OPINION | US military is caught between a rock and a hard place

US Military

US President Donald Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addressed an unprecedented gathering of over 800 attendees that included the country’s most senior military officers on September 30 (Monday) at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia – outside of Washington DC.

This address – more a petulant, stream-of-consciousness political ramble by Trump – can only be described as ‘extraordinary’, coming as it did from a President of the US (POTUS). The 70-minute, often incoherent diatribe tarnished the gravitas, rectitude, and integrity normally associated with the incumbent of the White House, the custodian of the US Constitution and the normative values embedded in the founding of the world’s oldest democracy.

A military that swears fealty to the country’s Constitution

In form and content, the Trump Quantico address was cringe-worthy, and most US citizens, barring the die-hard MAGA (Make America Great Again) loyalists, are aghast that their President could sound so unhinged. The only redeeming feature was the disciplined manner in which the US military brass heard their Commander-in-Chief: with respect but in impassive silence. This in itself was an import-laden and eloquent response that needed no articulation. Trump yearned for applause, but it was denied.

The vibrancy of a liberal democracy is reflected in the integrity of its institutions. An apolitical, professionally competent military that owes its allegiance to the Constitution of the country is a critical element in nurturing the democratic ethos. The US, as the world’s oldest democracy, has evolved a reasonably robust template and every American military service member swears an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic" and further, to "bear true faith and allegiance to the same."

It is significant that the oath does not pledge loyalty to the President, Congress, political party, or any individual. The Constitution is the lodestar and is deemed sacred – as the embodiment of democratic norms, rule of law, and civil liberties. This design, rooted in the US Founding Fathers' fears of standing armies loyal to rulers, as in monarchies or dictatorships, ensures the military remains a servant of the people and not a tool for personal or partisan agendas. In practice, this translates into obeying lawful orders from civilian leaders, with the US President as Commander-in-Chief.

A subtle demand for loyalty to the President

However, in one rambling address to his military commanders, Trump upended this delicately poised civil-military relationship and undermined principles and norms deemed to be sacrosanct. Trump’s hour-plus address artfully praised the military but soon veered into political territory and became a populist campaign rant.

The gist of the Trump address (there was no official transcript as is the normal practice when POTUS speaks in public) was vintage campaign vitriol. There was a large dose of criticism of past leadership – particularly the ‘weak’ President Joe Biden and the ‘woke’ policies of former Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley.

Trump accused them of undermining military readiness, and his solution was a reform agenda. This included plans to overhaul the Pentagon, emphasizing a return to traditional military values, increased efficiency, and accountability. But the subtext was a demand for loyalty – to Donald Trump.

Predictably, the meandering rant included the flowery praise heaped on Trump by Pakistan's army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, for 'having saved millions of lives’ by enabling a ceasefire in the recent Operation Sindoor hostilities. Clearly, Trump liked this adulation in dollops.

Intimidating the brass

The dangerous and pernicious policy advocacy by Trump was the reference to the ‘enemy within’ as the more serious challenge for the US, and that troops be trained in ‘dangerous’ US cities such as San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles – all governed by elected Democratic Party leaders. For Trump, the "enemy" reference encompassed protesters, migrants, drug traffickers, LGBT/transgender individuals, and political opponents.

Intimidation of the military was more than palpable, and POTUS threatened to fire generals he disliked. The tone for the Trump address was set by Defense Secretary Hegseth, who shamed ‘fat’ generals and admirals and addressed the top brass more like a sergeant major bullying recruits.

Historically, some US Presidents have sought to impose an ideological orientation to the military, and both Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan in different centuries are case in point. President Nixon, disgraced over the Watergate scandal, initially used the US military to quell anti-war protests but met with resistance from the top brass, and this was not expanded for personal vendetta, as is the case with the Trump Quantico diktat.

Given the new Trump-Hegseth threats and policy directives, is the US military now caught between a rock and a hard place?

Yes, for the Trump address now places the US military in a profoundly uncomfortable and untenable position, amplifying long-standing tensions in civil-military relations.

Implicit assumption that civilian leadership will be restrained

The rock is the oath to the Constitution, which is cast in stone, and the uniformed fraternity is expected to remain committed to this tenet. However, the normative democratic template demands an obedient military that accepts and internalizes the ‘hard place’ – namely, the primacy of the civilian chain of command. Can unlawful directives by POTUS be ignored or defied by the military top brass? This is uncharted territory and fraught with many uncertainties that will weaken the US military as an institution.

No military should be seen to buck the elected leadership in a democracy, but concurrently, the political apex must stay within the constitutional framework and not exploit the uniform for cynical partisan advantage.

There are many correspondences from Quantico with the Indian experience in recent years, and the politics related to Op Sindoor, illegal immigration, and terrorism are illustrative. A military must be subordinate to the elected leadership, but not slide into unctuous subservience when blatant constitutional transgressions become the norm.