Post #477: Trump’s Dangerous Distortion of National Security

During a large part of the post-World War II history of American foreign policy, national security meant international security—that is, defense of the US homeland was believed to require a global military presence and regular interventions—political, military, economic—in the affairs of other countries. The threats changed over time from the Soviet Union to China to terrorism, but until Donald Trump, presidents never claimed that these threats required giving internal order the highest defense priority. Their policies of liberal interventionism and their commitment to an imperial presidency were directed at defeating global menaces, even at the expense of real security at home.

Now, under Trump, we are at the start of another and far graver distortion of national security—waging “the war from within,” as Trump told the generals. But the enemy within isn’t any enemy of past decades: the communist party, organized crime, disease, or rampant inflation.  It is the non-white migrant worker, the leftist intellectual, the drug trafficker, the Democratic-run city, the “woke” universities, liberal civil society. In short, it is most of us.

National security now requires widespread domestic repression: “We have to handle it before it gets out of control,” said Trump. He confirmed the shift to internal order when he said the National Guard would be sent to Chicago: “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds” for military forces. Today’s cities will play the role of US military bases abroad.

“National security” once again is the catchword to justify all manner of official acts that have no or very little bearing on the nation’s security. Every tariff increase—on furniture, foreign movies, aluminum—is a national security measure. Border reinforcement against increasingly few illegal migrants is to bolster national security. (It’s an “invasion,” remember.) Regular military units are dispatched to cities on national security missions. Pressuring law firms, universities, and social media companies to conform with the administration’s policy on D.E.I., and pay huge fees for compliance, is necessary for national security. The Trump administration has learned from authoritarian regimes, as well as from previous administrations, that cloaking official acts in the language of national security is almost certain to get Supreme Court approval.            

Trump has essentially given up on foreign policy. He has nothing to offer beyond tariffs. He has failed to end wars in Gaza and Ukraine; in his bid for a Nobel Peace Prize, he has fully backed the genocide regime in Tel Aviv and the aggressor state in the Kremlin. And he has failed  to bring China to heel; his tariff and foreign aid policies have been gifts to Beijing that have enabled it to extend its economic and political influence. Now, foreign policy is domestic policy: the militarization of the southern border, the attacks on presumed drug smugglers at sea, whom Trump labels “unlawful combatants” engaged in “armed conflict” with the US. In stretching “national security” to include these actions, Trump appears to have a related aim: expand presidential power under “wartime” conditions (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/us/politics/trump-drug-cartels-war.html).

The war secretary, Pete Hegseth, may prattle about reviving a “warrior ethos,” but the only war he’s going to conduct is in US cities. Sure, there may be occasional (illegal) uses of force against Iran, or the Houthis, or Caribbean boats, but those are easy targets that can’t retaliate against US assets. Hegseth’s main job is to see that Trump’s ambition to quell all sources of American discontent is supported with troops. Thus do “wartime conditions” encompass the home front.

Many senior military officers, including Trump’s chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, are reported to be upset over his plan to use the military against Americans. As well they should be: The US armed forces and National Guard should never be deployed to satisfy a president’s personal political agenda. Trump’s plan is patently illegal, a blatant violation of the Constitution and Trump’s pledge to uphold it, and a suborning of democracy. It is frankly traitorous and should be denounced as such by military as well as political leaders. Surely some of our military leaders are mindful of what the militaries in other countries have done when faced with abuses of national security by corrupt, incompetent, and self-interested politicians.

Unless opposed, Trump’s plan for national security can only end one way: in martial law imposed on our cities and in the mass detention of his critics. Who will rescue us from Trump’s war on America?