Private funding of U.S. military would lead down a dark and dangerous path

Thursday, July 8, 2021 | 2 a.m.

By accepting a Republican Party megadonor’s offer to bankroll the deployment of National Guard troops to Texas, South Dakota Gov. Krist Noem made a dangerous move.

This arrangement is reminiscent of the private mercenary forces we see in oligarchies, and it upends the bedrock American tenet that the nation’s military forces should be publicly funded and subject to civilian control through elected leadership.

Should it set a precedent, Noem’s opening of her state’s National Guard troops would give rise to paramilitaries in the U.S., which is deeply disturbing. The arrival of such forces in any country is nearly always a harbinger of a nation’s collapse into dissolution and conflict.

This has happened in multiple Central American, South American and Asian countries, and today private paramilitary forces are a key tool in Russia’s efforts to weaken America’s international relations and expand its own influence. Vladimir Putin’s rulership, working in concert with the nation’s oligarch-funded private military companies, has sent those organizations across the globe for missions including combat operations, intelligence gathering, propaganda and foreign policy support.

This is thuggery and kleptocracy, as these paid forces are sent to areas where the oligarchs can advance their own financial aims and sow corruption while helping Putin spread the government’s influence.

Now Noem wants to apply that model to her state’s National Guard, announcing that she’d accepted private funding from Tennessee billionaire Willis Johnson to send up to 50 troops to Texas in support of U.S.-Mexico border operations.

To their credit, some Texans are urging Gov. Greg Abbott to reject Noem’s offer of troops.

The Dallas Morning News got it right in an editorial on the subject, saying the private funding “converts soldiers into private security contractors at best, mercenaries at worst.”

“It moves the country away from democracy toward oligarchy,” the newspaper continued. “It gives rise to something policy analysts call ‘privilege violence’ in which security becomes a commodity rather than a right. If a donor can decide that the border is a military priority for South Dakota, could he make a similar decision about deploying troops to Mount Rushmore? The U.S. Capitol? His beach house during vacation?”

Noem’s offer might also be illegal, as National Guard deployments between states are generally paid for either by the federal government or the host state.

There’s also a purely political smell about overtures from Noem and GOP governors from other states to send troops to Texas and Arizona. Noem has tested the waters for a run for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was the first to offer troops, is believed to be a front-runner.

One of the governors involved, Arkansas’ Asa Hutchinson, at least pushed back on the idea of privately funded troops.

“This is a state function,” Hutchinson told CNN. “It is something that we respond to other states in terms of disaster. I would consider it a bad precedent to have that privately funded.”

Not just bad — awful. It’s another step by the extremist GOP leadership to undermine the foundational ideals of our nation — civilian control of the military is one of them — and remake the national image into something unrecognizable.

Texas should decline Noem’s overture, and South Dakotans should stand up for themselves and their fellow Americans by demanding that the governor rescind Johnson’s donation and withdraw her offer of troops.

Meanwhile, voters in Nevada and elsewhere should guard against far-right ideas like this from spreading.

When GOP leaders are pushing us in the direction of Russia, we’re headed in a frighteningly wrong direction.