I support President Trump’s order for a U.S. military parade in Washington. That said, I recognize many informed folks think it’s a bad idea. The common and best argument against the parade is that the troops might prefer a few days of extra leave rather than marching up and down D.C. streets. I also understand that any troops assigned to the parade will spend a lot of time drilling and at inspections: things that very few service personnel enjoy.
There are other good arguments against the parade:
There’s actually a smart (and more cost effective way) to do this as well; combine the parade with an existing military-themed event, such as Fleet Week in NYC; lots of hardware and service members already participating, and fly-bys on the schedule
— natehale (@natehale) February 7, 2018
How many millions of dollars will it waste to get equipment here, to send thousands of troops on TDY, to repair the roads after they’ve been destroyed by tanks, etc?
— Andrew Fordham (@Afcor205) February 7, 2018
Yet there are also some bad arguments against the parade. Take these two.
1) Conservatives arguing that the parade is too expensive, while ignoring other wasteful Pentagon expenditures
I agree that in an era of systemic deficits and catastrophic national debt, wasting money is a mistake. For that reason, the cost-benefit analysis is worthy of contemplation. But too many conservatives are now complaining about the prospective cost of this parade while failing to criticize the Pentagon’s waste in other areas. I draw distinction between conservatives and liberals here in that most liberals want to cut military spending entirely.
Still, conservatives need to apply more reliability of protest if they are concerned about wasted military spending. Here are a few areas where the government blows money in far larger quantities than this parade will cost:
- Spending billions a year on military bases the Pentagon doesn’t even want (members of Congress are most at blame here).
- Pathetic management of massive procurement programs (this leads to tens of billions of dollars in wasted money each year).
- The Navy’s Zumwalt-class destroyer. The three ships of the now cancelled class cost a cool $23 billion (the Navy also has other issues).
- The Pentagon’s $125 billion bureaucracy.
This speaks to a broader strategic concern: We need to spend a lot on defense, but as a citizenry, we also need to hold the Pentagon to closer account for where it allocates its money.
2) Arguing that the parade is totalitarian
Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University asked the Washington Post, “What are they going to do, stand there while Donald Trump waves at them? It smacks of something you see in a totalitarian country — unless there’s a genuine, earnest reason to be doing it.”
Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., says the parade means Trump is a “Napoleon in the making” and is “truly Napoleon like.”
William LeGate says the “authoritarian” parade is “obscene.”
Give me a break.
First off, whichever aide thought it would be a clever insult to advise Speier to compare Trump to Napoleon needs to read more history. Napoleon’s ego was his undoing, but in civil and military leadership, the French emperor was one of the greatest tactical and strategic geniuses in human history (and, in my view, a superior commander to Arthur Wellesley, the British general who eventually beat him).
More importantly, military parades in democracies are far more common that most assume. That’s because they render celebrations of the antithesis of authoritarianism: a democratically controlled military’s allegiance to the nation and the freedom of its people. The best example of this is Britain’s annual “Trooping the Colour” parade, in which massed companies of the British Army’s foot guards regiments offer salute to the Queen. The crucial moment comes when one regiment lowers its battle colors to the dusty ground and the national anthem plays.
It’s a symbol of absolute allegiance to British democracy as rendered through the British constitution: the monarch. And seeing as the monarch’s power is now wholly subject to her subjects in the House of Commons, this symbolism is about as anti-authoritarian as you can get.
In the same way, seeing as the U.S. president’s power is subject to the law and the 25th Amendment, any salutes Trump receives from this parade will signify the military’s service to the nation, not to Trump personally.
As I say, while there are good arguments against this parade, there are also bad ones.
