#568: How Civil Military Relations Could Reshape America's Future

#568: How Civil-Military Relations Could Reshape America’s Future

By Rudy Barnes, Jr., October 18, 2025

America’s Political Future is shaped by its civil-military relations, as it was in 1860 when President Abraham Lincoln declared martial law and deployed Union forces to counter the secession of 13 states.  But there has been no internal threat to the U.S. since the Civil War, contrary to the claims of Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth on September 30.

Even so, last week Donald Trump activated and deployed National Guard forces to U.S. cities, from Chicago to Memphis, Tennessee, with more to come; and he urged Secretary of Defense (and War) Hegseth to use the cities where forces have been deployed as training grounds for a new military mission to protect the U.S. from an unknown internal political threat.  

Republicans have effectively shut down Congress, leaving Trump’s Executive branch as the only operational branch of American government.  On September 30 Trump convened senior military officials in Quantico, Virginia, and alarmed onlookers by invoking the need to mobilize military forces to quell an unseen “invasion from within;” and Trump has continued to consider using the Insurrection Act, a rarely used 1807 law that gives the president authority to deploy military forces to stamp out rebellion and ensure order at home. 

The military is a part of the Executive Branch that can quell insurgency and provide essential public services through its civil affairs personnel.  As fears grow about how far Trump will go in politicizing and reshaping the mission of the military, Republicans have continued to support Trump’s norm-busting and self-serving policies.  While Democrats oppose Trump, they don’t have enough power to stop Trump and his Republicans in Congress.

I’m a retired JAGC colonel and a graduate of the Army War College who was taught that the ultimate purpose of America’s military is to preserve peace, not to make war.  I was privileged to wear a green beret and awarded the Legion of Merit, and I have published numerous articles in military journals and a book on Military Legitimacy, Might and Right in the New Millennium in 1996.

If civil-military relations are left to Trump and Hegseth, America could go the way of Hitler’s Germany, Putin’s Russia, and Netanyahu’s Israel with a totalitarian regime.  It will take an enlightened electorate and new political leadership to reaffirm the duties and obligations of the military to support and defend the Constitution; otherwise all could be lost.

On September 30 Trump and Hegseth openly advocated domestic military deployments that would constitute a military insurrection and give Trump and his supporters effective control of America’s military.  Can America correct this threat of insurrection that could undermine the Constitution and civil-military relations in America?   Can we save our freedom from ourselves?