Why Civ-Mil People Are Freaking Out?

 Trump bravely waited until Friday night to purge the top level of the US military.  Why are people freaking out?  We knew this was going to happen.  Trump promised this before the election, and the selection of Hegseth, a misogynist and racist, made it clear where we were heading   Yet now we are angry.  Well, not every Trump promise comes to pass although a lot of the worst ones do.  And reality just hits a lot harder.

So, for those who are not students of civil-military relations, why is this so bad?  First, a list and then a scenario or two.  And then what to expect soon.

1. The whole idea of having the top leadership of the military have terms that overlap with different presidencies is to avoid politicizing the military.  Never before has a President just erased the highest levels of the military a month into office.  Trump would have been able to change these folks within his four years--these people tend to serve 2 or 4 year terms.  So, why is he so impatient?  See some of the list below, but it might be that Trump wants to flex, show that he is a dictator right now.  Who purges militaries?  Autocrats.
2. Trump wants to prove to his base that his intent to re-segregrate the US includes the military.  All this anti-DEI stuff is really about being racist, misogynist, homophobic, and xenophobic.  No accident that they are replacing a Black man with a white one and getting rid of perhaps the most effective Chief of Naval Operations in a long time who just so happens to be a woman.  This move tells the force that only white straight men should lead.  That will be bad for recruitment and retention.  
   
3. Trump's replacement, Dan Caine, is a retired white dude.  This is not unprecedented as Kennedy had brought Max Taylor out of retirement.  Did that go well?  Um, Cuban Missile crisis good, Vietnam bad. But importantly, it was not aimed to make the military more loyal to Kennedy or the Democrats.  It might have been aimed to assert civilian control of the military.  What makes Caine better than all of the active generals and admirals?  That he is loyal to Trump, the person, and not to the Constitution.
4. Everything the new chairman does will be seen as partisan, not just political, no matter what he does unless he pushes back against a Trump order.  So, even relatively ordinary stuff will be tainted.
   
5. Trump also fired the Judge Advocate Generals--the lawyers.  Why fire the lawyers?  They tend to get in the way when you want to do illegal stuff.  So, Trump's intent is pretty clear.
6. This will divide the military.  Everyone will look around and ask themselves if someone is getting promoted because they are the best officer or because they are loyal, so political affiliation will be something everyone pays a whole lot more attention to. To be clear, there are at least three kinds of officers in the military: those loyal to the Constitution, those who are MAGA types who believe in this shit, and, most importantly, the careerists.  Those will do what it takes to get ahead, and have just been signaled that to get ahead, one has to do whatever Trump and Hegseth order.
7. Once you politicize the military, it becomes very hard to undo.  Let's say the GOP loses the 2028 election and leaves power peacefully (we can dream, right?).  The new President does what?  Fire all Trump appointees in the military?  That is pretty partisan--the replacements will be seen as lackeys to the Dems even if they are not.  Once the military is deeply into partisan politics, it simply will be hard to take it out of partisan politics
8.  What does Trump want to do with a more partisan, more personally loyal military?  Well, the last time Trump was in power, he wanted to use the military against peaceful protestors, and he faced some friction from the SecDef and Chairman.  Hegseth certainly is not going to get in the way, and neither will the puppet Trump just picked.
   

Ok, this does not mean that American troops will be gunning down protestors tomorrow.  First, Trump has to change who is the head of Northern Command, since that is the officer who orders troops in the US to act.  The chairman just advises the president--operational command runs from the President to the SecDef to the regional commander.   Second, they will need a pretext, but pretexts are like streetcars--there will be one coming down the road every five minutes.  With massive deportation, with the Musking of government, with everything going on, there will be protests.  Third, Trump will need loyalty all the way down.  The generals can order the troops to shoot, but the captains and lieutenants may not follow through.  The sergeants and the corporals may not follow through.  People will point to Kent State, but that was an accident.  And it stopped quickly.  It was not a situation where the troops were ordered to shoot and kept shooting.  

The thing is: if Trump orders the troops to fire and they don't, the military is disobedient and won't be trusted.  That's not great in the long term--to have a military that is contesting policy.  If Trump orders the troops to fire and they do shoot at civilians, well, that too is bad for the military and for political order as then the military is a tool of repression.  And if some troops fire and others do not, then you get a military that falls apart.  

One more scenario to fill your day with sunshine.  We are seeing states differ in how they will enforce Trump's dictats as well as their own laws. Texas wants to have abortionists in NY extradited, and NY is refusing.  Soon, you will see some states blocking massive deportation.  What happens next?  One might see the Texas governor send troops to NY or California to get the people they are seeking, and then the governors of NY or California call out their national guard to resist, and these NG's resist being federalized.  So, Trump then calls out the army to repress the dissident national guard....and that's how a civil war starts.  Either by the army fighting the California National Guard or by the army fighting itself as factions within the military take opposing sides.

Sounds like fantasy, doesn't it?  It all has become far more realistic than ever should have gotten.  Last night was the worst night in US civil-military relations since the Civil War.... but as the Simpsons cartoon would suggest 

   What happens next?  The Democratic Senators make a fuss during the confirmation hearings of the replacements.  Don't expect the GOP to raise that much of a fuss.  They confirmed Hegseth, they confirmed Patel even though he clearly perjured himself during the hearings.  Expect Trump to keep on firing generals and admirals, especially those commanding forces in the US.  Expect agent selection/moral hazard to kick in: he may promote some generals and admirals who then stick to their oaths and refuse to follow illegal orders and may refuse to implement awful but lawful orders.  Expect Trump to find compliant generals and admirals who then issue orders that are followed but not as completely or as quickly or as with as much cohesion and unity as in the past.  

Politicization of the military, bringing the military into politics and bringing politics in to the military is bad for military effectiveness, it is bad for democracy, and we are now here, deep in the middle of it.  And getting out is going to be really hard and will do lasting damage.

Among the many tragedies is that it didn't have to be this way.