we found Hammond Hill, which is a park/campground, I guess.  They had a small shack and a few benches that were called a "beer garden."  And then two young ladies applied zombie make up to us.

We had already dressed in z-gear.  My companion did a great job of using brown paint to make her clothes look pretty apocalyptic.  I went to a thrift store in search of medical clothing, scrubs or the like, as most zombie outbreaks involve hospitals (see the classic tome on this--World War Z--and not the movie).  I couldn't find any, but I found a green camo jacket and then finding green pants and t-shirt was easy.  I then took them home and put some bullet shaped holes in these clothes.

Anyway, once we had our zombie makeup on, we were given instructions.  There would be a trail through the woods and the organizer would station us along the trail.  We could jump out and grab the flags off of our victims--the runners--but we couldn't run super fast to catch them.  These were classic zombies that shamble, not sprinters like the 28 x later series or the lamentable WWZ movie.  I thought this would be easy as the path was fairly narrow, but the flags were not that easy to grab--they were strips of cloth firmly attached around people's upper arms/shoulders, not the flag football style flags that are easier to grab.  

Here's where 
I was stationed.
Grrrrrr.

I was stationed fairly early in the trail, and squatted in a dry streambed.  My camo was not that good apparently, as the first group had smartly assigned very loud squealing young ladies at the front, and they alerted everyone about my presence.  I couldn't shamble fast enough alas, so the first group got through with nary a bite.  I did manage to trap the most athletic guy, who was the last one.  My companion also got one flag.  But it didn't count as an infected victim unless they lost all three flags.  I think the rules could use some changing.

We then walked the path to get back, took some pics, and enjoyed the aforementioned beer garden.  I wish they had more runners, as the event was over so very quickly.  But it was a blast, and it got us out in the hinterlands during the peak of fall leaf peeping season.  

I would definitely do it again.  And it was nice warmup for Halloween with scary season upon us!

 

Rooting For An American Coup? What An Awful Idea

 I haven't seen much of this, but any sighting of a "hey, wouldn't it be great if the generals and admirals launch a coup" MUST be met with opposition and a bit of reality.  

The reality is that when militaries seize power:

a) they govern poorly since they have no expertise.  

b) they don't always relinquish power that readily.  They come in and then they may not give power back that readily.  

c) who would they give power to?  Holding an election run by a military often leads to pretty bad results. 

d) even if they return power to the civilians and we get a new democracy, the taboo has been broken, and future coups become that much more imaginable and likely.  The biggest correlation or factor associated with coups is a history of coups. 

e) a coup might not be that peaceful.  Since the US military has no practice and since there are other federal agencies that would be opposed (ICE in particular), you might see violence between the military and other feds.

f) the military itself might fracture, leading to a civil war.  

I have too much other stuff to do today to find the citations for all of this, but while there is often much disagreement among scholars, most of what I listed above is pretty much the consensus.  Do not ask for a coup--you have no idea what you would be summoning.  There is no unringing that bell.  Yes, Trump autocracy is awful, but a military regime would not save democracy, but it might condemn the US to perpetual instability.  Getting rid of Trump and Trumpism is going to be hard, and a coup is not an "easy solution."  It will be up to protestors, voters, and, yes, elected officials and judges.   

Retired GOFO's Should Do What?

 In the leadup to and the days after the Trump/Hegseth speeches to the generals and admirals (GOFO: general officers and flag officers), there was much commentary by retired senior military folks, criticizing the Trump folks.  My first reaction was to tell them to shut the hell up.  And my second, and my third.

The timing of this event is, um, helpful for me as I am teaching a session on Politicization on Monday's Civil-Military Relations class.  For that class, I had a bunch of readings by Feaver, Robinson, Brooks, and, um, Saideman that address the larger and smaller issues of politicizing the military.  The consensus in these readings and in the field of Civil-Military Relations is that dragging the military into partisan politics (or the military leaping into it) is bad for all kinds of reasons.  We shall see why it is bad in the years to come thanks to the Trump regime politicizing the military.  

But let's focus on a key issue in this area: what are retired GOFO's supposed to do?  Yes, they have free speech rights, but they also have responsibilities.  And they understand to a degree that there are norms that tell retired senior officers not to engage into much partisanship or else people will think that the military itself is partisan.  However, as the linked article indicates, retired senior officers find a variety of reasons to violate that norm and speak up.  Again, that is their right, but perhaps they are violating their responsibilities.  And it is not just random academics who think this.  Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey has spoken out against these speakers on several occasions.

There is an irony in all of this: most GOFO's actually are not that expert on civil-military relations.  One of the key dynamics in civil-military relations is that the military folks think they are the experts and that everyone else is amateurs when it comes to the deployment of violence.  And they value experience far more than education or other ways to gain expertise.  But most GOFOs have not spend much of their career in positions where they are directly engaging with the civilians responsible for overseeing them--either the Department of Defense people or Congress.  That is mostly in the realm of 4 star officers, and even for them, it is just the last several years of their career.  

Which means that they probably shouldn't speak up for two reasons--it violates a key norm that keeps the military out of partisan politics, and they may not have much expertise to comment.  You know who does have that expertise?  The civilians who spend much of their careers either in agencies that oversee the military or in places where they study civil-military relations.  The media, rather than running to ask generals and admirals what they think about Trump and Hegseth, should be going to former SecDefs, former Deputy SecDefs, Senators and Congresspeople past and present who serve or served on the respective Armed Services Committees, think tank analysts who are sharp on civ-mil, and, yes, profs in the US (and elsewhere) who have spent their careers studying civil-military relations.   

Of course, we live at a perilous time, so folks will argue that we need the retired GOFOs to speak up now to save democracy.  But if their speech burns down a key foundation of democracy, the non-partisan military, it is kind of like destroying Hue in order to save it (Vietnam War reference, kids).  I am on TeamBrooks, as Risa has regularly argued that the norms should be defended and observed and let other folks do the job of protecting democracy.  It really is on our elected officials first and foremost and then civil society, but it is not on the current military or the retired military to save us from autocracy.  That road just leads us to more autocracy.

 

GOFO* or Go Home? Pete Hegseth's Insecurity Complex and the Non-Partisan Military

Congrats, today is now the worst day in US civil-military relations since the Civil War.  It outclasses the two previous times I used this same meme.  I will just pick on a few of the worst parts of the Hegseth's and Trump's speeches.  

*[GOFO stands for General Officer and Flag Officers: generals and admirals]

But first, for those new to civil-military relations, a couple of key points:
A) There is no single best way for a democracy to control its military BUT civilian control of the military is a key ingredient for democracy.  That the relationship requires both civilians (especially but not only those in the executive branch) and military folks to behave responsibly and that there are norms--standards of behavior--that serve as guidelines for how to mange the relationship.  
B) The presence or absence of tension is not a great indicator of the health of a country's civil-military relations.  There could be absolute peace with one side is getting rolled by the other.  So, just as it is hard to evaluate whether a military is effective, it is not easy to assess whether a particular country's civil-military relations is healthy or not.  BUT when things go really badly, it is pretty obvious to most, if not all civ-mil experts.  
Oh and C) much of the expertise about civil-military relations is in the hands of, dare I say it, civilians.  Most generals and admirals have little experience in their side of managing civil-military relations--only those who get close to the top plus some who served as aides to various players.  But, yes, many civilians either in or near the defense agency have some expertise and, yes, yes, scholars of civil-military relations have much expertise as well.  I don't consider myself as much as an expert as others because I have only spent half my career on this stuff.  

Anyhow, I can guarantee you that most civ-mil experts around the world are freaking out over today's speeches as they violated pretty much every norm, especially those aimed at keeping the military out of partisan politics--this was politicization in its most extreme and unsubtle forms.  Which calls for Homer and Bart yet again: 

 

First, I was going to go through Hegseth's speech via this source, line by line, but it would make for a really long blogpost.  So just a few consistent issues and some really awful ideas/writing: 

1. Most obviously, why the hell did all of the GOFO's need to spend a heap of time and money to get to Quantico when they fucking televised the speech? This by itself was abuse of power, a waste of resources, and extremely amateurish.
2. The speech sprinkles throughout a heap of misogyny and racism for suggesting that DEI has greatly shaped who has led and why they were fired.   Of course, Hegseth goes on to blame the "woke department" as if the US military was some kind of far left organization.  Yes, it was the most diverse organization I worked within, but woke?  Not so much. Really, if there was one theme to the speech it is his Christian nationalism animating his hostility to anyone who is not white and male.
3. One of the enduring problems of civil-military relations is that the militaries of the world see the civilians as lacking expertise and are amateurs, fostering contempt. My gen of civ-mil scholars blame Sam Huntington's book for that, but now we will always have Hegseth.  Because he is a freaking amateur (despite or because of his specific military experience) who is way out of his depth, and this speech demonstrated it. His ideas of what a military is for, what makes for a good soldier/sailor/aviator/Marine is so limited, and yet he seems so confident.  His ignorance is vast.  Indeed, he may have imposter syndrome (well, he is an imposter) so that the entire speech reeks of overcompensation.  A key example: He calls for "more AI in everything."  This shows how shallow his knowledge is, how quick he is to grab the latest trend without any serious thought. 
4. Hegseth lacks self-awareness.  He claims he wants to rip out the politics.  By having all of the GOFOs sit through his very partisan speech and then a partisan speech by the President?
5. One section really makes no sense as he said that the big litmus test is whether the conditions in the military are such that he would want his eldest son to join the military and then says, "if in any way the answer to that is no, or even yes, but, then we’re doing something wrong." So, either way, it is bad?
6. Hegseth says that he and POTUS will have the backs of the GOFO's, that they should not lose their careers for making earnest mistakes.  But then goes on to talk about his firing of senior officers and that "we all serve at the pleasure of the president every single day."  This speech is again utterly incoherent and contradictory.
7. "You are hereby liberated to be an apolitical, hard-charging, no-nonsense, constitutional leader that you joined the military to be." Yet the speech is the opposite and then Trump's even more so.
8.  The one Hegseth consistency, other than drinking and Christian nationalism, is a fondness for war crimes:  "We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement." His support for legitimating and honoring war criminals is one of his other consistencies, and which helped bring him to Trump's attention.  By itself, this should have been disqualifying, but then in Trump's bizarro world, that which makes someone utterly disqualified and, yes, deplorable, makes them perfect for the job.

Trump: 

1.  Trump was disappointed that the generals and admirals didn't cheer him (they don't cheer him during the State of the Union when he makes a political point either, so this is not new), because he sees them as his generals and admirals and not the nation's.  Their refusal to cheer in a partisan fashion definitely rankled Trump quite a bit. Trump's insults of Biden, of course, in front of this audience is an effort to drag the military into partisan politics.  One of the cardinal responsibilities of civilians in civil-military relations is to keep the military out of partisan politics, and Trump not just does not get that, but he is always trying to get the military into difficult circumstances where they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.  Such as filming a campaign ad at Arlington National Cemetery.  
2. The speech is typical Trump, incoherent, full of resentments, mischaracterizing basic stuff.  He rehashed the Gulf of America bs, for instance.  An example of incoherence: "we want war because we want to have no wars. But you have to be there. And, you know, sometimes you have to do it."
3. Trump lists Patton, Bradley and MacArthur and not Ike or Nimitz.  Which is telling--Trump's understanding of war and of history is that of a 12 year old. 
4. Words are wind: "I support you. And as President, I have your backs 100 percent. You’ll never see me even waver a little bit."  Remember when he said don't blame me, blame my generals after an early mess in his first term?  Remember what Trump has said about those who have been wounded, killed or taken prisoner? They are losers.
5. The most disturbing part of the speech was his reference to "our inner cities, which we’re going to be talking about because it’s a big part of war now. It’s a big part of war."  Trump promised to send troops to more and more American cities where the Democrats govern, claiming they are unsafe, which, of course, ignores the crime statistics. And this is where things got really disturbing: "And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That’s a war, too. It’s a war from within.... "I told Pete we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military — National Guard, but military — because we’re going into Chicago very soon."

  Trump has always been quite awful and irresponsible when it comes to managing the military, first by appointing a recently retired senior officer to be SecDef and then more recently by appointing a bitter, ignorant Christian nationalist to be SecDef. He has constantly tried to politicize the military, trying to make the military to be a MAGA military and not the country's armed forces. This will have much negative consequences including hurting recruitment, disrupting cohesion within the military as promotion becomes very partisan, and reducing the effectiveness of the military.  One of the fundamental findings of research in this area is that dragging the military into the partisan arena, by appointing via loyalty and not by merit (Pete doth protest too much about this), will make the military less able to deter and fight America's adversaries. As the US becomes an autocracy, it will find itself losing its advantages in war.  Yes, the US has not won too many wars lately, but lethality is not the problem--putting bullets, shells, missiles, bombs on target is what the US military does best.  

But war is politics by other means, so being lethal is only one ingredient for winning a war.  Again, these two disqualified and unqualified men have no clue about that. Instead, despite their assertions, Trump and Hegseth are doing their damnedest to undermine the US armed forces.  Of course, the best way to do that is to use the army against the American people, and Trump's speech promised just that.  And when that happens, if the order is given for the military to use force against the American people, that will be the worst day in US civil-military relations.

 

 

 

Should We Want The Military To Corner the Politicians?

 One of the enduring questions of civil-military relations is what should the military do when the civilians do not give them the tools they need to meet the objectives the civilians set forth.  So, when I read this piece by Scott Taylor in the Hill Times, I wondered about this---how far should military people go to demand the stuff they think they need:

CAF leadership lacks courage: It's the responsibility of military brass to pound on the desks of their political masters to address shortcomings in the institution. Instead, they sugar coat the situation.

To be fair, it is not Taylor's job to write the title to the piece, but that is the basic gist of the op-ed.  And it reflects a piss poor understanding of civil-military relations.  One of the fun dynamics I have discovered over the past few years is how officers mis-read a classic text: Supreme Command by Eliot Cohen.  In that book, Cohen argues there needs to be a dialogue, an unequal dialogue between the civilian masters and the armed forces--that the latter should speak truth to power and that the former should listen ... and THEN DO WHAT THEY THINK IS BEST.  The case studies in the book include Abraham Lincoln replacing general after general until he gets one that will listen and do what he wants.  It is not a book about the virtues of military folks yelling at civilians until the civilians submit.

Taylor cites favorably a video that Admiral Angus Topshee, the commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, recorded where he raised serious questions about the readiness of the fleet.  He could have cited the many times in General Wayne Eyre's last year or so of being Chief of Defence Staff, where he publicly discussed the problematic state of the armed forces--that they were underfunded.  These are not examples to be emulated, as they put the military not just in politics (all militaries are inherently involved in politics) but in partisan politics.  By cornering the government, they gave ammunition to the opposition and limited the ability for the government to set policy as they saw fit.  These folks definitely should have honest conversations with government officials behind closed doors, but publicly lambasting the government of the day is wrong and bad for civilian control of the military.  Despite public opinion polls to the contrary, the civilians should not merely do what the generals and admirals want.

The funny thing is that Taylor uses as his example/inspiration a case where a senior officer is explaining the readiness challenges to the Parliament's Defence Committee (and, yes, we rank Canada's DC as one of the weakest of the 15 democracies we studied in our book that was officially published yesterday). Taylor wanted General Ritchie to be more hostile, more critical, when the facts that Ritchie discussed spoke for themselves.  He was in a situation where he was essentially compelled to give an honest portrayal of the current situation and did so but in ways that didn't outright condemn the government.  He did what he supposed to do.  

Pounding on desks, yelling at the civilian leadership is not the way militaries ought to behave in democracies as they are subservient.  It is their job to follow orders and get on the job after providing the government with their assessment of the situation.  Their job is not to demand or to determine but to advise and then execute.  That's it.  

The timing is also strange, as the military is getting a lot more money to improve readiness as part of the 2% bonanza.  Also, it is not exactly as if the government and the public were not aware that the military is short of kit.  The public, as surveys have shown, get it, and there is public support for this new defence spending. 

So, yeah, when someone writes something asking for the military to lambaste the government, it is easy for me to say, whoa, there, buddy.  And then post this meme:

 

Professing in the Age of American Autocracy

Before the semester started, I wrote about how the US is now an authoritarian regime, or autocracy for short.  Since then, well, oh my, I have lost track of the many ways that the Trump regime has proven this to be correct, with the latest being the firing of a comedian for daring to make fun of the Mad King.  And all of this has happened as I am teaching US Foreign Policy.  It has raised a few challenges along the way, such as having events happen mid-class (the aforementioned Kimmel suspension).  

The biggest challenge is how to approach the course as a whole.  In the days of yore, I used to teach the class quite conventionally: here are the institutions that shape US foreign policy, here are the interests of the various actors.  And before social media existed, I was able to say critical things of Republicans and Democrats, and students would wonder which side of the political spectrum I was on.  Indeed, in Montreal, more than a few that I was right wing because I studied the military and didn't mind hanging out with folks in uniform.  The advent of social media and the way I am pretty blunt ended that to some degree, but I still tried to be even-handed (although as I referred to the disbanding of the Iraqi army as the dumbest decision in US foreign policy history).

During Trump 1.0, I started to raise questions about whether the institutional approach made sense, and I tweaked the class and was more critical in the course discussions of Trump than the average American president.  At the time, I started getting frustrated with the false equivalence that was often used by the media to normalize Trump, so that affected my teaching.  Trump acting in ways that went beyond normal GOP/Dem differences, like his approach to North Korea swinging from war-mongering to, well, submission.  

Last fall, in anticipation of a possible Trump admin, I assigned most of the usual readings and supplemented with, yes, chapters of Project 2025, and this time, I was quite clear that Trump was a convicted felon and insurrectionist.  That these were not just my political opinions but facts.  

When preparing for this fall, my starting point changed quite a bit from how does US foreign policy work in a democratic society in ways that constrain and incentivize the President to how does US foreign policy work in an autocracy where the constraints are gone and it really is about the personality of the President.  So much so that I started the first class with: is an utterance on social media--a tweet or whatever--policy?  This might seem to be taking a partisan approach, that my personal stance is affecting what I teach and how I teach, but, again, I think we are in a very different situation than in the past based on the objective criteria of coding democracies and autocracies.

• Is the President constrained by the legislature? No, he killed USAID without a vote.  He has refused to spend money allocated by Congress in violation of the Constitution.
• Is the President constrained by the law?  The destruction of Venezuelan boats says no.
• Is the President constrained by public opinion?  Nope, as many of his policies are wildly unpopular.
• Is the President constrained by the media?  Nope, the media has been bullied into submission.
• Is the prospect of the next election serving as a constraint?  Does not seem so.

Which means we have focus on other stuff to explain US foreign policy. I have borrowed readings from the study of autocratic foreign policy, and I am relying a bit more on psychological approaches since the mind of the person at the top matters more when that person has fewer limits on what they can do.

This week, it came to a head for me.  The focus was on public opinion, Congress, and polarization. I warned that polarization can be seen as a false equivalence kind of thing, suggesting that both parties are spinning away from the center equally.  But we know that one party has moved farther from the middle, much farther from the middle on many issues, such as NATO, immigration, and others.  I even drew the myth of centrism--how exactly in between two parties is not the middle but just an average.  That if one party becomes more extreme, the average moves but the middle of the American public may not.  

As the conversation developed, I responded to some of the questions by indicating, yes, the GOP is supporting autocracy, and, yes, it is seeking to deny the rights of various people: trans people most obviously, but also women's rights. The latter refers not just to abortion but, thanks to some outspoken GOP folks, voting rights.  We got into the whole "why don't Dem women date Republican guys" thing, and, yeah, it went that far.  I realized I might be pushing things a bit much, moving from the analytical and the objective to the partisan.

As I was thinking about this after class, a student approached me having just checked her phone, and she told me about Kimmel. This reinforced my thinking about where we are today--the US as an autocracy and the GOP as the party facilitating the end of American democracy.  It sounds partisan, but if it is the objective truth, then so be it.  

I will continue to be uncomfortable.  This is natural when one is living through unprecedented times and having to adjust to an America where the President is unconstrained, where power is being abused on a daily basis, and where fear of the regime drives the behavior of major media conglomerates, Republican politicians, and so many previously relevant actors.  

To be clear, my discomfort pales in comparison to those professing in the US, as I know I won't get fired for writing this.  Too many (one is too many, of course) have already lost their jobs due to fear of Mad King and his mob.   I can only hope that Trump's unpopularity will be his undoing, that the US can start to recover, although it will take much time and concerted effort.  And, yes, rebellions are built on hope.

  

 

Sparse But Spectacular: APSA 2025

 The consensus in Vancouver was that every American Political Science Association annual meeting should be in Vancouver.  The weather was terrific, the views were amazing, the food was great, and it cost Americans about 25% less than they thought.  Usually, the APSA is somewhere on the east coast in a swamp with excessive heat and humidity.  Not this year.  

But the downside was that it was as smaller conference.  Why?  Some guesses:

•  Lots of American academics have lost funding due to their universities losing NIH funding and other federal $ streams.
• Those from American military academic institutions may not have been able to get permission to go since SecDef "Too Drunk to Function" Hegseth is opposed to all knowledge-related events.
• East coast bias--there are simply more schools on the east coast and Vancouver is far, far away.
• Border challenges--non-Americans working in the US may be concerned about what might happen when they try to return from the conference after APSA.
• Border challenges, part deux: Canada absolutely sucks in processing visas so many folks may not have gotten visas to come for the conference.
• And maybe a bit of an illusion given the spread of the event between two wings of the convention center and a handful of hotels.

Maybe it is a one-off, but I can't help but think of an academic conference career arc: that when I started, I barely knew anyone, and would walk around searching for a familiar face [again, folks don't buy it, but I am shy in large crowds of people I don't know].  Then, as time went on, I didn't have to search as much.  And then I could just stand still and have many interactions with so many people that I have met in previous jobs, workshops, conferences, and my dance card would be full even before I arrived.  And now with friends retiring or passing, and perhaps because of the aforementioned shrinking of APSA, I had more openings in schedule, far fewer familiar faces, and more time to exercise.

Still, it was a good and valuable experience.  I got good feedback on my paper, I talked to an editor about an edited volume project, I met with a co-author about our next survey, I met sharp emerging scholars and served as their discussant, participated in a panel memorializing Brandon Valeriano, and didn't do much tourism as I have been here before.

The big topic hanging over the event was the backsliding of the US into autocracy. The Charlie Kirk assassination happened immediately before the conference, so it was a focus, but the larger concerns focused on the decline of academic freedom (personified by Kirk), the odds of civil war in the near future, Trump's declining health, and how much comparative politics has to say at this moment to the Americanists who have not really been trained to think about autocracy.  The pace of events makes it easy to forget that just a week ago, we faced the real possibility of the Texas National Guard confronting Illinois authorities and the public.  

We have dodged a lot of bullets (sorry, Charlie), that reichstag fire type events are now like streetcars--coming along every few minutes, and our luck is running out.  The right wing is talking about using the Kirk killing to justify suppression/persecution of the left and that does not just mean the far left commies, but everyone pretty much but themselves.  I just read a great piece by Jeffrey Isaac that speaks to our moment and what he has to fear.  I did react to the Kirk killing by noting that political violence is bad and that Kirk incited political violence, noting my privilege to do so as a Canadian.  We have seen Americans lose their jobs because they spoke about Kirk's deplorable stances and activities including his systematic effort to crush academic freedom.  And now Isaac has me thinking a bit about fear and how none of us are immune from either violence or the cowardice of university administrations.

One of the topics of conversation at the conference was, of course, the events at Texas A&M where a lecture, their department chair, and their dean were all fired because they had the temerity to talk about gender in a way that might not be approved of by the Trump regime.  Given my six years in west Texas long ago, yeah, I sighed relief that I got out of there.  I am pretty sure I would have been fired by now.

Anyhow, it was great to see friends, learn about new research, and celebrate Brandon.  We shall see if there is much of an international crowd at the ISA in Columbus in March.  Time to go back home to teach and revise a grant application.

The Illegal Orders Frontier: One of Our Last Obstacles to Autocracy May Be Gone

 One of things that people told themselves, including me, is that one barrier between anocracy, a mixed political system, and full out autocracy would be that American troops would not follow illegal orders.  They are trained not to do so--that the lesson of Nuremberg and WWII is that one is not obligated to follow an illegal order.  Makes it hard but not impossible to deploy the US armed forces coercively against the American people.  

Well, we can kiss that bit of wishful thinking goodbye (to a degree, I hope, see below).  Why?  Well, in the past 24 hours or so, we have two bits of evidence that the line has been breached.  

1. The US armed forces attacked and destroyed a civilian vessel in international waters.  I am not a lawyer, but from all accounts, this is an illegal use of force.  The ship or boat was not a threat to American shipping, so self-defense was not in play. No attempt to stop the ship.  No state of hostilities.  Thanks to Jason Lyall for enumerating how much this was probably not legal. 
2.  A US court ruled that the use of Marines and National Guard in California was illegal.  It seemed pretty clear at the time there was no emergency (the Insurrection Act was not invoked), and that Marines and National Guard should not be part of immigration sweeps.  

Of course, one of the first things the Trump Administration did was fire the senior Judge Advocate Generals, so no one would throw a flag. So, this kind of stuff would be easier to do.

And that gets to the heart of things--who is to say an order is illegal. Ultimately, it is up to every single member of the armed forces, but they take their signals from their officers, and those officers take their signals from JAGs and from senior officers. As far as we can tell, the senior officers did not tell them that these were illegal orders.   Obedience is expected and given, and, again, that is quite normal in wartime and in regular operations.  But deploying troops against civilians should raise the hackles of those being asked to act in dubious ways.  

There may be a limit--Trump still does not know (nor do we) what the troops would do if asked to fire upon civilians. That might be a bridge too far.  I think if such an extreme order, or invading Canada for that matter, would come down, it would be divisive and lead to one of two outcomes: senior leaders push back as they fear the cohesion of the military would be at great risk with the possibility of soldiers firing upon soldiers OR the military actually does break apart as some follow illegal orders and shoot at unarmed civilians and others stand by or try to stop it.  

This all seems extreme, almost fantastical, but Trump is calling out southern National Guard units to operate in cities governed by Democrats (mostly Black Democrats).  The moment of greatest uncertainty--who shoots and who does not--may nearly be upon us.  And we just don't know what happens.  Maybe that uncertainty deters the Trump administration, but that would require some thought, a lack of arrogance, some self-awareness, and some caution.  Are these attributes that are common in Trump's administration?

Yes, Ron, we can panic now.  

Seriously, how to respond?  With overwhelming displays of public opposition.  Protests can induce a military into not following illegal orders.  I need to read more of that literature, but that really is our best hope.  Because we can't expect restraint from the Trump Administration, we can't expect the better angels to have an influence, because there are none among those in power.  Hegseth?  Please.  The senior officers who have survived the purges?  Not looking good.  The media?  They don't seem to appreciate the seriousness of this moment.  The Democratic politicians? Well, the Governor of Illinois, Pritzker, seems to have the right idea. But he needs the public beside him.

Is this wishful thinking?  

Of course, all those in the picture died to facilitate rebellion so.... there's that.

Sorry for the less than cheery thoughts on the first day of classes.  
 
 

American Autocracy: Let's Call It What It Is

 I was being interviewed yesterday by a media outlet about Trump's deployment of the National Guard in Washington, DC, and I guess I surprised the interview and myself a bit by referring to Trump as a dictator.  Since he himself has called himself that, why not?  Because it sounds crazy.  It is also the case that there is no single act or signal that tells us when a country has moved from democracy to autocracy.  Because our imaginations are driven by Nazi Germany and Communist Soviet Union and the like, it seems extreme to say that the US is an autocracy now.  But if we look at all kinds of other countries in history that are coded as non-democratic/autocratic, the similarities to the situation in the US should be appalling yet not so crazy.  

To be clear, I am not a regime type expert.  For that, check out the Competitive Authoritarian stuff by Levitsky and Way.  But I can't help but talk about this and write about as, well, the stakes are huge.  

Anyhow, there are lots of ways to measure this.  Check out http://brightlinewatch.org/ for surveys of academics rating various components of democracy and see where things stand.  I just want to list many but not all of the things Trump has done that are not merely unprecedented or alarming but autocratic--moves that are not just harmful to democracy but are those made by dictators.

1. Declaring emergencies where there are none, to justify tariffs, to justify the use of ICE, other federal law enforcement agencies, and the military to repress people... is just classic autocracy. 
2. Pardoning insurrectionists.  Giving one's loyal supporters a break is not just about thanking them for their service but informing everyone that political violence used on Trump's behalf will not be punished.
3. Using the Department of Justice against one's opponents.  Rule of law is fundamental to democracy and liberty, so using the law selectively to retaliate against opponents is more than just a wee bit problematic. Again, it send signals--that if you oppose Trump, you will pay with your freedom.
4. Using the military against the people. Do I have to elaborate on this one?
5. Gaming the next election--competitive authoritarianism is all about making political competition tilt radically to one side.  Of course, #voterfraudfraud has always been about this, so this is not new, but taken to new lows. 
6. Coercing the media. While a number of media outlets have been more or less acquiescent to Trump's autocratic moves, we have seen major media companies face extortion, paying Trump "compensation" for their news coverage which then deters further journalism.
7. Repressing academic freedom.  Oy, this cuts close to home.
8. Defying the courts.  So many court orders have either been ignored or subverted.  Just the story of Kilmar Abrego Garcia is enough to illustrate that. 
9. Usurping Congress's powers.  Refusing to spend money allocated by Congress, ending government agencies without Congressional approval (USAID, Education), and so on.   
10. Executive orders as decrees. An executive order is supposed to be a modification of the discretion the laws give to the executive, not to create new laws, toss out old ones, and all the rest.  Trump's wielding of executive orders in the manner he has done has been incredibly autocratic yet has become normalized.
11. Purging the military.  Such a classic authoritarian move--to gut the military of those who gained leadership roles through merit to replace with lackeys.  This will undermine the effectiveness of the American military.  So much for lethality.   
12. Taking ownership stakes in companies.  I thought liberty meant private firms, not state ownership. Oops.  Where are the libertarians?
13.  Most importantly, the arbitrary use of power.

This has all happened and is continuing to happen.  We have a regime in power that is acting beyond the constitution, that has thoroughly subverted the rule of law, and, yes, a leader with a cult of personality who refers to himself as a dictator.  We can call this competitive authoritarianism, we can call it autocracy, we can call it a dictatorship, we can call it fascism, but we can't call the US a democracy now.  Getting it back is going to be really hard, and the norms that have been broken over the past eight years and especially the last eight months are going to be very hard to rebuild.

   

owers from other branches 

A Day at DND HQ

The CDSN Summer Institute made its annual stop at DND HQ.  This has been a highlight
of each SI, moving from a couple of briefings in a morning to several over the course of a day to eight this year.  Since this is now an annual event with similar or even the same speakers, I can get an idea of where things are generally headed.  Since last year, we have a new government although not a new party in power, we have a new President in the US, and we have the same wars and hot spots to a large degree.  So, much foddre for comparison, and comparison not the thief of joy (that would be envy) but a source of much joy and insight.

The briefings were held under Chatham House Rule, so I cannot attribute any statement to any speaker, but I can give the gist.  To be clear, this was one of those events with the Rule is most helpful, as the folks were generally quite forthcoming saying stuff that they could not say in public.  I was actually pretty surprised by some of the things that were admitted, like an honest take on the readiness of the CAF.   

The biggest difference between last year and this year: the military is getting money and spending it.  So much discussion of 2% as a real thing, which was not the case last summer.  One service's* briefing, for example, was much less about regrets about what they could not do and more about reorganizing/reconceptualizing the balance of activities given that they have some of the resources they need to do stuff.   But to be clear, the goal might be to getting things to be adequate rather than excellent--that our bases would have drinkable water, not that we about to have all the stuff necessary to fight and win against Russia.

A second big difference was a recurrent theme of sovereign capabilties/strategic autonomy.  This is the Trumpness of it all--that Canada needs to build in Canada, that Canada needs to be less dependent on the US for stuff. However, still a lot of emphasis on stuff still doing well at working level, and I wonder, always, whether wishful thinking is coloring this since the working level stuff can be turned off at any moment and especially when Canada is in a difficult spot.   

One consistency that is inconsistent--that Canadians want the military to domestic operations and the military don't.  While the priorities of Canada first and then Europe and then Indo-Pac showed up in most slides regardless of service or civ vs mil, what they mean by Canada is not domestic crisis ops but defending the north from imaginary overinflated threats.  Oh and South America--not on the list of priorities--not surprising but always notable.  For me, the big missing piece, and it is less of a DND/CAF thing than a Canada thing, is the far right threat.  I think if we had this briefing in 2004, Al Qaeda would have been mentioned.  In 2014: ISIS.  Now?  Hmmmm.

 Speaking of the Arctic, well, oh my.  So, yes, Russia and China are doing stuff up north, but this does not really threaten the peoples up north.  But since those folks are aware of Russia in Ukraine and China towards Taiwan, when the Canadian government promotes threats to the Arctic so that the public supports more defence spending, the government is scaring, rather than reassuring, the northern communities.  While I have always been an Arctic Security skeptic--that the threat is overinflated--I hadn't realized that one of the consequences of threat inflation has been to upset the folks up north.

Golden dome came up here and there.  My big question--what does Trump's $61b mean for Canada--was not clearly answered, and I don't blame the folks who talked to us.  BUT the fun coincidence is that our current planned outlay for NORAD modernization is C$82b or so over 20 years, which is about US$62b.  It is fun, isn't it?  

One thing that was an undercurrent of the briefings is humility--there is only so much Canada can do.  Given the shortages in personnel (Navy leads by being short 23%), the CAF can't do everything.  The Latvia deployment is the show for the army, with 1650 or so troops.  This was a fun number for me, since our promise to NATO is 2200 or so.  Which means we can get up to 2,200 for exercises, imitating our allies who surge troops in when they feel like. The problem, of course is that if the balloon goes up, it will be very hard or impossible for Canada to send more troops into a very hostile airspace.  The last couple of days, I have been asked whether Canada could contribute to a peacekeeping/security guarantee mission to Ukraine if Russia and Ukraine stop fighting.  Putting aside the unlikelihood of a deal and that Putin would oppose NATO troops being part of such a thing, can Canada send troops to such a mission?  Only if Canada gets out of the Latvia business or at least cuts it quite significantly.  So, probably not is my answer.

 One tidbit that reminds us how limited Canada is: we have defence attachés in 44 countries, which means that more than half of our embassies either have a remote attachés or none at all (Canada has something like 110 embassies, which also means almost half the world has no Canadian ambassador/embassy).

Finally, the Carney campaign promised a defence procurement agency, and we haven't heard much about it.  But it does seem like it may actually become a reality but not quickly.

So, it was a terrific day in a great week, and we definitely drank from the firehouse.   Much to think about.  I am very grateful to the SSHRC and MINDS grant programs that made this week possible and to the Public Affairs group at DND for facilitating this day.  Our participants got a lot out of it, and so did I.

 

* The military refers to each branch/service as an environment--army-land, navy-sea, air force-air--but I find it it awkward and I am stuck in my ways. 

Sending the Feds to the Cities: How UnAmerican!

 To be clear, to say something is UnAmerican or not something we do is usually to ignore a history of doing that stuff.   Voter suppression?  American as hell.  Selective enforcement of the law?  Sure.  Concentration camps?  That's been done.  But when I woke this morning and saw images of a bunch of different kinds of feds--FBI, DEA, etc--going through the streets of DC with absolutely no goddamned reason to do so, it struck me as damn near unprecedented.

I invoked the Declaration of Independence, rather than the Constitution, because the US was founded on a variety of complaints, but one was the capricious use of armed force to oppress the populace.  While several grievances cover this, one seems most on target: ""He [King George] has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance." [see here].  

Of course, over the first and now second Trump terms, Trump has seen those grievances as a checklist of things to do.  But seeing the actual deployment of feds to bully the capital, because it is convenient, because it is symbolic, because it has a Black mayor and majority Black population is simply appalling.  It is not a distraction-- it is one of the main events on the descent into autocracy.  Backsliding is too slow of a description--in less than six months, Trump has plunged the US into autocracy.  This stuff is exactly why the colonists rebelled (along with, um, yeah, other motives) and created the United States of America.

Sure, any nationalism is contested--what its meaning is, who counts and who does not count as a member of that nation--but an essential nugget of American nationalism is some kind of notion of freedom from arbitrary rule, from the federal government exerting its power just to exert its power.  So, yeah, this is UnAmerican to the core, and all Americans should be appalled by it. That those who have spent the past fifty years yammering about the threat of the federal government and the need for guns will either be silent or cheer this on, well, that's a tell on what they really care about.  For the rest of us, we need to protest, we need to lobby, we need to figure out ways to stymie the Trump administration, and we need to pressure the Democrats to fight like there is no tomorrow.... because if this stuff becomes commonplace, there will be no tomorrow.  That is, this strategy and abuse of power can be used to keep Democrats from voting and then that is the whole ballgame.