The Militarization of American Cities is Advancing - and in Society the Calls for Civil War Are Growing Louder

Sunday morning in Chicago felt like the beginning of a dystopian dream. Federal agents in camouflage uniforms patrolled the streets of River North, one of the city’s busiest tourist districts. A cyclist shouted something at them and fled when the agents tried to chase him. It was a scene more familiar from war zones than from the third-largest city in the United States.

Only two days later, in the early hours of Tuesday, the situation escalated: drones buzzed over a run-down apartment building on the South Side. Helicopters circled the sky while snipers rappelled from their rotor blades. Nearly 300 federal agents surrounded the building in a coordinated operation that resembled a military siege more than a law enforcement action. "It felt like we were under siege," said Darrell Ballard, a 63-year-old resident, later, as he showed videos of the nighttime raid on his phone.

This is the new America under Donald Trump, and Chicago has become the testing ground for a vision that the nation’s Founding Fathers could not have foreseen even in their worst nightmares.

The Betrayal of a Founding Principle

One day earlier, on Tuesday, September 30, President Trump stood before hundreds of military commanders at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. His words echoed through the room like a voice from another time: "We will use these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military." San Francisco. Chicago. New York. Los Angeles. Not Poland, where Russian drones violate NATO airspace. Not the eastern flank of Europe, where real threats loom. No, American cities are to become the training ground for what Trump calls the "war from within."

The irony of this scene is not lost on anyone even superficially familiar with American history. Alexander Hamilton, one of the architects of the American Constitution, once warned in the Federalist Papers: "The continual necessity for his services enhances the importance of the soldier, and proportionably degrades the condition of the citizen. The military state becomes elevated above the civil."

Hamilton and his contemporaries knew history. They had studied the English Civil War, in which King Charles I used his army against his own people. They had experienced the British occupation of the colonies. And they deliberately created a system of checks and balances designed to prevent exactly such scenarios. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, problematic as its origins may have been - it was enacted to appease Southern states that did not want federal troops protecting Black Americans - nonetheless established a fundamental principle: the military should be directed outward, not inward.

Chicago as Laboratory of Fear

What is happening in Chicago is more than just an immigration raid. It is the systematic blurring of the lines between military and civilian force, between warfare and law enforcement. The "Operation Midway Blitz," as the Trump administration calls it, has arrested more than 800 people since the beginning of September. But the numbers tell only part of the story.

The nighttime raid on the apartment building, allegedly a meeting point of the Tren de Aragua gang, reveals the new normal: snipers rappelling from helicopters, drones circling over residential areas, nearly 300 agents for a single operation. Authorities speak of 37 arrests, including four American children who were later handed over to guardians.

But what justifies this massive deployment? Crime statistics paint a different picture of Chicago than the one Trump depicts. The murder rate has dropped by nearly 50 percent in the past four years. Shootings, robberies, burglaries and car thefts are down double digits. The city Trump calls a "war zone" is actually experiencing a dramatic decline in violent crime.

In front of the gates of the ICE facility in the suburb of Broadview, Illinois, a protest action escalated into a scene that almost pushed the United States over the edge. A woman stood in the way of a departing van, was pushed aside, fell to the ground - but the situation did not end there. Moments later an ICE agent grabbed her arm, wrapped the other around her neck and pulled the grip with full force before finally letting go and leading her away in handcuffs. The images of this chokehold spread rapidly and struck an already heated atmosphere, in which many no longer perceived the actions of the authorities as a security operation but as a brutal attempt at intimidation against civilians.

Governor JB Pritzker found clear words: "Boot troops are roaming a peaceful city center." Parents were afraid to send their children to school, small businesses suffered. "Leave Chicago," he said to the federal government. "You are not helping us."

The reaction of residents reflects deep insecurity. Chuck Mackie, a 68-year-old marketing author from the north of Chicago, sees a gradual buildup of ICE activities deliberately conditioning the public. "It is a continuous dismantling of norms and constitutional protections," he says. Mona Obregon-Cech, a 70-year-old retired hospital administrator, warns: "People must study and see how things happened in the past in other countries."

The Generals Remain Silent

Back in Quantico, where Trump speaks before the assembled military leaders, there is a remarkable silence. Where are the voices of a Jim Mattis or Mark Esper, who during Trump’s first term still offered resistance? When Trump wanted to send 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers to the southern border at that time, Mattis responded with the deployment of 6,000 National Guardsmen - with strict instructions to take on only supportive roles. When Trump wanted to deploy the 82nd Airborne Division on the streets during the protests for social justice, Esper called a press conference to announce his opposition. He was fired for it.

These men are now gone. The new military leadership has either reinforced Trump’s wishes or bowed to them. The opposition in Congress, which blocked Trump during his first term, is also gone. Republicans control both chambers and have approved all of Trump’s directives and appointments concerning the American military. The result is shocking: National Guardsmen in Washington against the will of the elected city government. Active Marines sent to Los Angeles despite protests from mayor and governor. Books by authors of color, including Maya Angelou’s "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," banned from the library of the U.S. Naval Academy. A Pentagon leadership that refuses to promote decorated combat soldiers who served under men Trump does not like. A plan to use military lawyers as immigration judges.

Major General Paul D. Eaton, a retired Iraq War veteran, highlights the international dimension: "If I were the leader of the Polish military and we had Russian incursions into NATO territory, and I saw 800 American generals and admirals sitting in an auditorium listening to this speech - well, that would upset me. Does the American military take its mission seriously?"

The Legacy of Ulysses S. Grant

History offers a remarkable parallel. After the end of the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, America stood at a crossroads. President Andrew Johnson, hostile to former slaves and favoring more lenient policies toward the Southern states, clashed with Congress, which wanted to expand the rights of former slaves. Johnson feared that Ulysses S. Grant - the most popular general in the country, the man credited with victory in the Civil War - would side with Congress. He tried to send Grant on a diplomatic mission to Mexico. In a tense cabinet meeting Grant refused, arguing that as a military officer he only followed the president’s military orders.

When Grant eventually had to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, which was considering impeachment proceedings against Johnson, he made a decision that would shape American military tradition for the next 150 years: he sided with Congress and the law, not with the president. "When compelled, he made the most democratic choice on the most fundamental issue," explains Kori Schake, a former defense official in the Bush administration. "In peacetime, the authority of Congress in military affairs is paramount."

Grant’s example established a norm that lasted until today - or at least until yesterday: during active service one does not serve a political party but the law of the land. This norm is now being systematically dismantled. When Trump in Quantico says: "You will never see four years like the ones we had with Biden and this group of incompetent people who governed this country and should never have been there," he breaks with the tradition of addressing the military in a nonpartisan manner. When he promises that with the leaders in this "beautiful room" one will "defeat every danger and crush every threat to our freedom," he does not mean foreign enemies but American cities. Major General Charles J. Dunlap Jr., a retired deputy Judge Advocate General, warns of the consequences: "China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and others will not be deterred by battalions of immigration judges or troops engaged in immigration duties on city streets instead of preparing in the harsh environments of the National Training Center for combat against a peer competitor in high-intensity battles."

The scenes from Chicago - federal agents in camouflage uniforms staring at tourists, helicopters circling over residential neighborhoods, hundreds of demonstrators marching down Michigan Avenue with signs reading "No Trump No Troops" - are more than just snapshots of a polarized nation. They are warning signs of a fundamental shift in American democracy.

The Founding Fathers, students of history that they were, would have recognized the danger immediately. They created a system designed to prevent exactly this - the use of the military as a domestic political tool, the elevation of the military above the civilian state. But this system only works if all actors play their role: a Congress that exercises its control power. Military leaders who have the courage to say no. And a public that understands what is at stake.

For now it echoes only faintly through the streets - the call for civil war, a dull rumble in Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle and Memphis. It must not come to that, but the atmosphere is electric, charged to the breaking point. Anger has reached its limits, and what has long been building is now seeking a vent. It is the threatening feeling that the country stands on the edge of an abyss - and that a single spark is enough to ignite the powder keg. In the streets of Chicago a dangerous experiment is being conducted. It is an experiment the Founding Fathers knew and feared, one they sought to prevent by all means. The question is not whether they would turn in their graves - the question is whether enough Americans understand why.