Trump is itching to flex military might: calling out the National Guard

The President has activated 4,000 National Guard personnel and a US Marine infantry battalion to deal with disorder in Los Angeles, and the state is taking him to court

There are many elements of the current situation in Los Angeles about which I intend to say little or nothing, either because I don’t know enough or because it will only be a distraction from the issue I’m trying to unpick. Equally, as if this needs to be made clear, I do not write this even remotely as a supporter of the Democratic Party, I trust Governor Gavin Newsom about as far as I could throw him (which is not far) and I think the Mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, blotted her copybook extremely severely by her reaction to the devastating wildfires which ravaged Los Angeles and San Diego in January. It is also only fair to observe that, while the polling recently has not been encouraging for him, I have no doubt that Newsom harbours ambitions towards his party’s nomination and the presidency of the United States in 2028. Whether this is likely, unlikely or somewhere in between, it is bound to affect the way he thinks and acts, and that is not a unique condemnation of him but a factor to consider.

A note on vocabulary. I have used the word “protestor(s)” as a catch-all because the undoubted public disorder began as a public protest. This is not to suggest there has been no rioting or violence—clearly there has—that is is justifiable or that all of those engaged in that violence and disorder are motivated by high-minded democratic ideals. Many are undoubtedly thugs who latch on to any violence going. But I had to pick a single word to use, and that is the one I have chosen.

It is worth trying to give a brief and neutral summation. On Friday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers began arresting large numbers of those they believed to be unlawful immigrants in areas of Los Angeles with large Hispanic populations.

(Is “Hispanic” acceptable? The BBC is using “Hispanic” and “Latino” apparently interchangeably. The cutting edge of progressive terminology seems to be in a state of permanent revolution, and I am certainly not trying to make any political point here. If you prefer another word, please assume that instead.)

In response to the arrests, there were public protests. Crowds gathered around the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building as early as Friday, demanding an end to the arrests by ICE officers, Department of Homeland Security personnel attempted to control the crowds with pepper balls, and Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers eventually dispersed the crowds, making around 100 arrests.

While the protests began peacefully, they did not remain so—above a certain size protests almost never do—and some became violent over the course of the weekend. On Saturday, objects were thrown at law enforcement officers and vehicles, the vehicles were kicked, and as tensions escalated, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department ordered protestors to disperse or face arrest or forcible dispersal. Tear gas was fired at the crowds. Violence continued after dark, protestors throwing rocks, glass bottles and fireworks, and law enforcement officers responding with baton rounds and stun grenades. Protestors also gathered at the Metropolitan Detention Center, leading the LAPD to declare an unlawful assembly and ordering protestors to disperse. The LAPD said it carried out 29 arrests that day.

At 6.00 pm Pacific Standard Time, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum to the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security which said that the activities of the protestors and rioters “constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States”. He therefore invoked his Title 10 powers under the United States Code to bring “at least 2,000” personnel from California Army National Guard units, which are controlled by the state government, into federal service to protect ICE officers and others executing their duties. He also authorised the Secretary of Defense to deploy “any other members of the regular Armed Forces as necessary to augment and support the protection of Federal functions and property in any number determined appropriate in his discretion”. This was done against the advice and wishes of the Governor of California and the Mayor of Los Angeles.

Elements of the California National Guard began arriving on Sunday morning. Around 20 went to the Metropolitan Detention Center and by 10.30 am PST 300 National Guardsmen were deployed at three separate locations around the city. Those at the detention centre were joined by more than a dozen Department of Homeland Security officers in riot gear, as protestors were gathering in considerable numbers. At around 1.00 pm PST, law enforcement officers attempted to move protestors away from the Metropolitan Detention Center. Some protestors spilled over onto US Route 101, blocking it to traffic. Others had erected a barricade by the Federal Building. On Los Angeles Street, a number of Waymo driverless taxis were set on fire and protestors sprayed them with graffiti and posed in front of them. By dusk, protestors on an overpass above Route 101 were dropping rocks and other items on unoccupied California Highway Patrol vehicles below, forcing officers to take shelter underneath the overpass. At 9.30 pm PST, the LAPD declared all of downtown Los Angeles an unlawful assembly, and dispersed the majority of the crowds by midnight. Law enforcement officers had made 27 arrests.

Violence and disorder continued overnight into Monday, with protestors smashing vehicle windows and spray-painting city buses. The Chief of the LAPD, Jim McDonnell, condemned the violence, attempted to draw a distinction between those engaged in legitimate protest and those merely carrying out violent acts, said that his officers were adapting their tactics but admitted the police were “overwhelmed as far as the number of people out there engaged in this type of activity”. Hilda Solis, Chair pro tem of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and a former Democratic congresswoman and Secretary of Labor, told CNN:

You’re correct in saying that the governor and our local law enforcement did not ask for the National Guard to be deployed. So that is a point of contention.

She added that the LA County Sheriff had the authority to:

call on our local police departments, that surround our cities, our city of Los Angeles, so those can also be made available… If there are more disruptions as we saw last evening that they may have to make a formal request for National Guard, but that should come through our protocols that the sheriff understands and so does LAPD.

President Trump defended his decision on his Truth Social platform in typically intemperate language.

We made a great decision in sending the National Guard to deal with the violent, instigated riots in California. If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated. The very incompetent “Governor,” Gavin Newscum, and “Mayor,” Karen Bass, should be saying, “THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP, YOU ARE SO WONDERFUL. WE WOULD BE NOTHING WITHOUT YOU, SIR.” Instead, they choose to lie to the People of California and America by saying that we weren’t needed, and that these are “peaceful protests.” Just one look at the pictures and videos of the Violence and Destruction tells you all you have to know. We will always do what is needed to keep our Citizens SAFE, so we can, together, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

When asked whether Tom Homan, the White House Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations (or “Border Czar”) should arrest Governor Newsom, a idea which had done the rounds over the weekend but been squashed, the President replied:

I would do it if I were Tom. Gavin likes the publicity. I like Gavin Newsom. He’s a nice guy, but he’s grossly incompetent. Everybody knows it. All you have to do is look at the little railroad he’s building.

He was also careful to characterise the protestors as “insurrectionists”.

The Attorney General of California, Rob Bonta, has argued that President Trump and Secretary Hegseth acted unlawfully in assuming control of and deploying National Guard forces, stating that “they did so without authorization from Gov Newsom and against the wishes of local law enforcement”. He maintains that the presidential memorandum:

abused the federal government’s authority and violated the 10th Amendment and federal law, [and was] an order that skipped over multiple rational, common sense, strategic steps that should have been deployed to quell unrest and prevent escalation.

The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is very short. It reads:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Bonta’s position is that those causing disorder had “mostly dissipated” by the time the first National Guard troops arrived in Los Angeles on Sunday morning, and that the President’s action itself was inflammatory.

Since Trump announced his plan to deploy troops, the situation on the ground has escalated quickly with unrest growing overnight, causing highways to close and putting people in danger… we’ll never know what might have been had the president left our state and local authorities to continue the important work they were already doing and were more than capable of doing.

He has therefore filed a suit with a federal court, requesting that the President’s memorandum be set aside. This is the State of California’s 24th lawsuit against President Trump in 19 weeks. Bonta has declared his confidence that California will win its legal case; the Attorney General added that Governor Newsom had written to the Secretary of Defense on Sunday, asking him to rescind the order and return the National Guard to state control. The letter said:

State and local authorities are the most appropriate ones to evaluate the need for resources to safeguard life and property. Indeed, the decision to deploy the National Guard, without appropriate training or orders, risks seriously escalating the situation.

Attorney General Bonta has reiterated that the state authorities are prepared for every eventuality and are able to control the situation.

Law enforcement, like the biggest sheriff’s department in the nation and the third-largest police department in the nation, are completely prepared and ready to address that, and they have mutual aid they can call on… before the National Guard is resorted to, mutual aid needs to be depleted, and if there comes a time when the National Guard should be considered, the governor of California will decide whether they should be brought in, not the president.

It seems matters have escalated. Secretary Hegseth has mobilised 700 United States Marines from the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, the largest US Marine Corps training base in the world, to join the federalised National Guard units. US Northern Command is the unified combatant command which defends the United States and provides military assistance to non-military authorities. It issued a statement on Monday announcing that the marines from the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Marine Regiment, “The Magnificent Seventh”, a light infantry battalion known as “War Dogs” or “Havoc” and part of the 1st Marine Division, had been placed in alert status over the weekend.

Approximately 700 Marines with 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division will seamlessly integrate with the Title 10 forces under Task Force 51 who are protecting federal personnel and federal property in the greater Los Angeles area. The activation of the Marines is intended to provide Task Force 51 with adequate numbers of forces to provide continuous coverage of the area in support of the lead federal agency. Task Force 51 is US Army North’s Contingency Command Post, which provides a rapidly deployable capability to partner with civil authorities and DoD entities in response to a Homeland Defense and Homeland Security Operations. Task Force 51 forces have been trained in de-escalation, crowd control, and standing rules for the use of force.

However, the Governor’s office has said its understanding is that the marines are not being “deployed” but moved from one base to another, and pointed out that mobilisation and deployment are not synonymous.

While Governor Newsom has criticised the activation of the National Guard, the Department of Defense’s Chief Spokesman and Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, Sean Parnell, pushed back forcefully at the Governor’s accusations (on, of course, social media).

What’s reckless & pointless & disrespectful to our troops is allowing your city to burn because you share the same ideology as the rioters. Our troops have orders. They’re well trained. They’re professionals. They’re stepping up to defend our federal officers because you will not.

On Monday clashes continued at the Federal Building. The Governor announced that he was bringing in more than 800 additional law enforcement officers to assist those already in Los Angeles, including 640 highway patrol officers and personnel from other sheriff’s departments including San Bernardino, Santa Barbara and Orange County. However, the President has reportedly ordered another 2,000 National Guard personnel to be mobilised, bringing the total to 4,000 plus the 700-strong Marine battalion. LAPD Chief McDonnell, who had admitted his force was “overwhelmed”, has also noted that “the introduction of federal military personnel without direct coordination creates logistical challenges and risks confusion during critical incidents”.

On Monday evening, police were able to push protestors away from the Federal Building successfully without the assistance of National Guard units.

Law and order

It goes without saying—or it should—that there is no excuse for violence or public disorder and law enforcement agencies are entitled and duty-bound to maintain or restore order. That, as I set out in The Spectator at the time, was my view of last summer’s riots in England, and it is my view of events in Los Angeles. Peaceful protest is not only legitimate but a precious right in a free society, but a line is crossed once you throw a rock, break a window or set fire to a vehicle or building. You do not thereby delegitimise those engaged in peaceful protest, but you inevitably provoke a reaction from the police and others which may, temporarily, infringe some of the freedoms we all care about.

It is not for me to say, at this distance or in this context, whether the arrests made by ICE officers were of legitimate suspects or in pursuance of a legitimate policy. In this narrow context, it does not matter: the civil authorities cannot allow public disorder—not protest, but disorder and violence—based on their view of the righteousness of a cause. Once there was violence amid the protests, the police had no choice but to act.

This therefore seems to me to pose two immediate questions: have the President’s actions been lawful, and have they been proportionate?

The lessons of history

It has been pointed out, not least by the Attorney General of California, that some of the powers being used are very rarely invoked. Section 12406 of Title 10, under which President Trump assumed federal control of California National Guard personnel, seems only to have been a handful of times before: most recently, during the eight-day strike by employees of the United States Post Office Department in March 1970, President Richard Nixon issued a proclamation which declared a national emergency and directed the Secretary of Defense, Melvin Laird, to take all means necessary to counter the:

unlawful work stoppage [and] the performance of critical governmental and private functions, such as the processing of men into the Armed Forces of the Untied States, the transmission of tax refunds and the receipt of tax collections, the transmission of Social Security and welfare payments, and the conduct of numerous and important commercial transactions… [which] with its attendant consequences will impair the ability of this nation to carry out its obligations abroad, and will cripple or halt the official and commercial intercourse which is essential to the conduct of its domestic business.

These means would include taking National Guard units and others under federal control and using them to deliver the post. At its height, Operation Graphic Hand had more than 18,500 regular Army, National Guard, Army Reserve, Air National Guard and Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps Reserve personnel deployed to 17 New York post offices. It was not particularly effective, as military personnel were not trained in the duties of Post Office employees, and the strike came to a negotiated end in the last days of March.

This was clearly a very different situation from the one in California, almost so different as to offer no precedent except a strictly legal one. President Nixon had federalised National Guard units, though there is no suggestion that this was done against the wishes of the governors of the states from which they were drawn or the Governor of New York of the time, Nelson Rockefeller (a Republican who was later Gerald Ford’s Vice-President), or the Mayor of New York City, John Lindsay, also a Republican.

There is also a precedent for deploying the National Guard without a request from the governor of the state from March 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson issued an executive order to allow Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense, “to use such of the Armed Forces of the United States as he may deem necessary”, including “any or all of the units or members of the Army National Guard and of the Air National Guard of the State of Alabama” to prevent violence against a civil rights march along Highway 80 from Selma to Montgomery. The Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, was a fellow Democrat but he was was also a brutal and unapologetic racist who had proclaimed at his inauguration his belief in “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever”, and he had told the President, who encouraged him to activate the National Guard, that “that the state is unable and refuses to provide for the safety and welfare” of the marchers.

Wallace, however, was playing a complex game, unlike Newsom. He disliked the cause of the marchers and didn’t want to spend his own state’s resources defending them; however, he had presidential ambitions—he would carry five states and win 46 Electoral College votes as a pro-segregation third-party candidate in 1968—and saw the danger of being painted as an extremist if he allowed them to be attacked. In a telephone call with President Johnson, he had promised “if it takes ten thousand Guardsmen, we’ll have them. I’ll just do whatever is necessary”. Hours later he appeared on television and demanded that the government send federal troops to help maintain order instead. Furious, Johnson issued his executive order.

By contrast, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, 58,000 National Guard personnel from all 50 states were mobilised to assist with the relief and reconstruction effort. The Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, sought to assume overall control of federal, state and local operations, but the Democratic Governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, while seeking more federal assistance, insisted that she would retain authority over the National Guard. The Governor of Mississippi, Republican Haley Barbour, had also made it clear to the White House that he was not amenable to surrendering control of National Guard personnel. President George W. Bush, through his Chief of Staff Andrew Card, pressured Governor Blanco to sign a memorandum of understanding to federalise the National Guard but she was adamant. President Bush did not, in the end, resort to Title 10 to force the matter.

There is also an issue of powers and purpose. Under the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878,

it shall not be lawful to employ any part of the Army of the United States, as a posse comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws, except in such cases and under such circumstances as such employment of said force may be expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress.

The act has been updated since 1878 to include the United States Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Space Force. This means that military personnel cannot engage in civilian law enforcement and have no powers of arrest, but, Title 10 having been invoked, they are allowed to protect federal agents carrying out their duties and federal property. To allow them more extensive powers would require the use of the Insurrection Act of 1807, which provides a statutory exemption from the Posse Comitatus Act and declares that “it is lawful for the President of the United States… to employ… such part of the land or naval force of the United States” for “the purpose of suppressing such insurrection, or of causing the laws to be duly executed”.

What is happening in California, in a confused way and a volatile setting, is what we in the United Kingdom would call Military Aid to the Civil Authorities (MACA). It has been used for a number of purposes here including the maintenance of emergency services, building flood defences and distributing Covid-19 vaccines, but its main use was during Operation Banner, the British Army’s 38-year deployment to Northern Ireland between 1969 and 2007. Through sheer experience and learning, the British government became reasonably adept at using MACA effectively, but it was not against the backdrop of the varying levels of constitutionally enshrined authority that is the case in the United States; nor was it carried out in quite the atmosphere of antagonism we are witnessing in California, though relations between London and the devolved government in Northern Ireland had become very poor by the time the latter was suspended in March 1972.

In April last year, I wrote about the deployment by Governor Kathy Hochul of the National Guard to assist the New York Police Department on the subway. Again, the circumstances were very different from those in Los Angeles, but I argued that the deployment was unlikely to be successful because the National Guard was being asked to undertake a task for which it was not trained, equipped or empowered, and without a clear purpose or mission. That latter consideration may be engaged in Los Angeles. While crime on the subway fell in 2024, it had done so in 2023 anyway, and the deployment of the National Guard was at least in part an act of reassurance. That part of its mission does not seem to have worked.

Is it legal?

The lawsuit brought by the State of California essentially has two elements: the first is that President Trump’s actions, given the clearly stated opposition of Governor Newsom, are in breach of the Tenth Amendment which says that “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution… are reserved to the States”.

The second charge is that the President’s invocation of Title 10 was not lawful because Section 12406 sets a number of conditions to the federal government’s assumption of control of the National Guard. It can only be used if the United States “is invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation”, or “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States”, and “the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States”. In addition, Attorney General Bonta argues that, in the stipulation that “orders for these purposes shall be issued through the governors of the States”, the word “shall” means that the Governor must give his or her assent to the order.

On the last point, opinion is divided. The word “shall” has traditionally been afforded considerable weight by courts, which could favour the State of California’s case that Governor Newsom ought to have been involved in the process to make it legal. The counter-argument is that this is too deep an analysis of a single word, and that the law is simply a description of the normal process for activating the National Guard rather than granting the governor of a state a veto over a presidential decision. The precedents for going against the wishes of the state governor, by President Johnson in 1965 (as well as President Kennedy in 1962 in Mississippi and 1963 in Alabama, as President Eisenhower in Arkansas in 1957), are some way in the past and all apply to incidents concerning civil rights, though that certainly does not invalidate them.

The other main point is essentially one of judgement and definition. It was no accident that President Trump at one point referred to the protesters in Los Angeles as “insurrectionists”. For his use of Title 10 powers to be lawful, a court will have to be satisfied that there was an “invasion by a foreign nation” or a “rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States”, or the danger of one of those sets of circumstances. The President and his administration therefore have a vested interest in painting the threat as luridly as possible, while Governor Newsom is served by the opposite and by demonstrating that the authorities were by no means “unable… to execute the laws of the United States”.

Is it proportionate?

The issue or proportionality therefore begins as a legal matter. Did the disorder amount to an “invasion” or a “rebellion”? Certainly there has been substantial violence, damage to property and looting, and Chief McDonnell, perhaps unwisely, did agree that the LAPD was at one point “overwhelmed”. The discharging of fireworks at law enforcement officers is dangerous and unacceptable, and there have been some injuries on both sides; mercifully, however, it so far seems that the numbers are small and the injuries less severe than they could be, and there have been no reported fatalities.

To give a rather grim sense of context, the four days of rioting in April and May 1992 which followed the acquittal of four LAPD officers for the killing of Rodney King left 63 people dead and perhaps 2,400 injured. The National Guard and other units were deployed at the request of the Governor, Pete Wilson, in cooperation with President George H. W. Bush and Mayor of Los Angeles Tom Bradley.

In that sense, it is hard to see the mobilisation of 4,000 National Guard personnel and a regular Marine infantry battalion as proportionate, or the disorder as a “rebellion”. As for an “invasion”, President Trump and his supporters will no doubt point to the fact that the disorder began when attempts were made to take illegal immigrants into custody and that there are believed to be something like 900,000 undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles. But it requires tortuous and Jesuitical reasoning plausibly to portray this as an “invasion”. Presumably the President does not regard legal and accredited immigrants or those who have gained citizenship as part of an invasion, not least because he won record support among Hispanic voters in last November’s presidential election, although still a minority. Indeed, Guillermo Grenier, professor of sociology at Florida International University and co-author of This Land is Our Land: Immigrants and Power in Miami, said last year:

There seems to be an attraction to Trump among Latinos, Latino men, that could be a kind of defensive reaction to his aggression and aggressive rhetoric. It could be they’re saying: ‘I’m not one of them, you know? I’m an American citizen, I’m voting for you, I’m not the rapist scum, I’m not with them. That’s the other guys, the other immigrants, not the voting immigrants.’

The President’s hypothesis is, and has long been, that a certain section of the immigrant population, chiefly those who are undocumented, come to the United States for wholly different reasons than others and are fundamentally malign and hostile towards America and its institutions. They are inherently and irredeemably dangerous and therefore can reasonably be described as an “invasion”. Earlier this year, he used the same rhetoric about the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua, and by that token issued an executive order which relied on the powers of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target and deport gang members.

This has been rejected as fact by the US National Intelligence Council, to which the administration’s response was for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to fire the acting Chair, Mike Collins, and the acting Principal Vice Chair, Maria Langan-Riekhof, both experienced intelligence professionals. It has also been questioned by various courts and is mired in various stages of proceedings. It is not, to put it mildly, a slam-dunk.

Against all this, it is only fair to observe that a case can be made for federal officials being prevented from executing their duties, or at least for protestors attempting to prevent them from so doing. Does that amount to the President being “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States”? The case could be made, although it is reported that ICE has taken between 120 and 200 people into custody since Friday, which suggests that the agency has not been wholly prevented from carrying out its task.

The bigger picture

Unfortunately, the context of the disorder in Los Angeles is, on one side, a federal government which thrives on the narrative of immigration as a source of ill which must be dealt with severely, and on the other, progressive leaders who seem to think that any action at all against illegal or potentially illegal immigrants is inexcusably inhumane. Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass have provided the White House with almost ideal opponents, apparently unable to limit themselves to a forensic examination of the legality of President Trump’s actions and instead launching into highly contested partisan territory.

The Governor has stated on social media that “Trump is sending 2,000 National Guard troops into LA County—not to meet an unmet need, but to manufacture a crisis. He’s hoping for chaos so he can justify more crackdowns, more fear, more control”, and advised Angelenos “don’t take Trump’s bait. Trump wants chaos and he’s instigated violence. Those who assault law enforcement or cause property damage will risk arrest. Stay peaceful. Stay focused. Don’t give him the excuse he’s looking for.” Whether this is true or not, it simply cedes the moral and rational high ground and reduces an important legal and constitutional dispute to a he-said-she-said partisan grapple.

For what it’s worth, I think President Trump has consistently sought to raise the temperature and has been assisted by the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, the Vice-President, the border czar and others. We have seen a consistent pattern of extraordinary executive overreach since he was inaugurated in January, we know from his past record that he accepts no legitimate limits on his powers, to the point of refusing the accept the result of the 2020 presidential election, and he believes, possibly with good reason, that harsh militaristic measures against immigrants will play well with his core supporters. It is a polarising narrative which he thinks will benefit him. And his opponents in California could scarcely have been more obliging.

It is also extremely plausible that the President has some visceral attraction to stringent and violent measures against disorder (provided that disorder does not stem from the right wing). He envies and desires to emulate “strong men” like President Vladimir Putin, and deploying military personnel to quash protestors, whether violent or not, must feed that attraction.

Where does this end? It is hard to say, but it does not end well. Donald Trump’s world is acutely Manichaean: you are with him or against him, and if you are against him you deserve no protection from the state at its most brutal. He will use every lever available to harm, punish and discredit his opponents. This weekend he has put nearly 5,000 soldiers, including 700 regular US Marines, into a situation of public disorder which does not even come close to the region’s worst rioting in living memory. If California’s suit against him is successful, he may well simply seek to defy or ignore it. This is not one big story of the Trump presidency, but dozens of small links in a chain. And we still have 43 months to go.