Defending the Honor of the U.S. Military From Donald Trump
To protect the Constitution under a Trump presidency, the U.S. military must refuse any orders to torture.
We the undersigned have devoted a substantial part of our professional lives to studying, writing, and teaching about American civil-military relations.
We the undersigned have devoted a substantial part of our professional lives to studying, writing, and teaching about American civil-military relations.
We have many disagreements among ourselves on a range of important topics. In particular, we have strong and principled disagreements about politics. We have in the past, and will likely continue, to vote for different candidates for president.
But we all agree on one important matter: if any president orders the U.S. military to commit war crimes, the U.S. military will be legally and professionally obliged to refuse to carry out those orders. Moreover, we believe the U.S. military will, in fact, resist such orders. Refusing to implement them will not be a violation of civilian control of the military. Refusing to carry out such orders will protect the rule of law and the constitutional order, of which civilian control of the military is fundamental.
In the current campaign, one leading candidate, Donald Trump, has repeatedly insisted that he will direct the military to take steps that every reputable legal expert we know has deemed illegal: targeting the families of terrorists and other civilians not directly involved in hostilities for lethal military strikes, and torturing suspected terrorists and their families.
If Donald Trump becomes president and carries through with these campaign promises, the U.S. military will be obliged to refuse these orders.
Let us be clear. Here we are only talking about illegal orders. All candidates for president make campaign promises that are legal but may or may not be wise. We are not suggesting that the U.S. military leaders should or will refuse orders they deem unwise, if those orders are otherwise legal.
We recognize that the United States has a strong record of civilian control of the military. That record depends on senior military leaders understanding and fulfilling their obligations under the law. And it depends on presidents and civilian political leaders understanding their obligations to the rule of law as well.
We call on all candidates to acknowledge these basic truths about democratic civil-military relations. And we call upon Donald Trump to cease promising to issue illegal orders to the U.S. military.
Kenneth Allard
Deborah Avant
Andrew J. Bacevich
William Banks
John Bellinger
Richard Betts
Risa Brooks
Thomas Bruneau
James Burk
Paul Camacho
Eliot Cohen
Martin Cook
Thomas Donnelly
James Dubik
Mark Eitelberg
Peter Feaver
Eugene Fidell
Aaron Friedberg
Christopher Gelpi
William Hauser
Donald Inbody
Thomas Keaney
Richard Kohn
David Kramer
Peter Mansoor
Alberto Mora
Michael O’Hanlon
Mackubin Owens
David Pion-Berlin
Barry Posen
Mitchell B. Reiss
Stephen Peter Rosen
Scott Sagan
Kori Schake
Chris Seiple
David R. Segal
Mady Segal
Kalev Sepp
Patricia Shields
Donald Snider
Charles Stevenson
Jeremy Teigen
Stephen Van Evera
Matthew Vaccaro
Paul Viotti
Robert Vitas
Cynthia Watson
Matthew Waxman
Claude Welch
John Allen Williams
Dov Zakheim
Amy Zegart
Philip Zelikow
Photo Credit: Scott Olson / Staff
More from Foreign Policy

The Scrambled Spectrum of U.S. Foreign-Policy Thinking
Presidents, officials, and candidates tend to fall into six camps that don’t follow party lines.

What Does Victory Look Like in Ukraine?
Ukrainians differ on what would keep their nation safe from Russia.

The Biden Administration Is Dangerously Downplaying the Global Terrorism Threat
Today, there are more terror groups in existence, in more countries around the world, and with more territory under their control than ever before.

Blue Hawk Down
Sen. Bob Menendez’s indictment will shape the future of Congress’s foreign policy.