There are conflicting opinions about the upcoming military parade in Washington, scheduled for June 14. The parade will, in part, honor of the 250th anniversary of the US Army, and many Americans see it as an important and well-deserved tribute to soldiers past and present, with the added attraction of the patriotic pageantry that thousands of members of the active duty military and big shiny objects in the form of tanks and combat aircraft represent.
The parade will be enormous, featuring at least 6,600 active duty troops, 150 military vehicles, and 50 helicopters at a cost that could hit $45 million or more, depending on the cost of fixing local streets that will be chewed up by the 28 M-1 tanks included in the parade, among other vehicles. One estimate by the army suggested that the cost of fixing roads that the parade damages could reach $16 million.
Now that the Trump administration has dispatched National Guard troops and active-duty Marines to put down protests in Los Angeles, the question of what constitutes an appropriate way to use troops has become much even more urgent. Despite various potential exceptions and interpretations floating around, the bottom line is that the Marines are trained to battle foreign adversaries and not engage in domestic law enforcement.
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Asking US military personnel to engage in what could be, and likely are, illegal acts dishonors the military establishment at a time when greater understanding and trust between people in uniform and the general public is much-needed. Beyond what anyone thinks of a one-day parade, the US needs to think hard about the role of the military in a democracy — and how to prevent one administration from turning the armed forces into its political tool. On June 14, the president has implied, any demonstrators — peaceful or otherwise — can expect to face harsh treatment and even force. Still, the military has an obligation to protect the American public, not to attack those among it who are exercising their constitutional right to assemble and express their grievances.
In any case, the cost of it all may seem substantial, but let’s face it, who doesn’t love a parade?
Well, perhaps to the surprise of President Donald Trump’s administration, many Americans are not in favor of the parade. The liberal political reform group Indivisible and a coalition of pro-democracy organizations are organizing under the slogan “No Kings.” The press release announcing the coalition makes their position crystal clear.
“This country doesn’t belong to a king — and we’re not letting him throw himself a parade funded by tens of millions of our taxpayer dollars while stealing from us and stripping away our rights, our freedoms, and the programs our families rely on,” it reads.
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Meanwhile, the 50501 network (50 protests, 50 states, one movement) — part of the “No Kings” network — has called for a “nationwide day of defiance” in part because they see the parade as a costly military display, and in part because they see it as a way to further puff up Trump’s already massive ego rather than a sincere effort to honor those who have done military service.
Other networks have emphasized the hypocrisy of throwing a one-day spectacle on behalf of veterans and active duty troops at the same time veterans’ benefits are on the chopping block and tens of thousands of military families need food stamps to make ends meet. This attack on the support systems for current and former military personnel, even as the annual Pentagon budget soars toward $1 trillion, is in keeping with the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” which is, in fact, one of the ugliest pieces of legislation to come down the pike in many years.
The bill would authorize trillions of dollars in tax cuts while cutting spending on Medicaid by hundreds of millions of dollars and decimating many other essential domestic programs, all over a multi-year period. Yet, this same bill finds room to add $150 billion to the Pentagon budget over the next few years, most of which will go to things like the president’s favorite pipe dream, the Golden Dome missile defense system, more money for nuclear weapons, funds for artillery and artillery shells, and more. The bill includes a line item for quality of life improvements for military families, but it accounts for just 6% of the $150 billion in military-related funding contained in the bill.
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Getting back to the parade itself, a new Data for Progress poll found that a majority of US veterans oppose “active duty troops performing a parade on Trump’s birthday,” including 54% of vets who identify as Republican. And only 17% of Republican vets polled were strongly in favor of the parade.
Members of Congress from both parties have raised questions. At a hearing on June 5, Senate Armed Services Committee chair and Mississippi Republican Roger Wicker said, “I would have recommended against the parade.” Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said, “The cost seems a bit steep,” and Senator Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, said bluntly, “If it costs money, I won’t go.” Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois and a combat veteran of the Iraq War, said: “There are plenty of ways to celebrate the army’s birthday without blowing it all on a parade.”
Throwing a one-day spectacle that could cost $45 million or more at the same time that the administration has proposed slashing veterans’ benefits, and when tens of thousands of active duty military families rely on food stamps to make ends meet, again, is deeply hypocritical.
Ironically, one of the weapons the parade will prominently display is the M-1 tank. The M-1 is a symbol of all that is wrong with how the Pentagon buys weapons. The M-1 is essentially obsolete. This became clear in Ukraine, where Russian anti-tank weapons destroyed two-thirds of the M-1 tanks supplied to Ukrainian forces.
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As far back as 2012, the army had declared that it had more than enough tanks, including more than 5,000 M-1s. It proposed putting M-1 facilities on “warm” status and stopping production for a time while remaining ready to restart it should it need to. But Democratic senators from Ohio and Michigan pushed back, inserting money in the budget for tanks the army did not want or need to keep funds flowing to their home states, and to preserve the jobs those funds would support.
When Donald Trump took office in 2017, he followed a similar playbook, lavishly funding the M-1 program. In 2019, he even held a campaign rally at the main M-1 production facility in Lima, Ohio. During the rally, a worker at the plant took the stage and thanked Trump for pushing for funds for the facility, and then told the president that “it is my personal opinion that God was looking after our country when you were elected.”
The M-1 is a symbol of all that is wrong with how the Pentagon buys weapons.
Ironically, Dan Driscoll, the current Secretary of the Army, spoke out last week against the practice of Congress forcing weapons on the service that it didn’t need and hadn’t asked for — weapons like excess M-1 tanks, although he did not call out the program by name. If Driscoll and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth succeed in reversing the routine practice of Congressional add-ons, don’t expect any freed-up funds to go to non-military programs. Driscoll, a close friend and Yale Law School classmate of Vice President JD Vance, is a dedicated enthusiast of emerging military tech, from swarms of drones to AI-driven weapons.
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If there is a move to end overspending on older-generation systems, the likely beneficiaries will be firms like Palantir, founded by JD Vance mentor and financial supporter Peter Thiel. The ongoing feud between Trump and Elon Musk, if they do not resolve it, could result in fewer contracts for Musk’s signature corporation, SpaceX, but those contracts will almost certainly go to other companies.
As long as we have a militarized foreign policy, the Pentagon will want the ability to put military satellites into orbit, improve internet access for troops in the field, and connect complex systems into a coherent whole for projects like Golden Dome. These are all things SpaceX is either already doing or likely to be tapped to do. And the Pentagon will want to keep doing them even if it cuts off SpaceX. Companies that could fill the gap could include Boeing and Lockheed Martin (space launch), as well as Anduril (Golden Dome), among others. Trump’s claim that taxpayers could save “Billions” by canceling Musk-related contracts is either naive or intentionally misleading.
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The jobs argument continues to help generate Congressional support for dysfunctional or unnecessary weapons like the M-1 tank, the F-35 combat aircraft, and the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile. But an arsenal based on special-interest pleading and preserving jobs in certain places for political reasons can’t possibly align with any rational defense strategy.
Giving in to the jobs argument essentially means giving up on the future by thwarting our ability to adequately invest in projects that will contribute to building a safer, healthier, and more prosperous nation. Overspending on weapons starves funding for healthcare, food assistance, education, addressing climate change, preserving clean air and safe drinking water, preventing disease outbreaks, and discovering critical non-military technologies through federally funded science research.
We need a new generation of leaders, both within and outside of government, who recognize the immense costs of clinging stubbornly to budgetary business as usual, and then act forcefully to implement a more rational approach that puts the public interest over special interests.
