Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report. June is flying by! It won’t be long before both of us head to The Hague for the NATO summit, which begins June 24. Get in touch if you have something to share or would like to connect with us while we’re reporting on the ground. And remember to keep an eye out for a series of special SitRep pop-up editions during the summit.
Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: Trump’s use of the U.S. military raises politicization concerns, tensions with Iran put the United States on alert, and Hamas is accused of attacking an aid convoy.
Is Trump Politicizing the U.S. Military?
U.S. President Donald Trump is throwing quite the party in Washington this weekend—he’s finally getting the military parade he wanted during his first term. On Saturday, tanks will roll through the nation’s capital for the parade, which commemorates the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army.
The event, which will involve more than 6,000 soldiers and has an estimated price tag of up to $45 million, also coincides with Trump’s 79th birthday. The Army said it’s not planning to recognize Trump’s birthday as part of the festivities. But critics have said the president is throwing the parade for himself and that the event is yet another example of him using the U.S. military—which is meant to be apolitical and nonpartisan, as underscored in the Army’s new field manual—for his own personal political agenda.
“Let’s call it what it is—a self-indulgent birthday bash for Donald Trump and unacceptable politicization of our military,” Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia said Wednesday in a post on X about the parade.
Some Republicans have also expressed opposition to the parade. GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky earlier this week said that he’s never been a big fan of “goose-stepping soldiers and big tanks and missiles rolling down the street,” noting that such spectacles are typically seen under repressive regimes like the Soviet Union and North Korea.
Those who are concerned Trump is politicizing the military have also linked the upcoming parade to other recent controversial steps the president has taken, including the unilateral deployment of federal troops in California and a politically charged address to active-duty troops.
‘A disturbing visual.’ The parade comes not long after Trump deployed the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles—against the wishes of California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, and other local leaders—amid protests in the city over deportation raids. California has sued the Trump administration over the deployment, amid open questions about the legality and necessity of the moves.
The parade is also set to occur just days after Trump gave a campaign-style speech to troops at Fort Bragg, during which he goaded them into booing the media, former President Joe Biden, and Newsom. Soldiers who attended were reportedly screened beforehand to determine their political allegiance, and MAGA merchandise was sold at the event.
The speech marked an “open and blatantly illegal politicization of the military” by Trump, Steven Levitsky, a Harvard political scientist who researches authoritarian governments, told SitRep. “And one thing that’s really concerning to me is that, unlike the first Trump administration, there are no generals, to my knowledge, pushing back,” Levitsky said.
Though active-duty military leaders have not publicly criticized Trump over any of this, some veterans have begun speaking out.
Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe, has rebuked Trump on X in recent days. Hodges said the military parade is “bad” and “solely for the self-aggrandizement of the President who is hijacking the Army’s 250th birthday.”
Hodges also criticized Trump for the speech at Fort Bragg as well as for his threatening remarks toward any potential protesters at the parade and the deployment of federal troops in Los Angeles. “Showing strength against Americans vs foreign adversaries. A disturbing visual,” Hodges wrote.
A ‘very dangerous’ pattern. Though military parades are often associated with authoritarian regimes, such events are not inherently anti-democratic. Trump seemingly initially got the idea after attending Bastille Day celebrations in France, which involved a military parade, during his first term. The United States has also held military parades in the past, albeit historically to celebrate the end of wars and American victories. The last military parade in the United States was in 1991 following the end of the Gulf War.
But it’s the wider circumstances in which this is occurring that have democracy experts raising alarm.
“The military parade in and of itself is kind of silly, but when you put it in the context we are in now, it very clearly seems to be part of this larger, very dangerous pattern,” Sheri Berman, a political scientist at Barnard College and expert on democracy and fascism, told SitRep.
It’s dangerous because an apolitical, nonpartisan military is seen as a critical element of democracy. “A military that cannot and will not be deployed on behalf of incumbents against opposition” is a “major bulwark” for democracy, Levitsky said. “And Trump is chipping away at that.”
“You can only really kill and bury a democracy if you’ve got the military at your side,” Levitsky added. “Trump has taken steps in that direction.”
Let’s Get Personnel
Robert Gabriel Jr. is now a deputy national security advisor in the executive office of the president. He was previously an associate producer on the Fox News show The Ingraham Angle.
Andrew Collison Baker, a former national security advisor to Vice President J.D. Vance during his days as an Ohio senator, has also been appointed as a deputy national security advisor.
Richard Lance Stubblefield has been appointed director for export controls in the executive office of the president.
On the Button
What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.
Middle East tensions. The United States is pulling all non-emergency personnel out of its embassy in Baghdad, the State Department announced on Wednesday. U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has also authorized the voluntary departure of military dependents across the region, the Pentagon said.
Trump told reporters on Wednesday evening that the departures were ordered “because it could be a dangerous place.”
The moves come just days before the latest round of negotiations between the Trump administration and Iran over a nuclear deal are set to take place over the weekend and amid fears that Israel intends to conduct a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Such an attack is reportedly imminent and would likely be a unilateral action by Israel that the Trump administration has repeatedly warned against. Iran has vowed to retaliate if such an attack should take place, and could possibly target U.S. military bases in the region.
Attack on Gaza aid. The main U.S.-backed organization distributing aid to Palestinians in Gaza accused Hamas of attacking a bus carrying more than two dozen of its workers on Wednesday.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) said that at least eight workers had been killed and several others are feared kidnapped. “We call on the international community to immediately condemn Hamas for this unprovoked attack and continued threat against our people simply trying to feed the Palestinian people,” the organization said in a statement. On Thursday, it said it had resumed aid distribution and given out more than 2.6 million meals.
As John wrote in last week’s newsletter, GHF and its aid efforts have been controversial, with several deadly shootings taking place near its distribution sites and experts accusing Israel of using the initiative to weaponize aid.
Hegseth grilled. The secretary of defense faced tough questioning from Democrats and Republicans alike over several days of congressional testimony this week, including on continued U.S. support for Ukraine, the cost of refurbishing a jet gifted to the Trump administration by Qatar to use as Air Force One, and the deployment of U.S. troops to Los Angeles.
In a Wednesday Senate hearing, GOP Sens. Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham pressed Hegseth on the administration’s goals in negotiating an end to the Russia-Ukraine War and fears that Washington could make too many concessions to Russia in search of a peace deal. “We don’t want a headline at the end of this conflict that says Russia wins and America loses,” McConnell said. Hegseth labeled Russia the “aggressor” in the conflict, but when asked which side he wanted to win the war, he simply stated that the Trump administration wanted “peace” in the conflict.
In that same hearing, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray slammed the deployment of U.S. troops to quell protests in Los Angeles, saying it would compromise U.S. military readiness. “Threatening to use our own troops on our own citizens at such scale is unprecedented; it is unconstitutional, and it is downright un-American,” she said.
Hegseth also testified in front of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee on Tuesday and the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday.
Snapshot
The back of Air India Flight 171 is pictured at the site after it crashed in a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad, India, on June 12, killing at least 260 people. Sam Panthaky/AFP via Getty Images
Hot Mic
At the end of a week in which delegations from India and Pakistan made their cases to lawmakers and officials in Washington following their armed conflict last month, Rishi sat down with Pakistan’s former foreign minister, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari—who led the Pakistani delegation—to ask about Pakistan’s military, the country’s past support of terrorist groups, and his call for dialogue with India. You can read the full interview (exclusive to FP Insiders) here, but below is an edited excerpt:
FP: Should another conflict happen, are you confident that if the Pakistani military has a different goal to the civilian government, that the civilian government will be able to restrain the military?
BBZ: Pakistan has had a complicated history, and as part of our history we’ve seen manifestations of this. But at the point we are now, we don’t have that problem.
Currently, whether it’s the political, military, or bureaucratic leadership, we’re not the same as then. In the early 2000s, whether it was the rank and file of the military or it was the rank and file of the majority—other than Benazir Bhutto and the People’s Party of the political class—they came up over time when jihad and the mujahideen in Afghanistan was painted as the right thing to do. They worked with these people, they fought with these people, they achieved whatever they had to achieve in [the Soviet-Afghan War]. So, in that context, you could understand that they had mixed feelings for individuals in the various areas.
At the moment, every political party has been targeted by terrorists. The military leadership is not made up of the old military hands or the old intelligence hands that used to work with these forces in Afghanistan at the behest of the West and others. The military leadership and intelligence leadership today have come up fighting these people in Waziristan, so it’s ingrained in us that this is the enemy—not because of India, not because of America, [but] for our own reasons. There are challenges, complications, and that’s sort of a detailed discussion. But this perception, the framing of your question, is based on an understanding or a context of where Pakistan was at in the past.
We have changed as a country—again, not as a result of some sort of external pressure, some sort of lever, the collective actions of the world—we’ve changed for our own survival.
Put on Your Radar
Sunday, June 15: G-7 leaders’ summit begins in Kananaskis, Canada.
Thursday, June 19: Latest deadline for Chinese tech giant ByteDance to sell the social media app TikTok or face a ban in the United States.
Friday, June 20: Russian President Vladimir Putin expected to speak at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
By the Numbers
62—the median percentage of respondents across 24 countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center who say they have “little or no confidence” that Trump will “do the right thing regarding world affairs.” That includes 91 percent of Mexican respondents, 77 percent of Canadian respondents, and 80 percent of Turkish respondents. The countries where a majority of people have confidence in Trump include India, Israel, Hungary, and Nigeria.
Quote of the Week
“I don’t think the Trump administration would like to buy Greenland once they realize what the price of Greenland would be.”—Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, speaking at an event on “Restoring Arctic Exceptionalism” hosted by The Arctic Institute and the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.
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