During his re-election campaign, Donald Trump pledged to rid the military of generals he considered “woke.” Now that he is president-elect, the question at the Pentagon is how far he can go.
Mr Trump is expected to take a tougher look at military leaders in his second term, after facing pushback from the Pentagon over issues such as his skepticism of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), his willingness to deploy troops to suppress protests on US streets…
Former US generals and former defense secretaries under Mr Trump’s first term have been among his fiercest critics; some have even called him a fascist and declared him unfit for the presidency. Infuriated, Mr Trump has suggested that former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley could be executed for treason.
Current and former US officials say Mr Trump will prioritise loyalty in a second term and remove military officers and defence officials he deems disloyal.
“He will destroy the Department of Defense. He will go in there and fire generals who stand up for the Constitution,” said Jack Reed, a Democrat and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Cultural issues may have been a factor in the firings. In an interview with Fox News in June, Mr. Trump was asked whether he would fire generals who were described as “woke.” “Woke” is a term that refers to people who focus on racial and social justice, but are criticized by conservatives as going too far.
“I would fire them. You can’t have a woke military,” Trump said.
Some current and former officials worry that Mr. Trump’s team could target the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown, a former fighter pilot and prominent military commander who has stayed away from politics.
The four-star general, who is African American, released a video message about discrimination in the military ranks in the days after the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd in May 2020. He has been a vocal advocate for diversity in the US military.
Asked for comment, Brown's spokesman, Navy Capt. Jereal Dorsey, said: “The chairman, along with all members of our armed forces, remains focused on the security and protection of our nation and will continue to be so, ensuring a smooth transition to the new administration of President-elect Trump.”
Vice President-elect J.D. Vance voted against confirming Mr. Brown to be America’s top military officer as a senator last year and criticized perceived resistance to Mr. Trump’s orders at the Pentagon.
“If people in your government don’t follow you, you have to get rid of them and replace them with people who do what the president is trying to do,” Mr. Vance said in an interview before the election.
During the campaign, Trump pledged to restore the name of a Confederate general to a major US military base, reversing a change made after Floyd's killing.
Mr Trump’s strongest anti-woke message of the campaign has been aimed at transgender troops. He previously banned transgender troops from serving in the military and ran a campaign ad portraying them as weak, pledging “We will not have a woke military.”
Legal orders
Mr. Trump has suggested that the U.S. military could play a key role in many of his policy priorities, from using the National Guard and active-duty troops to deport undocumented immigrants en masse to deploying troops to address domestic unrest.
Such proposals have alarmed military experts, who say that deploying troops on American streets would not only be illegal but would also turn a large portion of the American public against the country's revered armed forces.
In a message to the forces following Mr Trump’s election victory, outgoing Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged the results of the election and stressed that the military would obey “all lawful orders” from civilian leaders.
But some experts warn that Mr Trump has wide latitude to interpret the law and that the US military cannot refuse lawful orders that it deems morally wrong.
“There is a common misconception that the military can choose not to follow morally wrong orders. That is not true,” said Kori Schake of the American Enterprise Institute.
Ms Schake warned that Mr Trump’s second term could see high-level firings as he continues to push through controversial policies. “I think there will be a lot of chaos in a second term for Mr Trump, both in terms of the policies he tries to implement and the people he appoints to implement them,” she said.
A US military official downplayed the concern, saying creating chaos in the US military's chain of command would create political backlash and was not necessary for Mr Trump to achieve his goals.
“These people will realize that military officers are usually focused on war, not politics. “I think they will be pleased with that, or at least should be,” the military official said.
Weaken the civilian ranks?
Pentagon officials could face loyalty checks, according to current and former officials. Trump allies have publicly backed the use of executive orders and regulatory changes to replace thousands of civil servants with conservative allies.
A senior US defense official told Reuters there was growing concern within the Pentagon that Mr Trump would remove civilians from the Department of Defense. “I have deep concerns about their ranks,” the official said, adding that some colleagues had expressed concerns about their future jobs.
Career officers are among the nearly 950,000 non-uniformed personnel who serve in the U.S. military and in many cases have years of specialized experience.
During the election campaign, Mr. Trump pledged to exercise his right to streamline the payroll and reduce the apparatus of the US government.
During his first term, some of Mr. Trump’s controversial proposals to advisers, such as possibly launching missiles into Mexico to destroy drug labs, never became policy, in part because of opposition from officials at the Pentagon.
“This is going to be a 2016 version on a grand scale, and the fear is that he will weaken the ranks and expertise in a way that will irreparably damage the Pentagon,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Theo Reuters
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