Blue cities that refuse to fund, use, and support their police adequately won’t be rescued from crime and squalor by a short-term show of military force.

Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in D.C. and his contemplation of sending it to Chicago, Baltimore, and other American cities that aren’t creatures of the federal government has stirred a lot of debate. Much of that debate has been around the constitutional and legal issues, on one hand, or on the reality of the crime problem, on the other. But we should not lose sight of the basic fact that the National Guard, as a military institution, isn’t the police and isn’t an adequate substitute for the police.

That’s not to say that National Guard deployments to deal with local crime and disorder are always useless. There are four basic police functions that a military deployment can handle reasonably well, whether on its own or as a force multiplier for the police:

So, yes, the Guard can help — when used properly. But fundamentally, police work is different from soldiering and can’t be done by people trained only in the latter. Cops don’t just show up and use blunt force to halt or deter crime; they investigate crimes, build relationships and knowledge in neighborhoods, collect witness statements and admissible evidence, and a dozen other functions that require a long-term presence, training, and experience. That was true when Governor Kathy Hochul postured in using the National Guard in New York’s subways, and it’s still true now. Blue cities that face seemingly intractable problems of crime and civic disorder and squalor because they refuse to fund, use, and support their police adequately won’t be rescued by a short-term show of military force, even if it has some positive effects. If you need policing, call the cops.