To address the violent protests that followed the death of African-American George Floyd, the US National Guard has been deployed in 28 of the 50 states in the country, so what is the nature of these forces?
This is what the French newspaper Les Echos tried to explain through the following five questions:
1- What do these forces consist of?
They are "civilian militia members", volunteers, who are not less than 18 years old (and 17 years provided parents consent), and since 1933 they have been incorporated into the reserve soldiers, and they have been practicing parallel activities in the civil sector, and in the year 2020 there are about 450 thousand men and women They are divided into two separate bodies: the National Army Guard and the Air National Guard.
And if the current organization of these forces is relatively recent, that is, in the first half of the twentieth century, in reality it is the direct heir of the militias that were formed in the eighteenth century to confront the British, and this is what made them celebrate their 383th anniversary on December 13th.
2- Who controls it?
The slogan of the National Guard is "always ready, always present," and these forces fall under the command of the governor of the state in which they are located, and the US constitution actually gives the latter the authority to "mobilize militias to implement union laws, suppress disobedience and repel aggressors."
But the federal government, and thus the President of the United States, can invite them to do internal missions throughout American territory or to conduct foreign operations, as more than 700,000 National Guard personnel have taken part in missions in Afghanistan or Iraq, and 497 of them have been killed there.
3- What powers do you have?
Even if they are in their military uniforms and heavily armed, the National Guard can only intervene to support the police force, and the National Guard does not have the power to arrest, but rather those who are exclusively police powers.
In Minneapolis, where these forces were deployed for several days at the behest of the state governor, their role was mainly limited to protecting buildings or providing protection for firefighters seeking to control fires.
As for their weapons, they are like the police, and they can only use them in self-defense.
4- Is the National Guard well trained?
After ten weeks of basic training, similar to army training, guard personnel continue to receive training on one weekend every month and spend two weeks each year in camps, and receive a fee for the days designated for these activities.
The image of these "part-time soldiers" varies, as they are often called, very different. The National Guard insists itself that its units are equipped to fight wars, but they are not always considered the most experienced in the US armed forces, as they are sometimes called "young brothers", despite They have advanced equipment.
However, despite their regular mockery, their image among Americans is much better than that of the police.
5- What is the history of his interventions in the past?
Within the United States of America, the National Guard was mobilized during the riots in 1964 and 1992 in Los Angeles, in 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King, and in 2014 in Ferguson after the murder of a black teenager by a police officer.
The National Guard was called in to contribute to facing natural disasters in America. After Hurricane Katrina hit, for example, in 2005 the country, more than 51 thousand guards from 50 states were deployed in one of the largest deployments of these forces on American soil.
More recently, in March, about ten thousand National Guards at the federal level were called in by President Donald Trump to fight the "Covid-19" epidemic in three of the worst affected states (California, New York and Washington).
A few months ago, at the end of 2019, more than two thousand of them were deployed along the border with Mexico to prevent entry of Central American immigrants into the United States.
Internationally, the National Guard deployed in the last two decades in Afghanistan and Iraq, and during World War I, the National Guard represented 40% of the American combat forces, and participated in the Second World War and the Vietnam War.