The US Army at 250: Extirpation, Genocidal Violence, Lies and Insecurity |
Photograph Source: U.S. Army photo by Bernardo Fuller – Public Domain
Introduction
The US army and military apparatuses are divided. This division is sharpened by the political, economic, and ideological crises in US society. One of the better ways to understand its 250th birthday celebration is to grasp the objective conditions of struggle that drove 5-8 million citizens in the streets in the No Kings protests on the same day that the President organized the birthday parade for the military on June 14, 2025. The heightened divisions in society demand that the progressive forces understand and grasp the objective conditions that drive the current split over fascistic and authoritarian tendencies. What are the ideas in combat in the army and in society? Do progressives accept that General George Washington and those who founded the continental army in 1775 were revolutionaries? When will the army take full responsibility for the genocidal wars against the First Nation Peoples? What are the strategies for change? What social forces are providing leadership? Can the ideas of white supremacy and the purge of black and brown officers maintain the present military apparatus? Can a military trained to kill create conditions for real human values whether the humans are called Blacks or whites?
It became evident after the inauguration of the 47th President on 20 January 2025, that the primary goal of the new administration was to bring back an army of whites. This resegregation of the army had occurred after World War 1 when hundreds of thousands of Black and brown soldiers and sailors died to save democracy in Europe. In that period the military bases were named after Confederate generals, and the army became the principal base for white supremacy and Jim Crow. Chad Wiliams, in the book, The Wounded World: WEB Du Bois and the First World War, has elaborated on this period. In an earlier book Williams elaborated on how, even in a foreign land, “military officials attempted to replicate the practices, customs, and hierarchies of white supremacy as closely as possible in the army.” African American soldiers who fought in World War 1 in Europe were lynched when they returned home and dared to demand full citizenship rights
After World War 1 during the capitalist depression, General Smedley Butler called war a racket. This article will highlight two periods of high racketeering by the top generals who profited from war, the period of the Revolutionary War and the period of the Civil War. In the 250 years the US army was divided over the Civil War, the Vietnam war, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and presently the planning for war against the peoples of West Asia.
These plans for war in West Asia are accelerating when US imperialism has overreached in the military management of the international system to maintain the dollar as the currency of international trade. This overreach and the trillion-dollar military budget have sharpened the class and racial divisions bringing the extremist white racist forces to the center of the political stage. These extremists under the Make America Great Again (MAGA) are deploying the resources of the military for a new phase of accumulation of capital, under the guise of modernization of technology in the military.
Can there be modernization of the military when the educational system cannot produce the human, mental, and physical means to maintain an advanced industrial society? Some of the thinkers in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) sector are gung-ho on the new forms of warfare but progressive scholars are intervening to point to possibilities other than endless wars. Robert Gonzalez has followed the traditions of Seymour Melman in identifying the linkages between the industrial complex and the military with a view towards demilitarization. His scholarship is providing guidance inside the society on how “Big Tech and the Military are increasingly fused, brought together by finance, joint projects, research and infrastructure. Untying the knot will be key to prevent endless wars abroad and militarised policing at home. “
Young activists are deploying the tools and technologies of AI to forge new alliances and build new movements. The political initiative is no longer in the hands of the conservatives even when the liberal thinkers and universities have been bullied into submission by the genocidal pacts with those extending slaughter into Palestine. These wars are testing the army and accelerating conditions for a revolutionary confrontation in the United States.
It is my contention that the offensive from the MAGA forces has elicited a robust response with militant attitudes growing swiftly. These militant attitudes can be seen from the self-defense tactics in the streets of Los Angeles to the intense mobilization of the youths in New York City to beat back the forces aligned to the billionaire classes and war mongers. The victory of Zohran Mamdani in the primary for the mayoral race in New York City has pushed the electoral struggles to the point where the bourgeoisie and the billionaire classes are desperate. Mamdani’s campaign pointed to the multiethnic, multi racial, and multi religious realities of the society that the celebration of the military wants to reverse. The army was never composed solely of white men, even if the MAGA representation of history seeks to make this case. It is in the military where this confrontation with whiteness has crested.
Weak gestures towards diversity and inclusion cannot confront white nationalism in the military. Former Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff General Loyd Austin in 2021 ordered by a one-day stand-down for the more than 2 million uniformed members of the military to deal with “extremist behaviors.” General Austin was too timid to stand up to the Heritage Foundation and the Rand Corporation who opposed discussions on white supremacy and instead contradicted the belief that the military has an extremism problem. The conservative forces assailed anti racist efforts in the military as the elaboration of ‘woke’ ideas. This is despite the openly Nazi regalia and symbols worn by active duty persons and veterans. The 6 January 2021 divisions in the General Staff exposed the divisions to a larger audience when some generals accused other generals of being liars.
The events of January 6th are only one more piece of evidence of the difficulty of the military in reconstructing its history over the past 250 years. During the Black Lives Matter (BLM) demonstrations in 2020, the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff General Mark Milley warned the President of the risks of trying to get soldiers to shoot peaceful demonstrators. The deployment of the military and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the streets has deeply divided all institutions in society, including the military. This split had been documented in the recent book, War, by Bob Woodward. The intellectual work of Woodward and the liberal wing of the US intelligentsia has been designed to paper over the genocidal and imperial past and present of the US military. The conclusion of this offering is that the crisis will create an implosion in the current political structures. There is already a fast pace of transformation and a radical realignment of power. The current systems we live inside of need to be radically transformed, which includes a realignment of global power. The urgent need in the USA is to create a proactive, movement-based vision instead of a reactionary one that does not interrogate the shibboleths that have deployed to maintain the US army for 250 years. If the army could not separate truth from lies and deception of 6 January 2021, it is facing even greater difficulties answering questions of its defeat in Vietnam. We will start our commentary with that reality.
Celebrating 200 years of the US army – 1975
On 14 June 1975, the United States celebrated the 200th anniversary of the US army. The celebration was muted. A month and a half earlier the army had been disgraced in Southeast Asia. The military defeat of the United States in Vietnam as witnessed in the humiliating withdrawal from Saigon on 30 April 1975, had been one of the most ignominious days in the history of the US military. Then, the US military and embassy personnel scrambled from the rooftop of the US embassy in Saigon to be helicoptered to ships waiting offshore. It was a significant blow to the historical narratives of white supremacy, bravery and invincibility. There were hushed celebrations of the 200th birthday because the military had been divided and discredited along with the government of the USA. Massive antiwar protests and the Watergate scandal had driven President Richard Nixon from office one year earlier. The collapse of dollar-gold convertibility and Bretton Woods System on which the international financial system was built imploded in August 1971.
The anti-war movement, civil rights movement and women’s movement had shaped public opinion to the point where the image of the military as a bastion of white maleness and courage had to be recalibrated. Hollywood was brought on board to pacify the population. To engage and build public support for the military apparatus, there were desperate efforts to rewrite the history of militarism in the USA from the era of the Revolutionary War of 1812, the War against Mexico, the Civil War and Westward Expansion, World War 1 and II, and Cold War to the current era of forever wars. Millions of dollars were expended in this enterprise to emphasize an apparatus reorganized and focused on technology, to the point where one day before the 250th anniversary on 13 June 2025, the Army announced the creation of Detachment 201, otherwise known as the ‘Executive Innovation Corps,’ which it describes as “a new initiative designed to fuse cutting-edge tech expertise with military innovation.”
Celebrating the 250th birthday of the army
Fifty years after the defeats in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, on 14 June 2025, the US government hosted the 250th birthday of the Army. Celebrated as one component of rewriting the history of the United States, the platforms of the military and the White House proclaimed:
“On June 14th, the nation came together in Washington, D.C. for a powerful display of patriotism and pride. Veterans, active-duty troops, wounded warriors, Gold Star Families, and Americans from across the country gathered to commemorate the U.S. Army’s enduring legacy of strength and sacrifice. President Donald J. Trump led the festivities, participating in a momentous tribute to those who have defended the nation across generations. Founded on June 14, 1775, the U.S. Army has stood at the forefront of America’s defense. From battlefield victories to pioneering technologies like radar, GPS, and wireless communications, the Army’s legacy is one of leadership, innovation, and unwavering service. The parade offered a vivid journey through time, charting the Army’s evolution from the Revolutionary War to the modern-day force it is today. Historic reenactors marched alongside advanced armored vehicles and cutting-edge military technology. Period-accurate equipment, military bands, and breathtaking flyovers created a rich narrative of 250 years of service and innovation.”
But this narrative celebrating the parade of tanks, cavalry and soldiers was overtaken by another reality, the massive opposition to militarism and authoritarianism. On the same day as the 250th anniversary of the military, millions of citizens protested the Trump administration in more than 2,100 locations and in all of the 50 states. Billed as the No Kings demonstrations, the massive outpouring was reminiscent of the anti-war demonstrations of the Vietnam era that had brought together the many layered alliance to oppose militarism, authoritarianism and what is called creeping fascism. The “No Kings” theme of the 2025 demonstrations resonated widely with activists who had been energized in a week where the US government had called out the National Guard and Marines against peaceful demonstrators in the streets of Los Angeles. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and tactics intensified in order to generate a climate of fear and intimidation within immigrant communities, but there were equal resistances from communities against the Gestapo tactics of the ICE agents.
That same week, the President had given a speech at the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina, where attending soldiers were screened according to their body weight and loyalty to the ideas of President Trump. One unit-level message bluntly said, “no fat soldiers.” Another note to troops said:
“If soldiers have political views that are in opposition to the current administration and they........