The Dangerous Appeal of Military Insubordination

In a recent Lawfare article, Graham Parsons argues that political neutrality in the U.S. military may sometimes require officers to resist even lawful orders from elected civilian authorities. He contends that obedience alone is insufficient in a democracy—that military officers have a professional and ethical duty to protect civil society from elected leaders who might misuse the military for partisan ends.

While Parsons raises important concerns about the dangers of politicizing the armed forces, his proposed solution is both misguided and dangerous. It asks military officers to step into a constitutional void that neither their oath, their training, nor their institutional role equips them to fill. In attempting to safeguard democratic values, his approach risks undermining the very pillars that uphold them.

The U.S. Is Not Turkey—and That’s the Point

Parsons’s theory flirts with a model more familiar to nations such as Turkey, where the military has long claimed a special role as the guardian of secular democracy. That tradition culminated in repeated coups and eventually enabled Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to consolidate power by purging the military of dissenters. This is not a model the U.S. should seek to emulate.

The genius of the U.S. system lies in its rejection of military guardianship. The Constitution vests command authority in the president, not to enable tyranny, but to ensure unity of command and civilian supremacy—“The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States” (U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 2, Clause 1). Allowing individual officers to second-guess whether a policy “clearly threatens civil society”—as Parsons puts it—when the courts and Congress have not objected is an invitation to fragmentation, politicization, and possibly insubordination. This approach would erode the chain of command by substituting personal judgment for lawful authority, effectively empowering individual officers to act as unelected arbiters of constitutional order. Once this precedent is set, the military risks devolving into competing factions, each interpreting policy through its own political or ideological lens—precisely the scenario the framers sought to avoid. President Truman’s dismissal of Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1951 serves as a stark reminder: Even the most celebrated commanders must subordinate their views to civilian authority, lest the military begin to dictate policy rather than execute it.

Constitutional Law Isn’t That Simple—That’s Why There Are Courts

Parsons implies that officers can discern when orders, though technically legal, violate the “spirit” of the Constitution or civil society (“It is possible to justifiably resist a legal order on the grounds that the order violates the basic values of the military profession in a democratic society.”). But constitutional law is complex, ambiguous, and often hotly contested. That’s why courts exist to carefully parse it. Officers are not trained constitutional scholars, nor are they empowered to override democratic outcomes based on their interpretations of abstract constitutional principles or the vague idea of what “clearly threatens civil society.”

Calling such judgments “extraordinary orders” or “extraordinary circumstances” doesn’t change the fact that Parsons is asking officers to act as constitutional arbiters—deciding for themselves when the elected government is acting unconstitutionally. This is not professional ethics; it’s an invitation to rogue behavior.

What happens when an officer believes an order is unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court later upholds it? Do they reverse course and obey? What if the Court declines to take the case at all? Parsons offers no guidance.

And what he’s really saying is that he doesn’t trust the American people to elect the right leaders. His argument rests on a belief that the system cannot be trusted to self-correct—that the people have chosen poorly and, therefore, the military must intervene. That’s not faith in democracy. That’s elitism cloaked in ethical concern.

The framers built a system of checks and balances to resolve exactly these questions. Elevating officers into constitutional gatekeepers subverts that design and undermines the principle of civilian control—a pillar of American civil-military relations since 1789.

Where’s the Line? From Coup Prevention to Policy Veto

To be sure, there are extreme scenarios in which resistance would be justified. An order to launch a coup or shoot unarmed, peaceful protesters would be illegal and immoral. But Parsons moves far beyond such obvious cases. He envisions officers assessing whether otherwise lawful actions—such as using the military to support border security operations, monitor polling stations, or assisting civilian authorities during protests—threaten the political neutrality of the military or civil society. That’s a far more subjective standard.

Should generals have refused to invade Iraq because preemptive war didn’t align with their reading of the Constitution? Should they oppose domestic deployments under the Insurrection Act because they fear political misuse? Parsons offers no limiting principle—and therein lies the danger. Once the door is opened for officers disobeying lawful orders on “neutrality” grounds, it invites the possibility of selective obedience based on personal judgment.

Political Neutrality Means Restraint, Not Activism

Parsons redefines political neutrality in a way that invites political action. A truly neutral military is one that subordinates itself to the will of civilian leadership, regardless of party. Political neutrality doesn’t mean resisting lawful authority; it means refraining from partisan alignment or interference in democratic processes.

The military is not an insurance policy against elected leaders citizens might dislike. Its neutrality rests on institutional apoliticism, not political activism disguised as professional ethics. The principle of obedience to lawful civilian orders, through a clear chain of command, is what insulates the military from becoming a partisan instrument.

Moreover, by swearing an oath to the Constitution, military officers are not pledging allegiance to a vague idea—they are pledging fidelity to the actual, living document, including its amendments and the laws passed under its framework. Orders issued in accordance with this system are lawful and must be followed. It is not for military officers to decide which laws are valid or desirable. In a democracy, if the people dislike a law, they elect officials to change it. That’s the process. To bypass that system is not to defend the Constitution; it’s to abandon it.

More to the point, there is a legal presumption that orders from duly authorized civilian authorities are lawful. This is not a bureaucratic nicety—it is a cornerstone of military justice. A direct refusal to follow such an order, or even passive resistance through delay or evasion—as Parsons seems to hint at near the end of his essay (“raising awareness of the orders and one’s concerns with them within the military, with civilian political leaders, or with the public; ‘slow rolling’ execution of the order”)—is not a matter of professional discretion; it is a punishable offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. In a declared state of emergency, such disobedience may carry especially grave consequences. Any officer who follows Parsons’s advice in practice not only would face a likely court-martial but also would risk tearing at the institutional fabric that binds command, discipline, and civilian oversight together.

Rebutting the “Real Civil-Military Problematic”

Parsons argues that civilian control increases the risk that the military might be used against society—his third pillar in his “real civil-military problematic.” He claims that by insisting on obedience, Peter Feaver and others overlook the danger of a military under civilian command becoming a threat to civil society.

This is a misreading. The U.S. military is already embedded within a system of legal constraints, checks, and constitutional procedures. Parsons’s concern about the military being “used against the community” ignores the safeguards already in place—from judicial oversight, congressional power of the purse, and statutory limitations on domestic use of force.

The answer to this concern is not to empower officers to “correct” civilian misuse of the military; it’s to strengthen democratic oversight and reaffirm the military’s apolitical role. Parsons turns the exceptional into the expected. He replaces the risk of misuse by elected leaders with the certainty of politicization by unelected generals.

Undermining Democracy in the Name of Defending It

Parsons is right to worry about the potential misuse of military force by elected leaders (“But we also must not be sanguine about the danger of the civilian war power in a democratic society.”). The answer is not to empower military officers to unilaterally resist lawful authority. That path invites instability and could accelerate the very erosion of norms he fears.

In fact, history shows that when militaries begin deciding which leaders to follow and which to resist, democracy itself becomes fragile. This has already happened in other nations, where coups often begin with earnest intentions, only to end in repression. In Egypt (2013), the military ousted a democratically elected president under the banner of protecting civil society—only to install a repressive regime. In Thailand (2006 and 2014), military takeovers were justified as necessary to restore order, but led to years of curtailed civil liberties and entrenched military dominance. Even in Turkey (1980 and attempted again in 2016), the armed forces intervened under claims of defending secular democracy, but ultimately weakened democratic institutions. Civilian control isn’t a weakness in the American system. It’s what keeps the military a servant of the Constitution, not its interpreter or its enforcer.

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Parsons’s argument cloaks itself in the language of constitutional fidelity, but it risks eroding the foundations of American democracy. Officers swear an oath to the Constitution (which is a structure for imperfect people to govern)—but the system they are sworn to defend includes civilian control of the military, deference to the judiciary, and respect for democratic processes, even when flawed.

You either believe in that system, or you don’t. Parsons doesn’t seem to. He seemingly wants the military to fill the void he perceives in our democratic institutions, likely not realizing that doing so would irrevocably damage those very institutions.

The armed forces must remain politically neutral. But neutrality is not passivity—nor is it resistance. It is fidelity to a system of government where the people govern, the courts interpret, and the military obeys. Parsons’s argument rests not on concrete examples but on vague allusions to undefined emergencies and speculative threats to “civil society.” He never outlines specific scenarios—only gestures at the possibility that lawful orders might one day become ethically intolerable. This ambiguity is part of the problem. Without clearly defined boundaries, his proposal invites officers to insert their own judgment into a constitutional gray zone. It’s political theory dressed up as professional ethics—and as actual advice to uniformed leaders, it’s deeply irresponsible and risks real-world breakdowns in discipline, cohesion, and lawful authority.

In a democracy, the uniform is not a veto. And any theory that says otherwise should be scrutinized.