The General's Warning – The Atlantic

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In March 2023, when Mark Milley was six months away from retiring as a four-star general and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he met Bob Woodward at a reception and said, “We need to talk.”

Milley went on to describe the extent to which former President Donald Trump, under whom Milley served, posed a danger to the nation. Woodward recounts the episode with Milley – who almost certainly believed he was speaking to Woodward in confidence – in his new book: War:

For readers of The Atlanticthis sounds familiar: Milley's warning about Trump, as well as the steps Milley took to defend the constitutional order during Trump's presidency, were the subject of a cover story last year The AtlanticEditor-in-Chief by Jeffrey Goldberg. As Goldberg put it in that story, “The difficulty of the task before Milley was captured most succinctly by Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster,” who served as the second of Trump’s four national security advisers. “As chairman,” McMaster told Goldberg, “you swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, but what if the commander in chief undermines the Constitution?”

Milley knows exactly how risky it is to criticize Trump. The former president has reportedly expressed a desire to recall and court-martial retired senior officials who criticized him, and he has even suggested that Milley be executed. Since Milley's retirement, Woodward said, the combat veteran, who served three tours in Afghanistan, has endured “a constant barrage of death threats,” prompting him to install bulletproof glass and blast-proof curtains in his home.

I resisted the use of the word for a long time fascist to describe Trump. But almost a year ago, I agreed with Milley that Trump is a fascist through and through. Not only is he unhinged in his narcissistic self-obsessions, a problem that makes him unfit for office himself; He is also an aspiring dictator who demands that all political life be focused on him. He identifies his fellow Americans as “enemies” because they are of a different race, national origin or political opinion. And he has threatened to use the powerful state machinery and his armed forces to inflict brutality on these fellow citizens.

Of course, it's one thing to hear such concerns from angry members of the so-called resistance on social media, from liberal talk show hosts, or even, say, from curmudgeonly retired political science professors who write for magazines. It's quite another to hear them from a man who once held the highest military office in the country.

Some observers wonder whether Milley should have said anything at all. I understand these reservations: I have taught military officers at the Naval War College for decades and am familiar with the tradition handed down by George Washington, America's first commander-in-chief, that the military avoids any involvement in civilian politics. I, too, am uncomfortable with the fact that Milley spoke to Woodward about a presidential candidate while he was still on active duty. He could have waited a few more months before retiring; he could even have resigned from office early to be able to speak freely.

My own objectivity regarding whether Milley would speak to Woodward is strained by my strong feelings about Trump as an existential threat to the nation. So I checked with a friend and widely respected scholar of American civil-military relations, Kori Schake, a senior fellow and director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

“It’s really a difficult decision,” she wrote to me. She noted that resignation and a subsequent IPO were always an option. She acknowledged, however, that while it would be an honorable farewell for a general to throw his stars on the desk, it benefits the people who must remain in uniform and continue to serve the country and the commander in chief and, in general, her not many think the idea of ​​simply quitting and leaving is unhelpful.

So when should a general — who has seen things that terrify him in the White House — sound the alarm if he believes a president is about to attack the very Constitution that all federal officials are sworn to protect? Schake thinks Milley overestimated his importance and went off the rails as a military officer: “The country didn't need General Milley alerting them to the danger of Trump, that was obvious if people wanted to know, and there were many.” Civilian officials—including General Milley’s boss (Mark Esper), the Secretary of Defense—had already shared their concerns.”

Schake is one of the smartest people I know on this subject, and so I am cautious about my disagreement, especially because other scholars in the field of civil-military affairs seem to largely agree with her. And like Schake, I am a traditionalist about U.S. civil-military relations: Trump, as I wrote during his presidency, routinely attacked the military and viewed its leaders as his adversaries, but that shouldn't lead anyone in uniform to abandon his to follow egregious violations of our civil-military norms and traditions.

A similar situation occurred in the final days of President Richard Nixon's term: Defense Secretary James Schlesinger told then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs General George Brown that any “unusual orders” from the president should be cleared through him. (The Constitution, of course, contains no special provision allowing Cabinet officials to undermine the chain of command at will if they believe the president is having a bad day.) Schlesinger's actions arose out of concern for Nixon's mental state; Four years earlier, Admiral Thomas Moorer, one of Milley's predecessors as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was so concerned about Nixon's policies that he actually oversaw some internal espionage in National Security Council proceedings.

And yet I understand Milley's concern and frustration. He didn't complain about a policy disagreement or try to gloss over a temporary crisis in the president's performance. He feared that a former American president might return to office and continue his efforts to destroy the constitutional order of the United States. This was not a political posturing against an unpopular candidate: for Milley and others, particularly in the national security field, who recognized the danger from within the White House, Trump's continued threat to democracy and national stability is inconceivable.

I also find it somewhat encouraging that a four-star general, faced with what he sees as a grave threat to the nation, believes that the sunlight of a free press is the best option. But more importantly, are people now listening to what Milley had to say? The revelations about his views appear to have been overshadowed by more of Trump's astonishing antics. As I was writing for the Daily today, news broke that Trump had added Nancy Pelosi and her family to his enemies list. (Paul Pelosi has already been attacked with a gavel by a deranged man fueled by conspiracy theories, a horrific incident that some Trump supporters have used as a source of jokes; Trump himself has referred to it derisively.)

All of this again raises the question of what is necessary and enough to galvanize the last of the undecided or less engaged American voters and bring them to the ballot box to defend their own freedoms. Milley and other senior military officers are in a bind when it comes to speaking about a former president, but telling the truth about Trump is a duty and a service to the nation.

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