I believe the UK and the USA run things differently.
Moderator Note
Let’s avoid political commentary in this thread, but stick to strictly factual responses rather than your personal speculation about what they might do.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
So let’s say the President wanted to send the military into a state to control protests or riots in that state because he didn’t think the state was doing a good job of handling the situation. Can the governor of that state use the National Guard to defend against the federal incursion?
If the governor tried that, then the President could just nationalize that state’s National Guard and give them different orders. And if the governor resisted that, then what we have is a civil war.
Bad eyes, small phone, big thumbs and stupid spellcheck.
Legally the issue with that is once they are federalized under Title 10 then they become active duty soldiers with all the constraints that Guard soldiers don’t have when dealing with domestic issues.
President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to enforce the integration of Central High. Governor Faubus called out the Arkansas Nation Guard. The two groups stood there facing each other until Eisenhower nationalized the ANG.
There is a theory that Faubus knew that would happen, and did it to keep support of his constituents who objected to integration.
That’s a little off from what happened. The governor called out the National Guard to “maintain order.” Their maintaining of order kept the 9 students out of school. Eventually Eisenhower met with Faubus and he agreed to use the National Guard to maintain order and also protect the students as they went to school. When Faubus returned to the state he instead withdrew the Guard and left security to only the local police. There was a riot when they went to school and the police had to evacuate them. The mayor called the president and asked him to intervene. That’s when Eisenhower federalized the Guard and also sent the 101st. There was no stand off. The Guard had withdrawn before they were federalized. For the next few months the 101st withdrew slowly and security was left with the Guard.
Although Eisenhower had the moral high ground I’m not 100% sure how he was from a legal stand point. The same legal arguments he used to justify using federal troops would be used now.
Thanks, Loach.
Yes, nationalized National Guard are restrained in what they’re allowed to do. But in the scenario The Chao Goes Mu was asking about, all the President would need the National Guard to do would be nothing.
First, from what I can tell above, it sounds like the National Guard is just a way that the government can get around not using the Army domestically. “But it isn’t the Army, it is the National Guard. I mean, sure their training and command come from the Pentagon, but it isn’t the Army, we swear!”
However, one thing about these discussions confuses me. I’m a NG soldier on the field. My commanding officer says “Gentlemen, we are here to defend our home state from incursion by the evil federal forces. We are here to protect the governor’s mansion and [blah blah insert speech here]”.
President: Nationalizes NG
Commanding officer, “change of plans men, now we take the governor’s mansion and hand him over to the federal forces.”
Is this realistic? Do NG soldiers really just mindlessly switch allegiance just like that because they are nationalized?
I don’t know of any other instances where the national guard was nationalized in a dispute between the state and the federal government.
They usually rescue people during emergencies like tornadoes. I believe some Arkansas NG regiments were nationalized and sent to fight in the Middle East.
States don’t generally fight the federal government. We tried that back in 1862, and it didn’t work out.