In 2019, I published an article entitled “Against all Enemies.” I had pondered the clause on “domestic” enemies in the military oath for years, but meaningful conclusions about actions have been elusive. This is the fifth and final article in a series that revisits the question and proposes an actual conclusion.
The previous four articles addressed how to identify an enemy of the Constitution. But how is a military man or woman to defend the Constitution? Knowing the enemy is only part of the problem. Understanding the battlefield is equally important.
The Chinese identified four modern battlefields in Unrestricted Warfare that go beyond the classic kinetic military battlefield. (If we were to scrutinize the plethora of challenges the United States has faced since Covid-19, we would no doubt find more. The disease itself points to a form of biological warfare that might be refined as “medical warfare.”) The Chinese enumerated the following battlefields:
- Lawfare
- Economic warfare
- Network warfare
- Terrorism
Of these potential battlefields, our military is best geared toward addressing terrorism. Although the police and other agencies hold the prime responsibility for handling terrorism within the nation’s boundaries, a military person’s training and profession align well with taking out terrorists – internal or external. The other battlefields are not so well aligned.
The military has significant intelligence assets, and some of those could rightfully be used to combat network warfare. On the other hand, lawfare and economic warfare pose different problems.
A military lawyer (JAG) might be able to address an attack on the lawfare battlefield, but even this is unlikely. The real aim of lawfare is to paralyze our civilian court system by flooding it with frivolous lawsuits. It is unlikely that military courts would be prone to this attack. One needs to either become a legislator or prosecuting attorney to address an attack on civil courts.
There is no intersection between an apolitical military and an economic battlefield. The extent of how the military can realistically combat economic warfare is to provide intelligence to the civilian leadership. Even then, that leadership can only affect the rules of the game by which the real combatants fight. Those combatants are the large and small businesses of this country. In particular, the robustness and number of small businesses provide an edge that other nations lack. NOTE: because of this, the hit that small business has taken since Covid-19 presents a national security issue.
Then there is “medical warfare.” The military has long had biological weapons programs, but these programs have more been targeted toward the offensive. As a defensive matter, the military cannot dictate civilian protection protocols. It can only help with the development of protection and warning mechanisms. This battlefield poses serious threats not only to the well-being of the nation, but the liberty of its people. As a result, many in power can become domestic enemies of the Constitution in reaction to a medical emergency. It is a classic tradeoff between security and liberty, and the oath can put a military person in the middle of a paradox that underscores why it is imperative for the US military to be apolitical.
If a person in a position of power clearly dictates unconstitutional restrictions in the name of the people’s security, that person grabs illegal power and may hold on to it. Such an individual is a domestic enemy of the Constitution; however, it is improper for the military to intercede. For the military to remove someone from office is to invite a military tyranny to replace a democratically elected government—and that would make the military a domestic enemy of the Constitution.
It may seem counter-intuitive that the duty of a military person in some circumstances is to resign from the military and enter a political battle, but that can be what taking on a domestic enemy of the Constitution dictates.
Where the situation gets even more complicated is when the military itself is politicized. In addition to resignations to engage on the political battlefield, a bifurcation is created. Those who do not see the politicization see those who do see the politics as being the political ones. Mass resignations of those who see the politicization are likely, leading to an even more one-sided, political military. The techniques of communism make this scenario extremely dangerous to the survival of the republic.
