From Afghanistan to Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and now… the streets of Los Angeles. The 700 US Marines were deployed on the orders of President Donald Trump as reinforcements to hundreds of National Guard forces already on the ground, and were drawn from elite forces who saw action in some of the world’s most dangerous military theatres. A military spokesperson said the Marines are expected to be walking through city streets by Wednesday.
The decision to send these forces to Los Angeles represents a “significant escalation” in the conflict between the Trump administration and protesters targeting people who target people who are suspected of being undocumented immigrants, said Rene Linstoed, a political scientist at the University of Billingham and a US specialist.
“Wardog”
Marines are not the first soldiers Trump has put him on the path of protesters. The US President ordered the deployment of more than 4,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles on June 7th. This is a controversial decision, and legality has already been questioned by California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and several legal experts.
However, the arrival of the Marines further complicates the photographs. As CNN reported quickly, these troops are the “first active duty soldiers” sent to Los Angeles since demonstrations broke out. And they are not just soldiers. These units come from the Marine Battalion (2nd Marines), which have served since World War II and have fought in all the major armed conflicts that the United States has been involved in since then. Their exploitation led them to be called “war dogs” and “crash.” Their motto: “Prepared for everything and succumb to anyone.”
The mission of these war dogs is officially “to protect federal buildings and agents” in Los Angeles, the Pentagon says. In other words, these Marines ensure that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) agents can carry out the arrest of people suspected of being undocumented immigrants without fear of violent clashes with protesters.
It is the same mission given to thousands of National Guards deployed throughout Los Angeles. Sinead McKenney, an expert in the US protests at the UK Open University, said he argued that Trump should use his self-proclaimed position in Los Angeles as a “sanctuary city” to send federal troops.
“The challenge in Los Angeles is that restrictions since 2017 will prohibit California State Police from assisting ice agents in operations,” she said.
Shadows of the 1992 riot
However, experts spoken to France Chapter 24 said Trump’s decision to escalate responses by sending elite forces seems difficult to justify.
“There were some outbreaks of violence during the protest against the ICE agent’s operations, but they said everything was pretty peaceful and the local government didn’t seem to overwhelm,” Linstoed said.
“It’s difficult not to analyse this decision in the broader context of the political conflict between Donald Trump and Gavin Newsom,” McKenneyney said. “The two men agree nothing. The US president sees California’s Democratic governor as one of the major threats to the Republican camp in 2028.”
In this context, Trump may wish to use protests against ice attacks as evidence of newspapers’ weakness to law and order. And what is better than mobilizing Marines for this effect? The US president knows that the images of these elite soldiers lined up in the streets of Los Angeles are forced to remember the 1992 riots that followed the innocence of a police officer who filmed Rodney King, an unarmed black man.
This was the last time the Marines were sent to Los Angeles. Once again, the mission to protect local law enforcement agencies tasked with suppressing the riots caused serious damage to the city, killing dozens of people.
However, a comparison of the two crises quickly reaches its limit. First, McKenney said, “Because the scale of the violence and vandalism in the protest was on a distinctly different scale in 1992.”
Also, the then President George HW Bush had invoked the Rebellion Act of 1816, allowing the president to use the National Army to suppress rebellions and rebellions. Outside of these circumstances, US laws prohibit the use of the country’s military, largely as police.
“It was already controversial at the time, but at least there was a clear legal basis for the deployment of the Marines,” McKenney said. For now, Trump remains vague about whether to choose this dramatic measure, and instead calls another more controversial text to justify his use of military force in the face of demonstrations.
Self-fulfilling prophecies
In 1992, Bush “justified military intervention as a means of protecting civilians and private property,” McKenney said. That’s a far cry from what Trump is saying. The only mission given to the military was to protect ice agents accused of applying the Trump administration’s policy of deportation.
And if it’s difficult to imagine putting two crises on the same level, it’s easy to see the risks of the California situation deteriorate even further.
“There is always a risk of self-fulfilling prophecy,” Linstost said. He warned that the National Guard was dispatched, and Marines would then “constitute a security escalation that could be considered provocation by protesters.”
In particular, Marines are “certainly trained to face rebellion in conflict zones, but have not received specific training in how to control protesters,” Linststar said.
In the Los Angeles context, “Using the Marine Corps is more dangerous than useful and could clearly fit into the strategy of escalation,” said a US military expert who spoke on condition of anonymity. Either way, it’s a kind of explosive situation and requires a specific tact. It doesn’t necessarily naturally come to a battalion known as “crash.”
(Source: France 24)