The U.S. military was never truly above party politics, even before Trump

A comforting story persists in Washington: the U.S. military was once a stabilizing force, above partisan squabbles, and then “politicization” arrived later, with Donald Trump. Foreign Policy’s point cuts through that vibe. The outlet argues that nostalgia is not borne out by history.

In other words, the claim that politicization started with Trump does not hold up. The armed forces have long existed inside a political ecosystem, and the idea of an apolitical military has been more myth than fact. That matters now because when leaders treat today’s friction as an unprecedented breakdown, they risk misunderstanding what they are actually managing.

To see the stakes, it helps to remember how the US military is funded, governed, and aligned. The US armed forces operate under civilian control, with Congress setting oversight priorities and approving budgets, while the executive branch sets direction and policy through defense leadership. That structure is designed for democratic accountability, not for keeping politics “out.” When budgets, mission priorities, and command structures become entwined with election cycles and party agendas, politicization can look less like a scandal that begins at a particular inauguration date and more like an expected feature of the system.

Foreign Policy’s framing also matters for how boards, investors, and operators think about defense-adjacent decision-making. Even if a given leadership team is focused on readiness, procurement performance, or force planning, the real constraint is often political timing. Contracts, authorizations, and appropriations can move because legislators want to send signals, manage headlines, or secure votes. That does not mean the military lacks professionalism. It means the inputs and incentives around the military are inherently political, and leaders who ignore that reality get surprised when policy cycles collide with operational timelines.

There is also a governance layer. Politicization debates are not only about battlefield effectiveness. They are about trust, legitimacy, and institutional cohesion. When public narratives suggest the military is under partisan attack, or conversely that it is politically “captured,” those narratives can shape careers, appointments, and promotion expectations. Those second-order effects matter for senior civilian and military leaders because they are hard to measure. They show up as slower decisions, risk-averse procurement postures, or friction in interagency coordination.

For executives in defense, security, and infrastructure, the practical implication is that “politics as a new variable” is often the wrong mental model. If politicization patterns predate Trump, then the correct question is not “Is the system broken now?” It is “How does this system behave under different political conditions, and what planning assumptions should we bake into contracts, compliance, and partner management?” That pushes leaders toward more robust scenario planning and more careful contract and stakeholder mapping, because the underlying political mechanics are older than the current headlines.

Strategically, peers should also take note of how public nostalgia can become a governance risk. If leaders believe the military was previously above the fray, they may treat today’s tension as exceptional, and respond with one-off fixes. But if politicization is historically embedded, the response has to be structural: clearer role expectations between civilian leadership and the military, disciplined communications that separate criticism of policies from attacks on institutions, and procurement and oversight processes that are resilient to election-cycle volatility.

Foreign Policy’s takeaway is straightforward: nostalgia about the US armed forces being above the partisan fray is not borne out by history. The implication for decision-makers is not cynicism. It is realism. If politicization is an enduring part of the civil-military relationship, then the job is to manage it well, not pretend it can be wished away.