Trump uses force as a first resort. And now the firepower is aimed at his own people

The menacing sight of heavily armoured US military vehicles and personnel seizing control of the streets is a familiar one for residents of Baghdad and Kabul. Last week, citizens of Washington and other American cities experienced similar treatment – at the hands of their own government.

Donald Trump’s alarming over-reaction to the mostly lawful protests that followed George Floyd’s death produced a powerful backlash among political and military leaders. It also highlighted increased US reliance, at home and abroad, on the aggressive use of force as a first resort.

The militarisation of US police forces, and American society as a whole, is rooted in the response to the 9/11 attacks, when George W Bush plunged the country into a state of perpetual war. Paradoxically, his “global war on terror” intensified international and domestic insecurity.

It sparked a huge, parallel expansion in the powers and reach of the homeland security apparatus. As Pentagon spending grew to a whopping $738bn this year, total police and prison budgets have also soared, reaching $194bn in 2017. About 18,000 law enforcement agencies employ 800,000 officers nationwide. Many are armed to the teeth.

Deserving or not, members of the US armed forces are routinely described as heroes by Trump and others. Amid high levels of gun violence, many on the frontline of domestic law enforcement plainly feel they are worthy of similar status and protection.

Yet when police officers are uniformed, equipped and armed like soldiers, it is unsurprising that they act with soldier-like impunity, treating civilians as the enemy in what Mark Esper, the defence secretary, calls the urban “battlespace”. In the past week, there were multiple incidents of police combat and resulting gratuitous violence.

Trump’s panicky actions further blurred the line between military and civil power, by linking patriotism and militarism. He is not the first president to wrap himself in the flag. But this Vietnam draft-dodger who is commander-in-chief exhibits scant understanding of what fidelity to country and constitution means.

Trump boasts about US military power and his bigger, better nuclear weapons. He sought personal legitimacy by hiring savvy generals such as HR McMaster and James Mattis, then rejected their advice. He recklessly threatens states such as North Korea with “fire and fury”. He mounts military parades to glorify himself.

But the problem is not simply Trump or the police. Since declaring cold war victory in 1991, an unfettered America has increasingly relied on the continuous projection of military force overseas, downgrading diplomacy, mediation and “soft power” approaches.

This militarist mindset, ever focused on warfare, conflict and supremacy (or “domination”, to quote Trump), has had an inevitably corrosive impact at home. The bill fell due last week.

James Madison, one of the founding fathers, warned of the danger over 200 years ago. “Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded … In war, the discretionary power of the executive is extended … No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare,” Madison wrote.

The belief that unchecked militarism is inimical to liberty has been usefully explored in recent years by Andrew Bacevich, a Boston university historian and former army colonel and Vietnam veteran.

“Today as never before in their history, Americans are enthralled with military power,” he wrote in his 2005 bestseller, The New American Militarism, which excoriated Bush’s “immoral, illicit and imprudent” Iraq invasion. The quest for supremacy always ended in degeneracy.

“America will surely share the fate of all those who in ages past have looked to war and military power to fulfil their destiny. We will rob future generations of their rightful inheritance. We will wreak havoc abroad. We will endanger our security at home. We will risk the forfeiture of all that we prize,” Bacevich warned.

Neo-conservatives hated his message. But with present-day generals up in arms about Trump’s abuse of military power, and the nation enraged at the actions of paramilitary police, maybe the right is listening now.

Patriotism and pride in one’s country are not the issue here. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with saluting the flag and supporting the troops – or the police, if they do their job right.

But when it becomes a fetish, when it’s obligatory, when such natural instincts are hijacked by demagogues such as Trump, when militarism, ultra-nationalism and hateful jingoism, fuelling entrenched racism and xenophobia, take hold – that’s when catastrophe looms.

It renders the US a threat to itself and others, and weakens its global influence. Perhaps the police and social reforms urged by Barack Obama will gain traction as anger over Floyd subsides. Internationally, the harm done to US standing looks serious.

Scornful Chinese and Russian claims of hypocrisy, and the appalled reaction of allies in Europe, Canada and Australia, are galling but manageable. More dangerous is the damage to American leadership and the global cause of democratic governance.

Trump’s repressive action “gives a tool to dictators, autocrats and thugs”, Jake Sullivan, senior adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, told a Foreign Policy magazine webinar. “It leads them to believe they are righteous, that they don’t have to listen to complaints about human rights, equality and democracy.”

Ironically, it also undermined US national security, Sullivan said. “The US cannot be a secure country if it is not capable of being a just and equal country.”

That warning was echoed by Richard Haass of the US Council on Foreign Relations. “The US is and appears to the world divided, diminished and distracted,” he tweeted. “Hard to believe we will not be challenged somewhere, somehow by someone wanting to take advantage of these circumstances. These are truly dangerous times.”

In other words, as a militarised America turns its fire on itself, outside enemies take aim.