The Pentagon is training thousands of National Guard personnel for civil unrest missions, signaling a possible normalization of domestic military deployments under the Trump administration.

A new “quick reaction force” of 200 troops, drawn from disaster-response units, will be equipped with riot-control gear and ready by January, complementing the existing National Guard Reaction Force expected to be fully operational by April.

Across states and territories, a total of 23,500 troops could be mobilized, raising concerns among Democratic governors and critics about overreach and the politicization of the military, the Washington Post has reported.

Legal challenges over deployments in cities like Chicago and Portland highlight tensions between federal authority, state control, and constitutional limits on domestic troop use.