I spent 30 years in the military. Trump should be as far away from U.S. armed forces as possible

In October 1973, four days after President Richard Nixon ordered the firing of the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal, America’s global nuclear alert level was raised to DEFCON III — one step short of imminent nuclear war. That raising of the alert level was ostensibly a response to the then-Soviet Union announcing fresh support for Egypt during the Yom Kippur War, which was then going on.

I was a second lieutenant on West Germany’s border with what was then East Germany, and my battalion received orders to load our conventional and nuclear wartime ammunition and prepare for a potential war that could have resulted in global annihilation. Was the decision to go to  DEFCON III driven by national security concerns? Or was it the Nixon White House’s attempt to distract the public from his scandal-plagued presidency?

As we prepare for Tuesday’s election, it's important to remember that we’re not just electing a president, but we are also electing the commander in chief of our armed forces. And we need one we can trust to not use the military inappropriately.

At an Oct. 24, 1973, meeting in the Situation Room, Adm. Thomas Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recorded in his diary Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s remarks that “the Soviets were influenced by the current situation the President finds himself in,” that the Democrats and U.S. public were “laying siege  to their government” and that “we must prevent them from getting away with this.” In private interviews I had with four Nixon officials, including three who were in the Situation Room that night, Nixon felt that he needed to make the news about something other than Watergate.

Remembering how close Nixon brought us to nuclear war is why I say we cannot trust Donald Trump with the presidency. I don’t think he’d hesitate to use his position as commander in chief for his personal and political benefit. We know this because he has promoted policies that threaten our military, democracy and those who call the United States home.

Multiple times in the past month alone, Trump has said he’d use the military against citizens opposed to his candidacy and he has reshared social media posts that suggest bringing his adversaries, including former President Barack Obama and former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, before military tribunals. He has repeatedly declared that the country’s biggest threat is from his political opponents, whom he has labeled “the enemy from within.”

The thought of Trump exacting retribution by politicizing the American military should terrify us all. It is antithetical to the principles that underpin our democracy, and his plans to do just that should disqualify him from entering the White House again.

The former president has repeatedly insisted that millions of undocumented immigrants must be rounded up and deported. Such a mammoth operation would require the American military, which Trump has promised to use. Imagine using American soldiers to round up, house, guard, transport and deport millions of immigrants. They would be knocking on the doors, searching for anyone who might be undocumented and placing them in camps.

He has also said he would consider using the military for domestic law enforcement in major cities without the involvement of local mayors or governors. These are all policies reminiscent of Nazi Germany, not the United States. 

Because Trump has promised to “weed out military officers” ideologically opposed to him, military officers in the future might be promoted or assigned based solely on party affiliation. The members of our professional military swear an oath to the Constitution, but Trump appears to believe they should pledge a loyalty oath to him.

Trump would be unrestrained during a second term. He’d surround himself with sycophants selected for their total loyalty — not their expertise or their willingness to speak hard truths. The absence of officials willing to “speak truth to power” could be disastrous during a major crisis.  

If Trump follows through with his plans to politicize the military and turn it against the American people, I fear we could witness a mass resignation of senior officers who find such orders contrary to their oath to support the Constitution, and chaos might follow in the ranks at a time of rising global conflicts. Going forward, there might even be massive turnover in the officer corps depending on which political party wins a future election.

This wouldn’t be a professional military focused on the defense of the nation, but a politicized one in which the American people would likely lose trust. And I wouldn’t blame them because, if Trump follows through with his threat, then that military would no longer exist to protect them — it would be a force used to threaten them.

My three-decade military career was defined by continuous training, numerous operations, wars, strategic arms control negotiations and the study of civil-military relations. All these experiences, but especially my study of our civilian government’s relationship with the American military, contributed to my conclusion that Trump is unfit to be president.

Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he has no respect for the historic relationship between America’s military and civilian leadership — or for honor, duty, service and sacrifice — and his policies will not only erode Americans’ trust in the military, but also put our democracy at the brink of disaster.

Our system of civil-military relations is essential to our military’s professionalism.  The members of our military take an oath to the Constitution — not a military or political leader. This was fundamental to me when I was a young lieutenant in West Germany, commanding troops in combat in Iraq, serving in senior positions in the Pentagon and the White House or teaching the subject to students at West Point, the Naval Academy and the Army War College.

The relationship between America’s civilian and military leadership rests on an implicit “contract” requiring mutual respect, trust, and consultation. The military accepts the final authority of civilian leadership but in return seeks to remain apolitical. Why would we give up something that has served our democracy so well for someone who has served our nation so poorly?

I fear that if we abandon this basic tenet of our democracy, my service and that of other veterans will have been in vain.

Who Will Sound the Call to Service?

A soldier's day was once regulated by bugle calls, from morning reveille to chow call at noon to retreat at sunset and taps late at night. Thus the phrase "to answer the bugle call" has been used to describe citizens responding to a national threat. Those who rise to this call to defend their country are the young, and they sacrifice accordingly.

We witnessed this during World War II with my father's generation. We heard it clearly in the words of John F. Kennedy, who told us to ask not what our country can do for us but what we can do for our country. But we've also witnessed serious divisions.

Our nation has been in a state of war for nearly six years. American forces have been in Iraq for more than four years, a longer commitment than during World War II. A new generation has risen to defend us once again, but strangely this time there has been no bugle call. No leader has made a broad appeal for service in a time of need, and no real request has been made for most Americans to sacrifice in any way. Most of us go about our daily lives unaffected by the trauma and tragedy that occur daily in Iraq and Afghanistan, whether we support the war or oppose it.

But some heard a call and answered. I met a number of them as I traveled to Balad, Iraq, with an air-medical team from Mississippi and California to pick up wounded GIs and Marines and ferry them to the Landstuhl military hospital in Germany and then on to Walter Reed. I met not only these injured but the many others from this generation -- doctors, nurses, pilots, air crews -- who tended to their needs along the way home. These caregivers are unsung heroes, and they treasure the brotherhood they share with their injured comrades. They perform countless acts of kindness and healing to little public acclaim.

All these men and women are truly extraordinary -- the injured and those who care for them. They represent all of America in a mosaic of old and young, male and female, Hispanic, black, Asian, white.

They include a young Minnesota National Guardsman wounded after 14 months in Iraq. His unit had been scheduled to head home but was extended to 15 months. He is 21. Last month he lost both his legs to an explosively formed projectile.

He has a right to be bitter, but he isn't. Two days after his personal tragedy he laughed with me in the hospital and said that when he was hurt he told his sergeant, "I guess this means I won't have to take that PT test you scheduled for me." He did that to keep up the morale of his buddies as they applied the tourniquets that saved his life.

I talked to an intensive care nurse who has been handling severely wounded people for more than five years. As the senior nurse, she stayed with those diagnosed as terminal. She did not want them to die alone, and she placed a personal note with their effects so their families would know that they hadn't.

There was a soldier who had been blown from his tank by an improvised explosive device that broke his back. He was 37 and had recently joined the active Army. He continued to smile as he lay on a pillowcase decorated with scenes from "Superman" and talked about his buddies. He told me that he was sure that his kids were proud of him.

A trauma surgeon who has been operating and saving lives in Afghanistan and Iraq and at the hospital in Germany since the war began told me how he kept his morale so high: by keeping in mind always that he cared for heroes every day.

This account is not pro-war or anti-war. It is simply about war and the terrible tragedy that it is. The people I had the privilege to meet had several things in common. They all believed they had responded to the bugle call, no matter how faint. None spoke of politics or party. They came even though they did not have to -- no one really asked them to -- and they represent but a small fraction of their generation.

They have served, suffered, sacrificed and endured. America marks a number of patriotic moments at the onset of summer -- Memorial Day, D-Day, the Fourth of July. I hope most of us take time on these days to reflect on those past and present who have sacrificed. Sadly, this reflection should also remind us that this long twilight struggle will continue no matter how the Iraq war turns in the coming months.

If we are to survive as a nation with our values intact, then we must find leaders willing to make the call. Leaders who will call us to serve each other, to serve in our towns and cities, churches and schools and, if needed, in the military -- leaders who will urge us to care for these young veterans and their families in need of our help for many years to come.

This coming together to meet a challenge has always been one of our nation's greatest strengths, and we need that strength now.

Death of Nasrallah and Israel's Invasion of Lebanon

On 30 September, Israel confirmed that its troops had invaded Lebanon in what Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) called a “limited, localized and targeted” ground operation against Hezbollah – the Shia militant group that has become Israel’s focus in recent weeks. This incursion followed the killing of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, by the IDF. This has threatened a major escalation in the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and risks dramatically altering geopolitics in the region.  

Israel also expanded its bombing campaign across Lebanon in recent weeks and killed Nasrallah in a massive airstrike on a residential area in southern Beirut. Hezbollah had established an underground command-and-control center below a multi-story apartment building. The Israelis used American two-thousand pound bombs in the attack.  

Iran launched a ballistic missile attack against Israel in response to Nasrallah’s death and the invasion of southern Lebanon. They also linked this attack to the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas political leader during a visit to Tehran. Iran signaled the US that it does not want a wider war. In response Prime Minister Netanyahu said Tehran “made a big mistake, and it will pay for it.”  

Washington’s priorities now include defending Israel, American military forces in the region (numbering 40,000), and US civilians living in Lebanon and across the Middle East. “We are actively supporting defensive preparations to defend Israel against this attack. A direct military attack from Iran against Israel will carry severe consequences for Iran,” a White House official told reporters Tuesday morning.  

But why and how has the conflict escalated so quickly? Why did Israel shift its focus from Gaza and Hamas to northern Israel, Lebanon and Hezbollah? What actions will Israel take in response to the missile attack? And what greater fallout could we expect because of it? 

 The Israel-Hezbollah conflict  

Hezbollah was established as a Shia Islamist political party and military organization in Lebanon in 1985. For much of its existence, it has taken part in the proxy war between Iran and Israel, the South Lebanon conflict, and several other low-level hostilities on the Lebanese-Israeli border.  

But tensions escalated on 8 October 2023 when Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, ordered his forces to begin missile, rocket, and artillery attacks against northern Israel. This was in support of the Hamas attack the day before that had resulted in the death of over a thousand Israeli civilians, the wounding of thousands more, and the seizure of over 200 hostages.  

Israel responded in kind and this “tit-for-tat” conflict has continue for the past year. Over 60,000 Israelis have been forced from their homes in northern Israel and an estimated 100,000 Lebanese have fled to Syria – while another 200,000 are displaced within the country. Nasrallah insisted attacks by his forces would continue until a ceasefire was achieved between Israel and Hamas. Despite the efforts of the US, UAE, and Egypt, achieving a ceasefire has been increasingly elusive.  

As fighting between Israel and Hamas lessened in the Gaza Strip over the past few weeks, the pressure on the Israeli government to end attacks by Hezbollah and allow Israeli citizens to return home mounted. The IDF leadership even described Hamas as a spent military force, and now characterizes it as largely a guerilla movement.  

With political pressure mounting to address the attacks in Israel’s north, the government’s cabinet agreed on 16 September that ending hostilities with Hezbollah was now of equal importance to destroying Hamas and securing the release of Israeli hostages. Consequently, the IDF began repositioning forces towards its northern frontier, and on Monday it announced that it had begun a ground operation in southern Lebanon.  

“In accordance with the decision of the political echelon, a few hours ago, the IDF began limited, localized, and targeted ground raids based on precise intelligence against Hezbollah terrorist targets and infrastructure in southern Lebanon,” the IDF said in a statement. “These targets are located in villages near the border and pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel.”  

Israel has since told people in about 25 Lebanese villages to evacuate, and Hezbollah's deputy leader Naim Qassem has said the group was ready for an Israeli ground offensive, warning that the battle "may be long". The US and its allies had even predicted that an Iranian attack was imminent in response to Israel’s escalation.  

Air alerts were issued across central Israel the day after the IDF’s announcement, and the country banned groups of 30 or more people from assembling nationwide. The Israel Defense Forces urged Israelis to "remain alert and precisely follow the home front command's instructions". On 1 October Tehran launched 180 ballistic missiles against Israel. The targets included three airfields and headquarters for Mossad – Israel’s intelligence service, but the attack was largely frustrated in a coordinated response between the US and Israeli forces.  

The death of Hassan Nasrallah  

Hassan Nasrallah, a Lebanese cleric, served as the secretary-general of Hezbollah for 32 years. Ironically, he came to power after the Israeli’s assassinated Abbas al-Musawi, who many Israeli security experts believed was a less effective leader than his successor. Nasrallah increased Hezbollah’s power and influence, while his predecessor had appeared unwilling to expand the group’s political operation in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq War and the Lebanese Civil War.  

Many Shia Muslims listened closely to Nasrallah’s words and direction. He has been described as the “most powerful man in the Middle East” and as the “only Arab leader who actually does what he says he’s going to do”. His legacy will be connected to a certain aspect of Islamic and Arabic pride, his views and influence go a long way – as do the consequences of his assassination.  

It is important to remember that Nasrallah – who will likely be replaced by Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, head of HZH executive council – had long demanded that Israel cease to exist, calling it “a cancer that must be eradicated”. He opposed reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians at various points and encouraged resistance in Gaza and the West Bank, though he emphasized that a two-state solution is a “Palestinian matter”.  

Still, in the aftermath of the 7 October attacks, he characterized the Hamas operation as heroic and called for the “liberation” of Jerusalem and directed attacks against Israel in solidary with the Palestinians. This is not a minor military operation. Hezbollah is a far superior military force to Hamas and has approximately 100,000 fighters – many of which are veterans of the Syrian civil war. The militant group is also estimated to have over 150,000 rockets and missiles in its arsenal.  

Nasrallah’s death is significant. The so-called Axis of Resistance that includes Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Shiite militia groups in Iraq, as well as Iran have reacted with outrage and sympathy. Many have promised further attacks against Israel, creating a multi-front war for the Jewish state. But his demise occurred after a series of preparatory steps by Israel.  

On 8 September, Israeli commandos conducted a special operations mission in Syria that destroyed a weapons laboratory. Israeli military leaders believed that Iran and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah planned to manufacture a new generation of precision missiles there.  

Nine days later thousands of pagers in the possession of Hezbollah leaders and operatives exploded across Beirut leaving many dead and seriously injured. The following day walkie talkies used by Hezbollah also exploded. It is widely believed this was orchestrated by Israeli intelligence services, and it left Hezbollah in chaos. Not only did it lose many leaders at all levels, but these attacks demonstrated the level of penetration Israel had achieved, forcing the militant group to be concerned about using any communications device.  

This was followed by increasing numbers of Israeli airstrikes in the days that followed that ultimately resulted in the killing of Nasrallah, numerous other Hezbollah leaders, an Iranian Quds Force General, and the destruction of a large portion of the missiles and launchers in Hezbollah’s arsenal that could threaten Israeli cities.  

The IDF strategy seems clear: Take out the group’s leadership, disrupt its command/control, and significantly reduce their military capabilities. Some would describe this as a strategy to “escalate to deescalate” or convince the new leadership of Hezbollah as well as its Iranian masters that they were not only incapable of executing a major attack against Israel but that such an attack could well lead to their destruction.  

But the elimination of Nasrallah was an “important step, but it is not the final one,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told Israeli military troops in northern Israel after his death was confirmed. He then appeared to telegraph the ground operation that was to come in his follow up statement: "In order to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities, we will employ all of our capabilities.”  

Israel invades southern Lebanon  

The Biden administration’s efforts to secure a ceasefire with Hamas that might have resulted in Hezbollah halting its attacks has clearly failed. Washington also pushed for a 21-day ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, but that has gone nowhere. It appears the administration believed a ceasefire agreement was supported by Netanyahu only to have him publicly repudiate it. It seems increasingly true that President Biden’s leverage over Netanyahu is limited. It is tough to ignore that the two leaders have not spoken in over a month.  

This is a difficult moment for the US and Israel. Washington has dispatched additional American forces to the region to help defend the country, as well as deploying units that can facilitate the evacuation of the roughly 86,000 Americans in Lebanon.  

An expanding conflict could also have an adverse impact on the upcoming American election, particularly if the US is dragged into a major war or is involved in a large-scale evacuation of American civilians from Lebanon as voters head to the polls.  

At this juncture, it is unclear how far this conflict might further escalate, despite Israel emphasizing that its military operation is “limited, localized and targeted”. To illustrate that point, the IDF shared a map showing where missile sirens sounded when Iran launched missiles toward Israel on Tuesday – the entire country was covered in red dots, and Israeli retaliation for Iran’s missile attack will likely occur during the next few days. 

Israel has certainly had success against Hezbollah. It does not appear that the militant group can currently organize and coordinate a response as effectively as it did prior to Israel’s actions. It continues to fire rockets, but not at the same rate.  

But there is a real fear in the region that this could be the start of something wider, and that history is repeating itself. Israeli troops have easily entered Lebanon in the past, but they have often found it very difficult to leave. It is also hard to ignore that Hezbollah – which means Party of God – is deeply ingrained in Lebanese society. It is often considered a state within the state that incurs much loyalty and favor, so what effect Israel’s invasion might have long term could prove dangerous.  

We must also remember that having a strong Hezbollah in Lebanon was a key aspect of Iran’s deterrence strategy. It was long considered the most powerful group in the Axis of Resistance. Without that deterrent, Iran may believe that it must respond massively to the expected Israeli attack, accelerate its efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon, and take greater actions across the region. This means further escalation, conflict and – possibly – war.