Armed Conflict Executive Branch

Lawfare Daily: Civ-Mil Relations: Where Are We Now and How Did We Get Here?

Loren Voss, Kori Schake, Carrie Lee, Jen Patja
Tuesday, December 23, 2025, 7:00 AM
Assessing the current state of civil-military affairs.
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Loren Voss, Public Service Fellow at Lawfare, sits down with Kori Schake, senior fellow and the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, and Carrie Lee, senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund's Strategic Democracy Initiatives. They discuss how they assess a healthy civil-military relationship, the current state of civil-military affairs, potential unlawful orders, and what we should watch going forward.

Lee and Schake outline the frameworks they use to assess civil-military relations in the United States and how to think about unlawful orders and an “unprincipled principal.” Both Schake and Lee agree that the military should not bear the burden of being the solution; fixes must come from civilian leadership in the executive and legislative branches. The group concludes by identifying five indicators everyone should watch going forward to indicate the system isn’t functioning as it should. 

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Loren Voss

Loren Voss

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Loren Voss most recently served as Director for Defense Policy and Strategy at the National Security Council. She chairs the Lieber Society on the Law of Armed Conflict at the American Society of International Law and previously served as a Senior Advisor for the Department of Defense and taught classes on domestic deployment of the military and disinformation at GW Law. Loren previously served on active duty in the U.S. Air Force.
Kori Schake

Kori Schake

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Kori Schake leads the foreign and defense policy team at the American Enterprise Institute. Her book The State and the Soldier: a History of Civil-Military Relations in the United States comes out October 16th.
Carrie Lee

Carrie Lee

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Carrie Lee is a senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund's Strategic Democracy Initiatives
Jen Patja

Jen Patja

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Jen Patja is the editor of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security, and serves as Lawfare’s Director of Audience Engagement. Previously, she was Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics and Deputy Director of the Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier, where she worked to deepen public understanding of constitutional democracy and inspire meaningful civic participation.
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