BEHIND THE OBSERVATION THAT “war is a continuation of politics by other means,” the most famous idea of the military theoretician Carl von Clausewitz, is the “trinity” of the people, the government, and the military—which he also identifies with passion, reason, and chance.1 War—including not only in the actual fighting, but in preparing to fight, and in choosing when, where, and how to fight—requires that political leaders have a valid strategy, that informed and consenting citizens approve of the direction of their nation, and that the professional military are prepared for the fight. Right now, in America, that Clausewitzian triangle feels as if it’s not quite balanced.
The Army’s 250th birthday celebration has come and gone, and the contentious parade in our nation’s capital is now over. Tanks are being loaded back on railcars for their return to Texas, and soldiers are returning to their various duty stations across the country. Many of the myriad “No Kings Day” protesters have gone home for now, but are no doubt saving their banners, signs, and flags for further calls to action against a government that seems in disarray. But of course, this is not the first time our nation has been divided.
History offers multiple examples of moments when the government, the citizens, and the military were at odds. The most obvious is the period of the Civil War, when regional loyalties threatened the continuation of the republic. Despite the South’s military defeat, the divisions continued during Reconstruction. West Point alumni, who had fought on both sides, recognized the danger to national unity. Leaders like Col. Sylvanus Thayer and Gen. Robert Anderson came together in 1869 to found West Point’s Association of Graduates, not originally as an alumni association, but as a call to action. Their mission was to remind veterans and civilians that the country—and its military—must endure beyond sectional animosities. These military leaders contributed to reuniting a divided nation.2
While I’m proudly a part of that association now, I wasn’t in 1975 when I departed West Point as a fresh-faced 2nd lieutenant. The nation had faced the protests and divisiveness created by the Vietnam war all during my time as a cadet. Because of the Watergate scandal, public distrust in the government was rampant, and because of the painful, grinding slog of Vietnam, trust in the military wasn’t much better. Many Americans didn’t observe the distinction between the war and the warrior. Conscripted soldiers who had little choice in serving were mocked, spat upon, and made objects of national derision.
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But from the mid-1970s onward, innovative Army leaders had already begun changing the face of the military by refining doctrine, professionalizing the force, and reorganizing the training, leader development, and structure of the military. From that transformation emerged one of the most capable and trusted militaries in American history. Operation Desert Storm showed what a restored, apolitical military could produce; a force, grounded in competence and legitimacy, provided with precise missions, and supported by the citizens, swiftly and decisively accomplished its mission for the nation. So successful was this transformation that we often overlook its central paradox: The nation respected an all-volunteer force of professional career warriors more than the drafted force of citizen-soldiers of a generation before, who in theory should have had more in common with and been more connected to their fellow citizens.
Today, though, divisions are starting to return—and the consequences are already visible.
SEVERAL WEEKS AGO, I RETURNED TO WEST POINT for the class of 2025 graduation. Two distinct audiences stood before President Trump: First were the observers, family and friends in the stands of Michie Stadium, excited to hear from the president they elected. The other group were the newest members of the long, gray line of more than a thousand cadets: degree completed, disciplined, well versed in institutional norms, ready to be handed their diplomas, receive their 2nd lieutenant bars, and head to their first military unit with all the professionalism gained from their educations and training. Their faces were unreadable as the president’s speech veered into partisan politics and discussions of “trophy wives.” They had all been reminded by their chain of command that, in uniform, they must be stoic, formal, reserved, professional.
The week following that graduation, Army National Guard soldiers were ordered by the federal government to quell protests against ICE operations in Los Angeles, which the president called a “rebellion.” Shortly thereafter, a Marine battalion joined them for the purpose of “protecting federal personnel and federal property in the greater Los Angeles area.” The government made clear that more deployments are to come in other states, other cities. As the legal debate played out in court, soldiers were trapped in the middle—or as we sometimes say in the Army, caught between the dog and the fire hydrant—prepared to obey legal orders, as assigned by their commanders. Yet citizens began questioning: What will those soldiers do? How will they react? Will they become part of the arresting force? (The Marines briefly detained one person, raising the politically, legally, and strategically perilous use of the military as a domestic police force.)
Then came the spectacle at Fort Bragg—a political rally featuring, per the White House’s request, soldiers in Army uniforms forming a large backdrop for the president. Many of the young paratroopers at Fort Bragg are recent high‑school graduates. Their staggeringly unprofessional behavior and seemingly outward embrace of the president’s partisan speech had, in my view, less to do with insubordination than to a lack of receiving reminders of their duty under policy and law from their leadership. (Subsequent reports revealed that the soldiers behind the president had been pre-screened not only for their political leanings but also for their physical appearance, as if paratroopers who don’t look how the president wants are a source of embarrassment.)
Other soldiers—both at Fort Bragg and at Army installations across the country and around the world—were embarrassed by the actions of those who participated in the rally because they obviously broke an institutional safeguard. They violated military standards, crossing a line codified in Department of Defense Directive 1344.10, which explicitly prohibits active-duty personnel from engaging in partisan political activity or wearing the uniform at partisan events. This prohibition is repeatedly trained to soldiers starting in basic training. When that barrier is breached, public confidence understandably erodes.
All of this occurred before June 14, the Army’s 250th birthday. What was planned by the Army as a celebration on the National Mall to tout the skills of our soldiers and display new equipment instead became draped in political theater, rightfully alarming many observers. What the Army had planned as an homage to service and sacrifice instead became, as Eliot Cohen noted, “Tough-guy stuff . . . designed to show the world that we are, in the much-overused word of the secretary of defense, lethal.” Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey penned a sobering War on the Rocks essay reinforcing the critical requirements of military ethics, nonpartisan behavior, and operational effectiveness as the real strength of our democratic army. I heard from many current and retires soldiers that parading military hardware in the capital was “not what we do.”
THE MILITARY UNIFORM—THE CLOTH OF OUR UNITED COUNTRY—is a symbol of national service to all Americans, never a partisan emblem. Public support is neither automatic nor unconditional—it is earned through professional behavior, visible restraint, ethical conduct, and an apolitical posture. Once it becomes a symbol of service to one party or one man—once it’s interpreted that way—public trust unravels. Clausewitz’s trinity is broken. Force without legitimacy is little better than anarchy. A politicized military cannot hold civilian allegiance.
We’ve rebuilt damaged trust before, but what made these moments possible wasn’t hardware parading down a street. It was the institutional commitment of a democratic nation’s military to remain distinctly separated from party politics.
Today’s test lies in accountability. Troops at partisan rallies and performing questionable missions are caught in the crossfire—they are not the source of the problem. The problem is with both political and military leaders.
And this is where the reckoning must begin: with accountability for leaders. The triad can remain intact only if we remind Americans—and ourselves—that the military is not something that stands on a campaign stage, but it is something that stands on national trust.
The military’s power is not enough without legitimacy from the government and the people. Clausewitz’s triad—government, military, people—is only as strong as its collective trust. When even one leg is broken, the stool will teeter and collapse.
We’ve overcome division before. We can do it again. Not by blaming young men and women who signed up to serve their country, who follow legal orders, but by holding leaders responsible for putting them at political risk. That’s how we protect the military from becoming a casualty of politics, and it’s how we regain trust from the American people.
Clausewitz scholars and translators debate how exactly the Prussian theorist saw these trinities as related, but the conventional interpretation, at least in the United States, has long been that the people determine the passion or emotion to support or oppose the government and the miliary in a war; the government applies reason to that passion by managing the policy of how the war is conducted; and the military navigates the unpredictable probabilities, accidents, and fates of war as best it can with the support it has from the people within the policy set by the government.
As David W. Blight pointed out, the price of national reconciliation was that the federal government allowed Jim Crow. This was an enormous price and a stain on our nation’s history. But the value—indeed, the necessity—of national unity shouldn’t be too steeply discounted, especially considering the role it played in the civil rights movement in the twentieth century.