When President Trump first sought to stage a military parade in Washington, a four-star general argued against it, telling him that “it’s what dictators do.” Mr. Trump was unbothered by the comparison, and so on Saturday tanks will roll down the streets of the nation’s capital for the first time in decades.
Nor was Mr. Trump evidently concerned about being accused of authoritarian excess for deploying troops to Los Angeles to quell violent protests against his immigration crackdown. If anything, he seemed to revel in the moment, vowing to “hit” anyone who so much as spit at a police officer and even threatening “very big force” against protesters in Washington.
Yet as a real war broke out this week in the Middle East, Mr. Trump seemed reluctant to get involved, declining to join Israel in its aerial blitz against Iran’s nuclear facilities despite years of chest-thumping threats of “obliteration” against the Islamic regime. While he authorized U.S. forces to help defend Israel from Iran’s subsequent retaliation, in keeping with past practice, Mr. Trump made clear that he would not target Iran himself, at least for now, and instead urged it to return to the negotiating table.
The seemingly disparate postures of recent days — strongman at home, peace-seeker abroad — speak to Mr. Trump’s complicated relationship with the military. He has ordered more troops to Los Angeles and Washington than he currently has stationed in Syria and Iraq combined. He seems more willing at the moment to use the military against Americans than against Iranians. He celebrates a show of force on U.S. soil even as he denounces “endless wars” outside its borders.
Mr. Trump has always been an contradictory commander in chief, one unlike any other in American history. A graduate of a high school military academy, he never actually served in the armed forces, avoided being drafted for Vietnam thanks to a dubious bone spurs diagnosis, publicly denigrated Senator John McCain’s wartime heroism and was quoted privately dismissing veterans as “suckers” and “losers” (which he denied).
Yet as president, Mr. Trump has used the military to serve his political goals. He surrounded himself with “my generals” and purged those he deemed insufficiently loyal. He entertained a recommendation to impose a form of martial law to overturn the 2020 election that he lost. In recent days, he has given speeches at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and Fort Bragg, N.C., that sounded like campaign rallies.