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Greetings. I'm Katrina Manson, and welcome to our US foreign policy and defence blog. This month, rather extraordinarily, I'm looking at US homeland defence. That's because thousands of troops have deluged the US Capitol to protect the transfer of power at the presidential inauguration due on Wednesday. That's in the wake of a deadly attack by a mob of Trump supporters on the US Capitol earlier this month.
I took a walk around the perimeter of the Capitol. It's extremely sizable. It took me well over an hour. And I saw troops there armed with assault rifles and pistols and an array of tactical vehicles in a zigzag on surrounding roads, barring entry to those for vehicles, and several roadblocks.
I also caught up with some of the National Guard troops who have taken to sleeping inside the Capitol during their rest stops on its marbled halls inside the seat of US democracy.
I mean, it's sad that our country does struggle with stuff like that because there's such a small percentage of people that want to take stuff to the extreme. However, with the proper training that both Air Guard, National Guard, Capitol Police, everybody here, I think that this is probably one of the safest places in the nation right now.
Are you prepared for problems?
We've had our training to handle and control and security, so if we need to.
What did you think when you walked inside the Capitol for the first time?
It was beautiful. It's history. And you think, how was that built so long ago? And what we have now, technology and everything, it's amazing.
The Department of Defence has now authorised 25,000 National Guard troops to protect the Capitol and the inauguration throughout the country. And at the Capitol itself, there are already more US troops guarding that seat of US democracy than there are US troops stationed abroad in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Somalia combined.
As some of the troops told me, it's a moment they'll tell their grandkids about. And pedestrians I met outside the Capitol stared simply in disbelief. They couldn't believe they were talking about whether a coup or a riot had happened just days before and that the transition of power in their country might not be secure.
In a city that's already locked down due to the coronavirus pandemic, it's quite remarkable to see it locked down even further now due to significant security threats. Americans are likely to struggle to put this moment into context for weeks, months, and years to come.