Tag: Armed Forces
How Trump Could Manipulate the Military
When my colleague Tom Nichols, who taught at the Naval War College for 25 years, warns people that Donald Trump might be a threat to democracy, they often ask him to prove it. Yes, Trump has said dictator-like things, but if he won a second term, aren’t there barriers in place to prevent him from acting on his rhetoric? Would he really be able to persuade senior command in the military to use force against American citizens? Would he be
A Military Loyal to Trump
If Donald Trump wins the next election, he will attempt to turn the men and women of the United States armed forces into praetorians loyal not to the Constitution, but only to him. This project will likely be among his administration’s highest priorities. It will not be easy: The overwhelming majority of America’s service people are professionals and patriots. I know this from teaching senior officers for 25 years at the Naval War College. As president, Trump came to
The Battle for the Donbas Demands Impossible Choices
Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine, Pavlo Kyrylenko and Serhiy Gaidai received phone calls from men they believed to be Russians, based on their accents. Kyrylenko and Gaidai, the governors of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, respectively, were being enticed to defect. The pair—the top Ukrainian officials in parts of their country racked for years by conflict with Moscow-backed separatists—were offered the chance to join what the Russians were convinced would be their inevitable victory.
“This was before