Shortly before taking office, Donald Trump made all sorts of threats against partner countries and domestic opponents. The US military is probably already preparing for extraordinary operations.
Less than a week before the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump, unrest is growing in the USA. The 78-year-old made all sorts of controversial announcements during the election campaign and in the weeks after his election victory that could soon be implemented. The concern is apparently particularly great in the US military.
After his election victory in mid-November, Trump said he could use the military domestically to combat illegal migration. He also recently threatened to invade his neighbors Canada and Greenland. And US troops could also invade Panama if the Central American country does not give US ships preferential treatment in its canal, which is important for global trade – at least that is what Trump says.
Troubled times could now dawn in the corridors of the Pentagon and at military bases across the country if Trump actually carries out one or more of his threats. And preparations for this are apparently already underway: As the US media “Politico” reports, former military personnel and lawyers have long been examining which orders from the president the military could refuse. The focus is apparently on a possible order for a domestic operation.
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Trump has long been repeating his warnings about an alleged “enemy within” or an “internal threat” to the USA. He mostly means migrants, but also political opponents from the left spectrum. As early as 2020, according to his then Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Trump wanted to use gun violence to put down protests by the “Black Lives Matter” movement after the killing of George Floyd by a police officer.
Trump is said to have asked Esper at the time whether one could simply shoot at the protesters. “Just shoot them in the legs or something?” The then US President also probably wanted to convince Mark Milley, Chief of Staff of the US Armed Forces under Trump, to “beat the shit out of” the protesters and “crack their skulls in”. Both men were able to convince Trump not to give corresponding orders.
But before the start of Trump’s second term, some military officials apparently fear that the Republican could be more licentious than between 2017 and 2021. A military lawyer told “Politico” that he fears that things could get “bad, really bad.” “It will be worse than last time,” the man, who wished to remain anonymous, told the newspaper. “Trump is angry. He desperately wants to turn on the TV and see men in uniforms on the streets.”
In general, soldiers are allowed to refuse orders that are illegal. Trump, however, could rely on a law for a domestic military operation that makes it much more difficult for soldiers to refuse obedience: the so-called Insurrection Act. Lawyer Joseph Nunn told Politico: “It’s an extraordinarily broad law that contains no meaningful criteria for determining when the president should use the military domestically.”
Trump could therefore give free rein to his creativity and, in principle, use many reasons for a domestic deployment. George W. Bush Sr. last used the Insurrection Act during the deadly Los Angeles riots of 1992. In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower used the law to use the military to desegregate the Southern states. And originally, Abraham Lincoln first used the law to declare war on the Southern states in 1861.