{"id":14907,"date":"2023-10-30T04:56:57","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T11:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=14907"},"modified":"2023-11-03T21:21:49","modified_gmt":"2023-11-04T04:21:49","slug":"14907","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=14907","title":{"rendered":"Issue of the Week: War, Human Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A
The Patriot, <\/em>The Atlantic Magazine, Cover Story, November 2023<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The cover story in the November 2023 issue of The Atlantic<\/em> is a revelation, except more like the Book of Revelations revealing the apocalypse. Prophecy of course has a purpose, and its not to show off psychic wares, but to warn, and point to a better direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But first, a related diversion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The long-running series Billions<\/em> ended it’s epic run with the finale of season seven last night. We’ve often thought about posting more about various such TV and streaming sensations and will doubtless do more so in the future, as these measure and create cultural consciousness in so many ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not many series make it for seven seasons and for whatever its faults, Billions<\/em> has been a unique, brilliant and entertaining ride. Its historical, political, artistic and cultural references alone–all trillion<\/em> of them–are a necessary education for many. But speaking of rides, the last season and especially the finale, is a sensational laser ride from one side of the universe to the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The focus, in short, is on stopping a meglamaniac from becoming president and having his hand on the nuclear button. By a number of deeply flawed geniuses each in their way who, finding themselves in the midst of unspeakable evil, become the allied resistance, willing to risk everything. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the greatest scenes in TV history, and one of the shortest, is when two of the best lead characters in TV history, Wendy Rhoades and Taylor Mason, walk away from a meeting with Mr. God-complex and communicate in a couple of one sentence whispers, but mainly with their ashened faces, the rhetorical question, did he just quote a Hitler speech from 1929?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New York Times review of the first episode of the last season ended with this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Long one of the most purely entertaining shows on television, \u201cBillions\u201d has always preferred to let its message about the robber barons who rule our world play out amid the beats of a well-made financial thriller over the more direct and unmissable approach preferred by heavy-handed satires like \u201cSuccession\u201d and \u201cThe White Lotus.\u201d If what we\u2019re seeing in this premiere holds true for the series\u2019s remaining episodes, though, the show seems to have well and truly gotten religion at last. It will spend its final hours depicting our heroes, and many of our villains too, battling to prevent a dictatorial billionaire from becoming the leader of the free world.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The series started in 2016–that year of years when everything went from hatefully normal in the ongoing anguish for milleniums of our crimes against our children, each other and the planet, with the stakes constantly rising related to the question of whether utter destruction or the better angels of our nature would ulimately prevail–to a previously unimaginable nightmare of narcissim, nihilism and brain dead brute behavior, that tilted the scales straight to hell. And as much as the locus of this can be found in a person, and a handful of the same types converging, the real face-down is with ourselves, all of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we have said often, basic human rights and needs met for all, or no future. But a part of that is whether even the possibility of a future is incinerated by nuclear weapons or decimated by the defeat of democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are the themes of the cover story in The Atlantic<\/em>–an impossible to make up or even imagine story that we all know about, and yet so many seem to know in any meaningful sense of the word nothing about, even as the story still threatens to devour us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Few reads are as “can’t be missed” as this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here it is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE PATRIOT<\/a>: How General Mark Milley protected the Constitution from Donald Trump, By Jeffrey Goldberg, Photographs by Ashley Gilbertson, November 2023 Issue, The Atlantic Magazine<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Mark Milley at Fort Myer, September 2023<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The missiles that comprise the land component of America\u2019s nuclear triad are scattered across thousands of square miles of prairie and farmland, mainly in North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. About 150 of the roughly 400 Minuteman III inter\u00adcontinental ballistic missiles currently on alert are dispersed in a wide circle around Minot Air Force Base, in the upper reaches of North Dakota. From Minot, it would take an ICBM about 25 minutes to reach Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These nuclear weapons are under the control of the 91st Missile Wing of the Air Force Global Strike Command, and it was to the 91st\u2014the \u201cRough Riders\u201d\u2014that General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, paid a visit in March 2021. I accompanied him on the trip. A little more than two months had passed since the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and America\u2019s nuclear arsenal was on Milley\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In normal times, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the principal military adviser to the president, is supposed to focus his attention on America\u2019s national-security challenges, and on the readiness and lethality of its armed forces. But the first 16 months of Milley\u2019s term, a period that ended when Joe Biden succeeded Donald Trump as president, were not normal, because Trump was exceptionally unfit to serve. \u201cFor more than 200 years, the assumption in this country was that we would have a stable person as president,\u201d one of Milley\u2019s mentors, the retired three-star general James Dubik, told me. That this assumption did not hold true during the Trump administration presented a \u201cunique challenge\u201d for Milley, Dubik said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milley was careful to refrain from commenting publicly on Trump\u2019s cognitive unfitness and moral derangement. In interviews, he would say that it is not the place of the nation\u2019s flag officers to discuss the performance of the nation\u2019s civilian leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But his views emerged in a number of books published after Trump left office, written by authors who had spoken with Milley, and many other civilian and military officials, on background. In The Divider<\/em><\/a>, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser write that Milley believed that Trump was \u201cshameful,\u201d and \u201ccomplicit\u201d in the January 6 attack. They also reported that Milley feared that Trump\u2019s \u201c\u200a\u2018Hitler-like\u2019 embrace of the big lie about the election would prompt the president to seek out a \u2018Reichstag moment.\u2019\u200a\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These views of Trump align with those of many officials who served in his administration. Trump\u2019s first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, considered Trump to be a \u201cfucking moron.\u201d John Kelly, the retired Marine general who served as Trump\u2019s chief of staff in 2017 and 2018, has said that Trump is the \u201cmost flawed person<\/a>\u201d he\u2019s ever met. James Mattis, who is also a retired Marine general and served as Trump\u2019s first secretary of defense, has told friends and colleagues that the 45th president was \u201cmore dangerous than anyone could ever imagine<\/a>.\u201d It is widely known that Trump\u2019s second secretary of defense, Mark Esper, believed that the president didn\u2019t understand his own duties, much less the oath that officers swear to the Constitution, or military ethics, or the history of America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twenty men have served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs since the position was created after World War II. Until Milley, none had been forced to confront the possibility that a president would try to foment or provoke a coup in order to illegally remain in office. A plain reading of the record shows that in the chaotic period before and after the 2020 election, Milley did as much as, or more than, any other American to defend the constitutional order, to prevent the military from being deployed against the American people, and to forestall the eruption of wars with America\u2019s nuclear-armed adversaries. Along the way, Milley deflected Trump\u2019s exhortations to have the U.S. military ignore, and even on occasion commit, war crimes. Milley and other military officers deserve praise for protecting democracy, but their actions should also cause deep unease. In the American system, it is the voters, the courts, and Congress that are meant to serve as checks on a president\u2019s behavior, not the generals. Civilians provide direction, funding, and oversight; the military then follows lawful orders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mark
Ashley Gilbertson \/ VII for The Atlantic<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The difficulty of the task before Milley was captured most succinctly by Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster, the second of Trump\u2019s four national security advisers. \u201cAs chairman, you swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, but what if the commander in chief is undermining the Constitution?\u201d McMaster said to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the actions he took in the last months of the Trump presidency, Milley, whose four-year term as chairman, and 43-year career as an Army officer, will conclude at the end of September, has been condemned by elements of the far right. Kash Patel, whom Trump installed in a senior Pentagon role in the final days of his administration, refers to Milley as \u201cthe Kraken of the swamp.\u201d Trump himself has accused Milley of treason. Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump White House official, has said that Milley deserves to be placed in \u201cshackles and leg irons.\u201d If a second Trump administration were to attempt this, however, the Trumpist faction would be opposed by the large group of ex-Trump-administration officials who believe that the former president continues to pose a unique threat to American democracy, and who believe that Milley is a hero for what he did to protect the country and the Constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMark Milley had to contain the impulses of people who wanted to use the United States military in very dangerous ways,\u201d Kelly told me. \u201cMark had a very, very difficult reality to deal with in his first two years as chairman, and he served honorably and well. The president couldn\u2019t fathom people who served their nation honorably.\u201d Kelly, along with other former administration officials, has argued that Trump has a contemptuous view of the military, and that this contempt made it extraordinarily difficult to explain to Trump such concepts as honor, sacrifice, and duty.Before Milley, no Joint Chiefs chairman had been forced to deal with a president who\u2019d attempted to foment a coup in order to remain illegally in office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robert Gates, who served as secretary of defense under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, told me that no Joint Chiefs chairman has ever been tested in the manner Milley was. \u201cGeneral Milley has done an extraordinary job under the most extraordinary of circumstances,\u201d Gates said. \u201cI\u2019ve worked for eight presidents, and not even Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon in their angriest moments would have considered doing or saying some of the things that were said between the election and January 6.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gates believes that Milley, who served as his military assistant when Gates was Bush\u2019s secretary of defense, was uniquely qualified to defend the Constitution from Trump during those final days. \u201cGeneral Milley expected to be fired every single day between Election Day and January 6,\u201d he said. A less confident and assertive chairman might not have held the line against Trump\u2019s antidemocratic plots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I mentioned Gates\u2019s assessment to Milley, he demurred. \u201cI think that any of my peers would have done the same thing. Why do I say that? First of all, I know them. Second, we all think the same way about the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of those who served in Trump\u2019s administration say that he appointed Milley chairman because he was drawn to Milley\u2019s warrior reputation, tanklike build, and four-star eyebrows. Senator Angus King of Maine, a political independent who is a supporter of Milley\u2019s, told me, \u201cTrump picked him as chief because he looks like what Trump thinks a general should look like.\u201d But Trump misjudged him, King said. \u201cHe thought he would be loyal to him and not to the Constitution.\u201d Trump had been led to believe that Milley would be more malleable than other generals. This misunderstanding threatened to become indelibly ingrained in Washington when Milley made what many people consider to be his most serious mistake as chairman. During the George Floyd protests in early June 2020, Milley, wearing combat fatigues, followed Trump out of the White House to Lafayette Square, which had just been cleared of demonstrators by force. Milley realized too late that Trump, who continued across the street to pose for a now-infamous photo while standing in front of a vandalized church, was manipulating him into a visual endorsement of his martial approach to the demonstrations. Though Milley left the entourage before it reached the church, the damage was significant. \u201cWe\u2019re getting the fuck out of here,\u201d Milley said to his security chief. \u201cI\u2019m fucking done with this shit.\u201d Esper would later say that he and Milley had been duped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Milley, Lafayette Square was an agonizing episode; he described it later as a \u201croad-to-Damascus moment.\u201d The week afterward, in a commencement address to the National Defense University, he apologized to the armed forces and the country<\/a>. \u201cI should not have been there,\u201d he said. \u201cMy presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.\u201d His apology earned him the permanent enmity of Trump, who told him that apologies are a sign of weakness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Former
On June 1, 2020, Milley and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper (center<\/em>) accompanied Donald Trump partway to St. John\u2019s Church after the clearing of Lafayette Square. Milley\u2019s apology for appearing to lend military support to a political photo op earned him Trump\u2019s enmity. (Patrick Semansky \/ AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Joseph Dunford, the Marine general who preceded Milley as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, had also faced onerous and unusual challenges. But during the first two years of the Trump presidency, Dunford had been supported by officials such as Kelly, Mattis, Tillerson, and McMaster. These men attempted, with intermittent success, to keep the president\u2019s most dangerous impulses in check. (According to the Associated Press, Kelly and Mattis made a pact with each other that one of them would remain in the country at all times<\/a>, so the president would never be left unmonitored.) By the time Milley assumed the chairman\u2019s role, all of those officials were gone\u2014driven out or fired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the top of the list of worries for these officials was the manage\u00adment of America\u2019s nuclear arsenal. Early in Trump\u2019s term, when Milley was serving as chief of staff of the Army, Trump entered a cycle of rhetorical warfare with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. At certain points, Trump raised the possibility of attacking North Korea with nuclear weapons, according to the New York Times<\/em> reporter Michael S. Schmidt\u2019s book, Donald Trump v. The United States<\/em><\/a>. Kelly, Dunford, and others tried to convince Trump that his rhetoric\u2014publicly mocking Kim as \u201cLittle Rocket Man,\u201d for instance\u2014could trigger nuclear war. \u201cIf you keep pushing this clown, he could do something with nuclear weapons,\u201d Kelly told him, explaining that Kim, though a dictator, could be pressured by his own military elites to attack American interests in response to Trump\u2019s provocations. When that argument failed to work, Kelly spelled out for the president that a nuclear exchange could cost the lives of millions of Koreans and Japanese, as well as those of Americans throughout the Pacific. Guam, Kelly told him, falls within range of North Korean missiles. \u201cGuam isn\u2019t America,\u201d Trump responded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the specter of a recklessly instigated nuclear confrontation abated when Joe Biden came to office, the threat was still on Milley\u2019s mind, which is why he set out to visit Minot that day in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to housing the 91st Missile Wing, Minot is home to the Air Force\u2019s 5th Bomb Wing, and I watched Milley spend the morning inspecting a fleet of B\u201152 bombers. Milley enjoys meeting the rank and file, and he quizzed air crews\u2014who appeared a little unnerved at being interrogated with such exuberance by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs\u2014about their roles, needs, and responsibilities. We then flew by helicopter to a distant launch-control facility, to visit the missile officers in charge of the Minuteman IIIs. The underground bunker is staffed continuously by two launch officers, who are responsible for a flight of 10 missiles, each secured in hardened underground silos. The two officers seated at the facility\u2019s console described to Milley their launch procedures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The individual silos, connected to the launch-control facility by buried cable, are surrounded by chain-link fences. They are placed at some distance from one another, an arrangement that would force Russia or China to expend a large number of their own missiles to preemptively destroy America\u2019s. The silos are also protected by electronic surveillance, and by helicopter and ground patrols. The Hueys carrying us to one of the silos landed well outside the fence, in a farmer\u2019s field. Accompanying Milley was Admiral Charles Richard, who was then the commander of Strategic Command, or Stratcom. Stratcom is in charge of America\u2019s nuclear force; the commander is the person who would receive orders from the president to launch nuclear weapons\u2014by air, sea, or land\u2014at an adversary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was windy and cold at the silo. Air Force officers showed us the 110-ton blast door, and then we walked to an open hatch. Richard mounted a rickety metal ladder leading down into the silo and disappeared from view. Then Milley began his descent. \u201cJust don\u2019t touch anything,\u201d an Air Force noncommissioned officer said. \u201cSir.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then it was my turn. \u201cNo smoking down there,\u201d the NCO said, helpfully. The ladder dropped 60 feet into a twilight haze, ending at a catwalk that ringed the missile itself. The Minuteman III weighs about 80,000 pounds and is about 60 feet tall. The catwalk surrounded the top of the missile, eye level with its conical warhead. Milley and I stood next to each other, staring silently at the bomb. The warhead of the typical Minuteman III has at least 20 times the explosive power of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. We were close enough to touch it, and I, at least, was tempted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milley broke the silence. \u201cYou ever see one of these before?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d I answered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMe neither,\u201d Milley said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I couldn\u2019t mask my surprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m an infantryman,\u201d he said, smiling. \u201cWe don\u2019t have these in the infantry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He continued, \u201cI\u2019m testifying in front of Congress on nuclear posture, and I think it\u2019s important to see these things for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard joined us. \u201cThis is an indispensable component of the nuclear triad,\u201d he said, beginning a standard Strategic Command pitch. \u201cOur goal is to communicate to potential adversaries: \u2018Not today.\u2019\u200a\u201d (When I later visited Richard at Offutt Air Force Base, the headquarters of Stratcom, near Omaha, Nebraska, I saw that his office features a large sign with this same slogan, hanging above portraits of the leaders of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used this moment in the silo to discuss with Milley the stability of America\u2019s nuclear arsenal under Trump. The former president\u2019s ignorance of nuclear doctrine had been apparent well before his exchanges with Kim Jong Un. In a 2015 Republican-\u00adprimary debate, Trump was asked, \u201cOf the three legs of the triad \u2026 do you have a priority?\u201d Trump\u2019s answer: \u201cI think\u2014I think, for me, nuclear is just\u2014the power, the devastation is very important to me.\u201d After this, Senator Marco Rubio, a foreign-policy expert who was one of Trump\u2019s Republican-\u00adprimary opponents, called Trump an \u201cerratic individual\u201d who could not be trusted with the country\u2019s nuclear codes. (Rubio subsequently embraced Trump, praising him for bringing \u201ca lot of people and energy into the Republican Party.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I described to Milley a specific worry I\u2019d had, illustrated most vividly by one of the more irrational public statements Trump made as president. On January 2, 2018, Trump tweeted<\/a>: \u201cNorth Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the \u2018Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.\u2019 Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This tweet did not initiate a fatal escalatory cycle, but with it Trump created conditions that easily could have, as he did at several other moments during his presidency. Standing beside the missile in the silo, I expressed my concern about this to Milley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWasn\u2019t going to happen,\u201d he responded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not in the chain of command,\u201d I noted. The chairman is an adviser to the president, not a field commander.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTrue,\u201d he answered. \u201cThe chain of command runs from the president to the secretary of defense to that guy,\u201d he said, pointing to Richard, who had moved to the other side of the catwalk. \u201cWe\u2019ve got excellent professionals throughout the system.\u201d He then said, \u201cNancy Pelosi was worried about this. I told her she didn\u2019t have to worry, that we have systems in place.\u201d By this, he meant that the system is built to resist the efforts of rogue actors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly after the assault on the Capitol on January 6, Pelosi, who was then the speaker of the House, called Milley to ask if the nation\u2019s nuclear weapons were secure. \u201cHe\u2019s crazy,\u201d she said of Trump. \u201cYou know he\u2019s crazy. He\u2019s been crazy for a long time. So don\u2019t say you don\u2019t know what his state of mind is.\u201d According to Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, who recounted this conversation in their book, Peril<\/em><\/a>, Milley replied, \u201cMadam Speaker, I agree with you on everything.\u201d He then said, according to the authors, \u201cI want you to know this in your heart of hearts, I can guarantee you 110 percent that the military, use of military power, whether it\u2019s nuclear or a strike in a foreign country of any kind, we\u2019re not going to do anything illegal or crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mark
General Milley outside his residence on Generals\u2019 Row at Fort Myer, alongside Arlington National Cemetery, in Virginia (Ashley Gilbertson \/ VII for The Atlantic<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Shortly after the call from Pelosi, Milley gathered the Pentagon\u2019s top nuclear officers\u2014one joined by telephone from Stratcom headquarters\u2014for an emergency meeting. The flag officers in attendance included Admiral Richard; the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General John Hyten, who was Richard\u2019s predecessor at Stratcom; and the leaders of the National Military Command Center, the highly secure Pentagon facility from which emergency-\u00adaction messages\u2014\u00adthe actual instructions to launch nuclear weapons\u2014\u00adwould emanate. The center is staffed continuously, and each eight-hour shift conducts drills on nuclear procedures. In the meeting in his office, Milley told the assembled generals and admirals that, out of an abundance of caution, he wanted to go over the procedures and processes for deploying nuclear weapons. Hyten summarized the standard procedures\u2014including ensuring the participation of the Joint Chiefs in any conversation with the president about imminent war. At the conclusion of Hyten\u2019s presentation, according to meeting participants, Milley said, \u201cIf anything weird or crazy happens, just make sure we all know.\u201d Milley then went to each officer in turn and asked if he understood the procedures. They all affirmed that they did. Milley told other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, \u201cAll we\u2019ve got to do is see to it that the plane lands on January 20,\u201d when the constitutional transfer of power to the new president would be completed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found Milley\u2019s confidence only somewhat reassuring. The American president is a nuclear monarch, invested with uni\u00adlateral authority to release weapons that could destroy the planet many times over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mentioned to Milley a conversation I\u2019d had with James Mattis when he was the secretary of defense. I had told Mattis, only half-joking, that I was happy he was a physically fit Marine. If it ever came to it, I said, he could forcibly wrest the nuclear football\u2014the briefcase containing, among other things, the authentication codes needed to order a nuclear strike\u2014from the president. Mattis, a wry man, smiled and said that I was failing to take into account the mission of the Secret Service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I mentioned to Milley my view that Trump was mentally and morally unequipped to make decisions concerning war and peace, he would say only, \u201cThe president alone decides to launch nuclear weapons, but he doesn\u2019t launch them alone.\u201d He then repeated the sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has also said in private settings, more colloquially, \u201cThe president can\u2019t wake up in the middle of the night and decide to push a button. One reason for this is that there\u2019s no button to push.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During conversations with Milley and others about the nuclear challenge, a story from the 1970s came frequently to my mind. The story concerns an Air Force officer named Harold Hering, who was dismissed from service for asking a question about a crucial flaw in America\u2019s nuclear command-and-control system<\/a>\u2014a flaw that had no technical solution. Hering was a Vietnam veteran who, in 1973, was training to become a Minuteman crew member. One day in class, he asked, \u201cHow can I know that an order I receive to launch my missiles came from a sane president?\u201d The Air Force concluded that launch officers did not need to know the answer to this question, and they discharged him. Hering appealed his discharge, and responded to the Air Force\u2019s assertion as follows: \u201cI have to say I feel I do have a need to know, because I am a human being.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. military possesses procedures and manuals for every possible challenge. Except Hering\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After we climbed out of the missile silo, I asked Milley how much time the president and the secretary of defense would have to make a decision about using nuclear weapons, in the event of a reported enemy attack. Milley would not answer in specifics, but he acknowledged\u2014as does everyone in the business of thinking about nuclear weapons\u2014that the timeline could be acutely brief. For instance, it is generally believed that if surveillance systems detected an imminent launch from Russia, the president could have as few as five or six minutes to make a decision<\/a>. \u201cAt the highest levels, folks are trained to work through decisions at a rapid clip,\u201d Milley said. \u201cThese decisions would be very difficult to make. Sometimes the information would be very limited. But we face a lot of hard decisions on a regular basis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story of Milley\u2019s promotion to the chairmanship captures much about the disorder in Donald Trump\u2019s mind, and in his White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2018, Trump was growing tired of General Dunford, a widely respected Marine officer. After one White House briefing by Dunford, Trump turned to aides and said, \u201cThat guy is smart. Why did he join the military?\u201d Trump did not consider Dunford to be sufficiently \u201cloyal,\u201d and he was seeking a general who would pledge his personal fealty. Such generals don\u2019t tend to exist in the American system\u2014Michael Flynn, Trump\u2019s QAnon-addled first national security adviser, is an exception\u2014but Trump was adamant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president had also grown tired of James Mattis, the defense secretary. He had hired Mattis in part because he\u2019d been told his nickname was \u201cMad Dog.\u201d It wasn\u2019t\u2014that had been a media confection\u2014and Mattis proved far more cerebral, and far more independent-minded, than Trump could handle. So when Mattis recommended David Goldfein, the Air Force chief of staff, to become the next chairman, Trump rejected the choice. (In ordinary presidencies, the defense secretary chooses the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the president, by custom, accedes to the choice.)\u201cKnowing Trump, I knew that he was looking for a complete carnivore, and Milley fit that bill.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that point, Milley was Mattis\u2019s choice to serve in a dual-hatted role, as NATO supreme allied commander in Europe and the head of U.S. European Command. Mattis has said he believed Milley\u2019s bullish personality made him the perfect person to push America\u2019s European allies to spend more on their collective defense, and to focus on the looming threat from Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a group of ex\u2013Army officers then close to Trump had been lobbying for an Army general for the chairmanship, and Milley, the Army chief of staff, was the obvious candidate. Despite a reputation for being prolix and obstreperous in a military culture that, at its highest reaches, values discretion and rhetorical restraint, Milley was popular with many Army leaders, in part because of the reputation he\u2019d developed in Iraq and Afghanistan as an especially effective war fighter. A son of working-class Boston, Milley is a former hockey player who speaks bluntly, sometimes brutally. \u201cI\u2019m Popeye the fucking sailorman,\u201d he has told friends. \u201cI yam what I yam.\u201d This group of former Army officers, including Esper, who was then serving as the secretary of the Army, and David Urban, a West Point graduate who was key to Trump\u2019s Pennsylvania election effort, believed that Trump would take to Milley, who had both an undergraduate degree from Princeton and the personality of a hockey enforcer. \u201cKnowing Trump, I knew that he was looking for a complete carnivore, and Milley fit that bill,\u201d Urban told me. \u201cHe checked so many boxes for Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In late 2018, Milley was called to meet the president. Before the meeting, he visited Kelly in his West Wing office, where he was told that Trump might ask him to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs. But, if given a choice, Kelly said, he should avoid the role. \u201cIf he asks you to go to Europe, you should go. It\u2019s crazy here,\u201d Kelly said. At the time of this meeting, Kelly was engaged in a series of disputes with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner (he referred to them acidly as the \u201cRoyal Couple\u201d), and he was having little success imposing order over an administration in chaos. Each day, ex\u2013administration officials told me, aides such as Stephen Miller and Peter Navarro\u2014along with Trump himself\u2014would float absurd, antidemocratic ideas. Dunford had become an expert at making himself scarce in the White House, seeking to avoid these aides and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kelly escorted Milley to the Oval Office. Milley saluted Trump and sat across from the president, who was seated at the Resolute Desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re here because I\u2019m interviewing you for the job of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWhat do you think of that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milley responded: \u201cI\u2019ll do whatever you ask me to do.\u201d At which point, Trump turned to Kelly and said, \u201cWhat\u2019s that other job Mattis wants him to do? Something in Europe?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kelly answered, \u201cThat\u2019s SACEUR, the supreme allied commander in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump asked, \u201cWhat does that guy do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the person who commands U.S. forces in Europe,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhich is the better job?\u201d Trump asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kelly answered that the chairmanship is the better job. Trump offered Milley the role. The business of the meeting done, the conversation then veered in many different directions. But at one point Trump returned to the job offer, saying to Milley, \u201cMattis says you\u2019re soft on transgenders. Are you soft on transgenders?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milley responded, \u201cI\u2019m not soft on transgender or hard on transgender. I\u2019m about standards in the U.S. military, about who is qualified to serve in the U.S. military. I don\u2019t care who you sleep with or what you are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The offer stood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be nearly a year before Dunford retired and Milley assumed the role. At his welcome ceremony at Joint Base Myer\u2013Henderson Hall<\/a>, across the Potomac River from the capital, Milley gained an early, and disturbing, insight into Trump\u2019s attitude toward soldiers. Milley had chosen a severely wounded Army captain, Luis Avila, to sing \u201cGod Bless America.\u201d Avila, who had completed five combat tours, had lost a leg in an IED attack in Afghanistan, and had suffered two heart attacks, two strokes, and brain damage as a result of his injuries. To Milley, and to four-star generals across the Army, Avila and his wife, Claudia, represented the heroism, sacrifice, and dignity of wounded soldiers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It had rained that day, and the ground was soft; at one point Avila\u2019s wheelchair threatened to topple over. Milley\u2019s wife, Holly\u00adanne, ran to help Avila, as did Vice President Mike Pence. After Avila\u2019s performance, Trump walked over to congratulate him, but then said to Milley, within earshot of several witnesses, \u201cWhy do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded.\u201d Never let Avila appear in public again, Trump told Milley. (Recently, Milley invited Avila to sing at his retirement ceremony.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These sorts of moments, which would grow in intensity and velocity, were disturbing to Milley. As a veteran of multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, he had buried 242 soldiers who\u2019d served under his command. Milley\u2019s family venerated the military, and Trump\u2019s attitude toward the uniformed services seemed superficial, callous, and, at the deepest human level, repugnant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milley was raised in a blue-collar section of Winchester, Massachusetts, just outside Boston, where nearly everyone of a certain age\u2014\u00adincluding his mother\u2014was a World War II veteran. Mary Murphy served in the women\u2019s branch of the Naval Reserve; the man who became her husband, Alexander Milley, was a Navy corpsman who was part of the assault landings in the central Pacific at Kwajalein, Tinian, and Iwo Jima. Alexander was just out of high school when he enlisted. \u201cMy dad brought his hockey skates to the Pacific,\u201d Milley told me. \u201cHe was pretty naive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though he was born after it ended, World War II made a power\u00adful impression on Mark Milley, in part because it had imprinted itself so permanently on his father. When I traveled to Japan with Milley this summer, he told me a story about the stress his father had experienced during his service. Milley was undergoing a bit of stress himself on this trip. He was impeccably diplomatic with his Japanese counterparts, but I got the impression that he still finds visiting the country to be slightly surreal. At one point he was given a major award in the name of the emperor. \u201cIf my father could only see this,\u201d he said to me, and then recounted the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took place at Fort Drum, in upstate New York, when Milley was taking command of the 10th Mountain Division, in 2011. His father and his father\u2019s younger brother Tom, a Korean War veteran, came to attend his change-of-command ceremony. \u201cMy father always hated officers,\u201d Milley recalled. \u201cEvery day from the time I was a second lieutenant to colonel, he was like, \u2018When are you getting out?\u2019 Then, all of sudden, it was \u2018My son, the general.\u2019\u200a\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He continued, \u201cWe have the whole thing\u2014troops on the field, regalia, cannons, bugle\u2014and then we have a reception back at the house. I\u2019ve got the Japanese flag up on the wall, right over the fireplace. It\u2019s a flag my father took from Saipan. So that night, he\u2019s sitting there in his T-shirt and boxers; he\u2019s having probably more than one drink, just staring at the Japanese flag. One or two in the morning, we hear this primeval-type screaming. He\u2019s screaming at his brother, \u2018Tom, you got to get up!\u2019 And I\u2019ll say it the way he said it: \u2018Tom, the Japs are here, the Japs are here! We gotta get the kids outta here!\u2019 So my wife elbows me and says, \u2018Your father,\u2019 and I say, \u2018Yes, I figured that out,\u2019 and I go out and my dad, he\u2019s not in good shape by then\u2014in his 80s, Parkinson\u2019s, not super mobile\u2014and yet he\u2019s running down the hallway. I grab him by both arms. His eyes are bugging out and I say, \u2018Dad, it\u2019s okay, you\u2019re with the 10th Mountain Division on the Canadian border.\u2019 And his brother Tom comes out and says, \u2018Goddamnit, just go to fucking bed, for Chrissakes. You won your war; we just tied ours.\u2019 And I feel like I\u2019m in some B movie. Anyway, he calmed down, but you see, this is what happens. One hundred percent of people who see significant combat have some form of PTSD. For years he wouldn\u2019t go to the VA, and I finally said, \u2018You hit the beach at Iwo Jima and Saipan. The VA is there for you; you might as well use it.\u2019 And they diagnosed him, finally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Milley with the flag his father took from Saipan during World War II. Seeing it on Milley\u2019s wall once plunged his father, who had PTSD, into a combat flashback. (Ashley Gilbertson \/ VII for The Atlantic<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Milley never doubted that he would follow his parents into military service, though he had no plans to make the Army a career. At Princeton, which recruited him to play hockey, he was a political-\u00adscience major, writing his senior thesis on Irish revolutionary guerrilla movements. He joined ROTC, and he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in June 1980. He began his Army career as maintenance officer in a motor pool of the 82nd Airborne; this did not excite him, so he maneuvered his way onto a path that took him to the Green Berets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His first overseas mission was to parachute into Somalia in 1984 with a five-man Special Forces A-Team to train a Somali army detachment that was fighting Soviet-backed Ethiopia. \u201cIt was basically dysentery and worms,\u201d he recalled. \u201cWe were out there in the middle of nowhere. It was all small-unit tactics, individual skills. We were boiling water we got from cow ponds, and breakfast was an ostrich egg and flatbread.\u201d His abiding interest in insurgencies led him to consider a career in the CIA, but he was dissuaded by a recruiter who told him working in the agency would make having any kind of family life hard. In 1985, he was sent to Fort Ord, where he \u201cgot really excited about the Army.\u201d This was during the Reagan-era defense buildup, when the Army\u2014now all-volunteer\u2014was emerging from what Milley describes as its \u201cpost-Vietnam malaise.\u201d This was a time of war-fighting innovation, which Milley would champion as he rose in rank. He would go on to take part in the invasion of Panama, and he helped coordinate the occupation of northern Haiti during the U.S. intervention there in 1994.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Family
Clockwise from top left<\/em>: Milley played high-school hockey at Belmont Hill School, in Massachusetts, in the mid-\u201970s. Milley getting his ROTC commission at Princeton in 1980. Milley with his mother and father, both World War II veterans, at his ROTC commissioning ceremony in 1980. Milley (left<\/em>) deployed in Somalia with the Green Berets of the 5th Special Forces Group in the 1980s. (Courtesy of the Milley family)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After September 11, 2001, Milley deployed repeatedly as a brigade commander to Iraq and Afghanistan. Ross Davidson, a retired colonel who served as Milley\u2019s operations officer in Baghdad when he commanded a brigade of the 10th Mountain Division, recalled Milley\u2019s mantra: \u201cMove to the sound of the guns.\u201d Davidson went on to say, with admiration, \u201cI\u2019ve been blown up, like, nine times with the guy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Davidson witnessed what is often mentioned as Milley\u2019s most notable act of personal bravery, when he ran across a booby-trapped bridge<\/a> at night to stop a pair of U.S. tanks from crossing. \u201cWe had no communication with the tanks, and the boss just ran across the bridge without thinking of his own safety to keep those tanks from blowing themselves up,\u201d he told me. \u201cIt was something to see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Davidson and others who fought for Milley remember him as ceaselessly aggressive. \u201cWe\u2019re rolling down a street and we knew we were going to get hit\u2014the street just went deserted\u2014and bam<\/em>, smack<\/em>, a round explodes to our right,\u201d Davidson said. \u201cEverything goes black, the windshield splinters in front of us, one of our gunners took a chunk of shrapnel. We bailed out and Milley says, \u2018Oh, you want a fight? Let\u2019s fight.\u2019 We started hunting down bad guys. Milley sends one Humvee back with the wounded, and then we\u2019re kicking doors down.\u201d At another point, Davidson said, \u201che wanted to start a fight in this particular area north of the city, farm fields mixed with little hamlets. And so we moved to the middle of this field, just circled the wagons and waited to draw fire. He was brought up in a school of thought that says a commander who conducts command-and-control from a fixed command post is isolated in many regards. He was in the battle space almost every day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once, when the commanding general of the 10th Mountain Division, Lloyd Austin\u2014now the secretary of defense\u2014was visiting Baghdad, Milley took him on a tour of the city. Milley, Austin, and Davidson were in a Humvee when it was hit.Milley found himself in a disconcerting situation: trying, and failing, to teach President Trump the difference between appropriate battlefield aggressiveness and war crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMark has the gift of gab. I don\u2019t remember what he was talking about, but he was talking when there was an explosion. Our second vehicle got hit. Austin\u2019s window shattered, but we didn\u2019t stop; we punched through,\u201d Davidson said. \u201cWedged into Austin\u2019s door was this four-inch chunk of shrapnel. If it had breached the door seam, it would have taken Austin\u2019s head clean off. It was a \u2018Holy shit, we almost got the commanding general killed\u2019 type of situation. That wouldn\u2019t have gone well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(When I mentioned this incident recently to Austin, he said, \u201cI thought that was Mark trying to kill his boss.\u201d That\u2019s an elaborate way to kill the boss, I said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to make it look credible,\u201d Austin answered, smiling.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dunford, Milley\u2019s predecessor as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was the four-star commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan in 2013 when Milley, by then a three-star general, came to serve as the international joint commander of all ground forces in the country. He describes Milley as ambitious and creative. \u201cHe was very forward-leaning, and he set the bar very high for himself and others,\u201d Dunford told me. \u201cHe puts a lot of pressure on himself to perform. There\u2019s just a level of ambition and aggressiveness there. It would be hard for me to imagine that someone could have accomplished as much as he did in the role. Hockey was the right sport for him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Family
Clockwise from top left<\/em>: In the late \u201990s, Milley (seated on truck<\/em>) served in the 2nd Infantry Division in South Korea, the forward line against a North Korean invasion. Returning home to Fort Ord, California, after the invasion of Panama, January 1990. Milley speaks to members of the 10th Mountain Division\u2019s 2nd Brigade Combat Team, which he commanded, in Iraq in 2005. In 1994, Milley helped coordinate the U.S. occupation of northern Haiti. (Courtesy of the Milley family)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Soon after becoming <\/strong>chairman, <\/strong>Milley found himself in a disconcerting situation: trying, and failing, to teach President Trump the difference between appropriate battlefield aggressiveness on the one hand, and war crimes on the other. In November 2019, Trump decided to intervene in three different cases that had been working their way through the military justice system. In the most infamous case, the Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher had been found guilty of posing with the corpse of an Islamic State prisoner<\/a>. Though Gallagher was found not guilty of murder, witnesses testified that he\u2019d stabbed the prisoner in the neck with a hunting knife. (Gallagher\u2019s nickname was \u201cBlade.\u201d) In an extraordinary move, Trump reversed the Navy\u2019s decision<\/a> to demote him in rank. Trump also pardoned a junior Army officer<\/a>, Clint Lorance, convicted of second-\u00addegree murder for ordering soldiers to shoot three unarmed Afghans<\/a>, two of whom died. In the third case, a Green Beret named Mathew Golsteyn was accused of killing an unarmed Afghan<\/a> he suspected was a bomb maker for the Taliban and then covering up the killing. At a rally in Florida that month, Trump boasted<\/a>, \u201cI stuck up for three great warriors against the deep state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president\u2019s intervention included a decision that Gallagher should be allowed to keep his Trident insignia, which is worn by all SEALs in good standing. The pin features an anchor and an eagle holding a flintlock pistol while sitting atop a horizontal trident. It is one of the most coveted insignia in the entire U.S. military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This particular intervention was onerous for the Navy, because by tradition only a commanding officer or a group of SEALs on a Trident Review Board are meant to decide if one of their own is unworthy of being a SEAL. Late one night, on Air Force One, Milley tried to convince Trump that his intrusion was damaging Navy morale. They were flying from Washington to Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware, to attend a \u201cdignified transfer,\u201d the repatriation ceremony for fallen service members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMr. President,\u201d Milley said, \u201cyou have to understand that the SEALs are a tribe within a larger tribe, the Navy. And it\u2019s up to them to figure out what to do with Gallagher. You don\u2019t want to intervene. This is up to the tribe. They have their own rules that they follow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump called Gallagher a hero and said he didn\u2019t understand why he was being punished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause he slit the throat of a wounded prisoner,\u201d Milley said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe guy was going to die anyway,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milley answered, \u201cMr. President, we have military ethics and laws about what happens in battle. We can\u2019t do that kind of thing. It\u2019s a war crime.\u201d Trump answered that he didn\u2019t understand \u201cthe big deal.\u201d He went on, \u201cYou guys\u201d\u2014meaning combat soldiers\u2014\u201care all just killers. What\u2019s the difference?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At which point a frustrated Milley summoned one of his aides, a combat-veteran SEAL officer, to the president\u2019s Air Force One office. Milley took hold of the Trident pin on the SEAL\u2019s chest and asked him to describe its importance. The aide explained to Trump that, by tradition, only SEALs can decide, based on assessments of competence and character, whether one of their own should lose his pin. But the president\u2019s mind was not changed. Gallagher kept his pin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I asked Milley about these incidents, he explained his larger views about behavior in combat. \u201cYou have accidents that occur, and innocent people get killed in warfare,\u201d he said. \u201cThen you have the intentional breaking of the rules of war that occurs in part because of the psychological and moral degradation that occurs to all human beings who participate in combat. It takes an awful lot of moral and physical discipline to prevent you or your unit from going down that path of degradation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll use Gallagher as an example. He\u2019s a tough guy, a tough, hard Navy SEAL. Saw a lot of combat. There\u2019s a little bit of a \u2018There but for the grace of God go I\u2019 feeling in all of this. What happened to Gallagher can happen to many human beings.\u201d Milley told me about a book given to him by a friend, Aviv Kochavi, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces. The book, by an American academic named Christopher Browning, is called Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great book,\u201d Milley said. \u201cIt\u2019s about these average police officers from Hamburg who get drafted, become a police battalion that follows the Wehrmacht into Poland, and wind up slaughtering Jews and committing genocide. They just devolve into barbaric acts. It\u2019s about moral degradation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During Milley\u2019s time in the Trump administration, the disagreements and misunderstandings between the Pentagon and the White House all seemed to follow the same pattern: The president\u2014who was incapable of understanding or unwilling to understand the aspirations and rules that guide the military\u2014would continually try to politicize an apolitical institution. This conflict reached its nadir with the Lafayette Square incident in June 2020. The day when Milley appeared in uniform by the president\u2019s side, heading into the square, has been studied endlessly. What is clear is that Milley (and Mark Esper) walked into an ambush, and Milley extracted himself as soon as he could, which was too late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The image of a general in combat fatigues walking with a president who has a well-known affection for the Insurrection Act\u2014the 1807 law that allows presidents to deploy the military to put down domestic riots and rebellions\u2014caused consternation and anger across the senior-officer ranks, and among retired military leaders.\u201cI absolutely, positively shouldn\u2019t have been there,\u201d Milley says of Lafayette Square. \u201cI\u2019m a soldier, and fundamental to this republic is for the military to stay out of politics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just about ended my friendship with Mark over Lafayette Square,\u201d General Peter Chiarelli, the now-retired former vice chief of staff of the Army, told me. Chiarelli was once Milley\u2019s superior, and he considered him to be among his closest friends. \u201cI watched him in uniform, watched the whole thing play out, and I was pissed. I wrote an editorial about the proper role of the military that was very critical of Mark, and I was about to send it, and my wife said, \u2018You really want to do that\u2014end a treasured friendship\u2014\u00adlike this?\u2019 She said I should send it to him instead, and of course she was right.\u201d When they spoke, Milley made no excuses, but said it had not been his intention to look as if he was doing Trump\u2019s bidding. Milley explained the events of the day to Chiarelli: He was at FBI headquarters, and had been planning to visit National Guardsmen stationed near the White House when he was summoned to the Oval Office. Once he arrived, Trump signaled to everyone present that they were heading outside. Ivanka Trump found a Bible and they were on their way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a commissioned officer, I have a duty to ensure that the military stays out of politics,\u201d Milley told me. \u201cThis was a political act, a political event. I didn\u2019t realize it at the moment. I probably should have, but I didn\u2019t, until the event was well on its way. I peeled off before the church, but we\u2019re already a minute or two into this thing, and it was clear to me that it was a political event, and I was in uniform. I absolutely, positively shouldn\u2019t have been there. The political people, the president and others, can do whatever they want. But I can\u2019t. I\u2019m a soldier, and fundamental to this republic is for the military to stay out of politics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump, inflamed by the sight of protesters so close to the White House, had been behaving especially erratically. \u201cYou are losers!\u201d the president screamed at Cabinet members and other top officials at one point. \u201cYou are all fucking losers!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Esper, Trump desperately wanted a violent response to the protesters<\/a>, asking, \u201cCan\u2019t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?\u201d When I raised this with Milley, he explained, somewhat obliquely, how he would manage the president\u2019s eruptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a rhetorical question,\u201d Milley explained. \u201c\u200a\u2018Can\u2019t you just shoot them in the legs?\u2019\u200a\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe never actually ordered you to shoot anyone in the legs?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight. This could be interpreted many, many different ways,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milley and others around Trump used different methods to handle the unstable president. \u201cYou can judge my success or failure on this, but I always tried to use persuasion with the president, not undermine or go around him or slow-roll,\u201d Milley told me. \u201cI would present my argument to him. The president makes decisions, and if the president ordered us to do X, Y, or Z and it was legal, we would do it. If it\u2019s not legal, it\u2019s my job to say it\u2019s illegal, and here\u2019s why it\u2019s illegal. I would emphasize cost and risk of the various courses of action. My job, then and now, is to let the president know what the course of action could be, let them know what the cost is, what the risks and benefits are. And then make a recommendation. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve done under both presidents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He went on to say, \u201cPresident Trump never ordered me to tell the military to do something illegal. He never did that. I think that\u2019s an important point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were discussing the Lafayette Square incident while at Quarters Six, the chairman\u2019s home on Generals\u2019 Row at Fort Myer, in Arlington, Virginia, across the Potomac from the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Capitol. Next door to Quarters Six was the home of the Air Force chief of staff, General Charles Q. Brown Jr., who is slated to become the next chairman. Generals\u2019 Row was built on land seized by the Union from Robert E. Lee\u2019s plantation. It is a good place to hold a discussion about the relationship between a democracy and its standing army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tried to ask Milley why Lafayette Square had caught him off guard, given all that he had seen and learned already. Only a few weeks earlier, Trump had declared to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a meeting about China, that the \u201cgreat U.S. military isn\u2019t as capable as you think.\u201d After the meeting, Milley spoke with the chiefs, who were angry and flustered by the president\u2019s behavior. (Esper writes in his memoir, A Sacred Oath<\/em><\/a>, that one member of the Joint Chiefs began studying the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, which can be used to remove an unfit president.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWeren\u2019t you aware that Trump\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t aware that this was going to be a political event.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tacked. \u201cWere you aware that this was\u201d\u2014I paused, searching for an artful term\u2014\u201can unusual administration?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll reserve comment on that,\u201d Milley responded. \u201cI think there were certainly plenty of warnings and indicators that others might say in hindsight were there. But for me, I\u2019m a soldier, and my task is to follow lawful orders and maintain good order and discipline in the force.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou didn\u2019t have situational awareness?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt that moment, I didn\u2019t realize that there was a highly charged piece of political stagecraft going on, if you will. And when I did, I peeled off.\u201d (That evening, Lieutenant General McMaster texted Milley the well-known meme of Homer Simpson disappearing into a hedge.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lesson, Milley said, was that he had to pay more attention. \u201cI had to double down on ensuring that I personally\u2014and that the uniformed military\u2014that we all stayed clear of any political acts or anything that could be implied as being involved in politics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The week after Lafayette Square, Milley made his apology in the National Defense University speech\u2014a speech that helped repair his relationship with the officer corps but destroyed his relationship with Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are different gradients of what is bad. The really bad days are when people get killed in combat,\u201d Milley told me. \u201cBut those 90 seconds were clearly a low point from a personal and professional standpoint for me, over the course of 43, 44 years of service. They were searing. It was a bad moment for me because it struck at the heart of the credibility of the institution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chasm dividing Milley and Trump on matters of personal honor became obvious after Lafayette Square. In a statement, referring to Milley\u2019s apology, Trump said of the chairman, \u201cI saw at that moment he had no courage or skill.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milley viewed it differently. \u201cApologies are demonstrations of strength,\u201d Milley told me. \u201cThere\u2019s a whole concept of redemption in Western philosophy. It\u2019s part and parcel of our philosophy, the Western religious tradition\u2014the idea that human beings are fallible, that we sin and that we make mistakes and that when you do so you own the mistake, you admit it, and then you learn from that mistake and take corrective action and move on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For his part, General Chiarelli concluded that his friend had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Quoting Peter Feaver, an academic expert on civil-military relations, Chiarelli said, \u201cYou have to judge Mark like you judge Olympic divers\u2014by the difficulty of the dive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That summer, Milley visited Chiarelli in Washington State and, over breakfast, described what he thought was coming next. \u201cIt was unbelievable. This is August 2, and he laid out in specific detail what his concerns were between August and Inauguration Day. He identified one of his biggest concerns as January 6,\u201d the day the Senate was to meet to certify the election. \u201cIt was almost like a crystal ball.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chiarelli said that Milley told him it was possible, based on his observations of the president and his advisers, that they would not accept an Election Day loss. Specifically, Milley worried that Trump would trigger a war\u2014an \u201cOctober surprise\u201d\u00ad\u2014to create chaotic conditions in the lead-up to the election. Chiarelli mentioned the continuous skirmishes inside the White House between those who were seeking to attack Iran, ostensibly over its nuclear program, and those, like Milley, who could not justify a large-scale preemptive strike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the crucial period after his road-to-Damascus conversion, Milley set several goals for himself: keep the U.S. out of reckless, unnecessary wars overseas; maintain the military\u2019s integrity, and his own; and prevent the administration from using the military against the American people. He told uniformed and civilian officials that the military would play no part in any attempt by Trump to illegally remain in office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The desire on the part of Trump and his loyalists to utilize the Insurrection Act was unabating. Stephen Miller, the Trump adviser whom Milley is said to have called \u201cRasputin,\u201d was vociferous on this point. Less than a week after George Floyd was murdered, Miller told Trump in an Oval Office meeting, \u201cMr. President, they are burning America down. Antifa, Black Lives Matter\u2014they\u2019re burning it down. You have an insurrection on your hands. Barbarians are at the gate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Woodward and Costa in Peril<\/em>, Milley responded, \u201cShut the fuck up, Steve.\u201d Then he turned to Trump. \u201cMr. President, they are not burning it down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I asked Milley to describe the evolution of his post\u2013Lafayette Square outlook. \u201cYou know this term teachable moment<\/em>\u200a<\/em>?\u201d he asked. \u201cEvery month thereafter I just did something publicly to continually remind the force about our responsibilities \u2026 What I\u2019m trying to do the entire summer, all the way up to today, is keep the military out of actual politics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He continued, \u201cWe stay out of domestic politics, period, full stop, not authorized, not permitted, illegal, immoral, unethical\u2014\u00ad\u00adwe don\u2019t do it.\u201d I asked if he ever worried about pockets of insurrectionists within the military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a very large organization\u20142.1 million people, active duty and reserves. Some of the people in the organization get outside the bounds of the law. We have that on occasion. We\u2019re a highly disciplined force dedicated to the protection of the Constitution and the American people \u2026 Are there one or two out there who have other thoughts in their mind? Maybe. But the system of discipline works.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you had no anxiety at all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf anything large-scale? Not at all. Not then, not now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the weeks before the election, Milley was a dervish of activity. He spent much of his time talking with American allies and adversaries, all worried about the stability of the United States. In what would become his most discussed move, first reported by Woodward and Costa, he called Chinese General Li Zuocheng, his People\u2019s Liberation Army counterpart, on October 30, after receiving intelligence that China believed Trump was going to order an attack. \u201cGeneral Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay,\u201d Milley said, according to Peril<\/em>. \u201cWe are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you. General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we\u2019re going to attack, I\u2019m going to call you ahead of time. It\u2019s not going to be a surprise \u2026 If there was a war or some kind of kinetic action between the United States and China, there\u2019s going to be a buildup, just like there has been always in history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milley later told the Senate Armed Services Committee<\/a> that this call, and a second one two days after the January 6 insurrection, represented an attempt to \u201cdeconflict military actions, manage crisis, and prevent war between great powers that are armed with the world\u2019s most deadliest weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The October call was endorsed by Secretary of Defense Esper, who was just days away from being fired by Trump. Esper\u2019s successor, Christopher Miller, had been informed of the January call. Listening in on the calls were at least 10 U.S. officials, including representatives of the State Department and the CIA. This did not prevent Trump partisans, and Trump himself, from calling Milley \u201ctreasonous\u201d for making the calls. (When news of the calls emerged, Miller condemned Milley for them\u2014even though he later conceded that he\u2019d been aware of the second one<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milley also spoke with lawmakers and media figures in the days leading up to the election, promising that the military would play no role in its outcome. In a call on the Saturday before Election Day, Milley told news anchors including George Stephan\u00adopoulos, Lester Holt, and Norah O\u2019Donnell that the military\u2019s role was to protect democracy, not undermine it. \u201cThe context was \u2018We know how fraught things are, and we have a sense of what might happen, and we\u2019re not going to let Trump do it,\u2019\u200a\u201d Stephanopoulos told me. \u201cHe was saying that the military was there to serve the country, and it was clear by implication that the military was not going to be part of a coup.\u201d It seemed, Stephanopoulos said, that Milley was \u201cdesperately trying not to politicize the military.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the election arrived, Milley\u2019s fear\u2014that the president would not accept the outcome\u2014came to pass. A few days later, when Acting Secretary Miller arrived at the Pentagon accompanied by a coterie of fellow Trump loyalists, including Kash Patel, senior officers in the building were unnerved. Patel has stated his conviction that the Pentagon is riddled with \u201cdeep state\u201d operatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few days after Esper\u2019s firing, Milley gave a Veterans Day speech, in the presence of Miller, to remind the armed forces\u2014and those who would manipulate them\u2014of their oath to the Constitution. The speech was delivered at the opening of the National Army Museum at Fort Belvoir, in Virginia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe motto of the United States Army for over 200 years, since 14 June 1775 \u2026 has been \u2018This we will defend,\u2019\u200a\u201d Milley said. \u201cAnd the \u2018this\u2019 refers to the Constitution and to protect the liberty of the American people. You see, we are unique among armies. We are unique among militaries. We do not take an oath to a king or queen, a tyrant or dictator. We do not take an oath to an individual. No, we do not take an oath to a country, a tribe, or religion. We take an oath to the Constitution \u2026 We will never turn our back on our duty to protect and defend the idea that is America, the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies, foreign and domestic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He closed with words from Thomas Paine: \u201cThese are times that try men\u2019s souls. And the summer soldier and the sunshine Patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of their country. But he who stands by it deserves the love of man and woman. For tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Miller followed Milley, his remarks betrayed a certain level of obliviousness; Milley\u2019s speech had sounded like a warning shot directed squarely at hard-core Trumpists like him. \u201cChairman, thanks for setting the bar very high for the new guy to come in and make a few words,\u201d Miller said. \u201cI think all I would say to your statements is \u2018Amen.\u2019 Well done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I asked Milley later if he\u2019d had Miller in mind when he gave that speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot at all,\u201d he said. \u201cMy audience was those in uniform. At this point, we are six days or so after the election. It was already contested, already controversial\u2014and I wanted to remind the uniformed military that our oath is to the Constitution and that we have no role to play in politics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He would remain a dervish until Inauguration Day: reassuring allies and cautioning adversaries; arguing against escalation with Iran<\/a>; reminding the Joint Chiefs and the National Military Command Center to be aware of unusual requests or demands; and keeping an eye on the activities of the men dispatched by Trump to lead the Pentagon after Esper was fired, men who Milley and others suspected were interested in using the military to advance Trump\u2019s efforts to remain president.\u201cI\u2019m not going to say whether I thought there was a civilian coup or not. I\u2019m going to leave that to the American people to determine, and a court of law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly after Esper was fired, Milley told both Patel and Ezra Cohen-Watnick<\/a>, another Trump loyalist sent to the Pentagon, that he would make sure they would see the world \u201cfrom behind bars\u201d if they did anything illegal to prevent Joe Biden from taking the oath of office on January 20. (Both men have denied being warned in this manner.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I asked Milley recently about his encounters with Trump\u2019s men. As is his on-the-record custom, he minimized the drama of those days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I said, \u201cYou literally warned political appointees that they would be punished if they engaged in treasonous activities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He responded: \u201cI didn\u2019t do that. Someone saying I did that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou warned Kash Patel and others that they were fucking around and shouldn\u2019t have been.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t warn anybody that I would hold them accountable for anything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou warned them that they would be held accountable for breaking the law or violating their oaths.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly, acquiescence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, sure, in conversation,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s my job to give advice, so I was advising people that we must follow the law. I give advice all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today Milley says, about Trump and his closest advisers, \u201cI\u2019m not going to say whether I thought there was a civilian coup or not. I\u2019m going to leave that to the American people to determine, and a court of law, and you\u2019re seeing that play out every day. All I\u2019m saying is that my duty as the senior officer of the United States military is to keep out of politics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is certain is that, when January 20 finally arrived, Milley exhaled. According to I Alone Can Fix It<\/em><\/a>, by the Washington Post<\/em> reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, when Michelle Obama asked Milley at the inauguration how he was doing, he replied: \u201cNo one has a bigger smile today than I do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The arrival of a new president did not mean an end to challenges for Milley, or the Pentagon. Attempts to enlist the military in America\u2019s zero-sum culture war only intensified. Elements of the hard right, for instance, would exploit manifestations of performative leftism\u2014a drag show on an Air Force base, for instance\u2014to argue that the military under Biden was hopelessly weak and \u201cwoke.\u201d (Never mind that this was the same military that Trump, while president, had declared the strongest in history.) And in an unprecedented act of interference in the normal functioning of the military, Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama has placed holds on the promotions of hundreds of senior officers to protest the Defense Department\u2019s abortion policies. The officers affected by the Tuberville holds do not make such policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An even more substantial blow to morale and force cohesion came late in the summer of 2021, when American forces were withdrawn from Afghanistan against the advice of Milley and most other senior military leaders. The withdrawal\u2014\u00adoriginally proposed by Trump, but ordered by Biden\u2014was criticized by many veterans and active-duty soldiers, and the damage was exacerbated by the callous manner in which Biden treated America\u2019s Afghan allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This summer, Milley and I visited the War Memorial of Korea, in Seoul, where Milley laid a wreath in front of a wall containing the names of hundreds of Massachusetts men killed in that war. I asked him about the end of America\u2019s war in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got three tours in Afghanistan,\u201d he said. \u201cI lost a lot of soldiers in Afghanistan, and for any of us who served there and saw a considerable amount of combat in Afghanistan, that war did not end the way any of us wanted it to end.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you consider it a loss?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it was a strategic failure,\u201d he answered, refusing to repeat the word I used. \u201cWhen the enemy you\u2019ve been fighting for 20 years captures the capital and unseats the government you\u2019re supporting, that cannot be called anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He continued, \u201cWe sunk a tremendous amount of resources, a tremendous amount of money and, most importantly, lives into helping the Afghan people and giving them hope for a better future. For 20 years we did that. And our primary goal for going there was to prevent al-Qaeda or any other terrorist organization from striking the United States ever again. That was the strategic promise President Bush made to the American people. And we have not, to date, been attacked from Afghanistan, so all the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines that served in Afghanistan should hold their heads high and should be proud of their contributions to American national security. But at the end of the day, the Taliban took the capital.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milley had recommended to Biden that the U.S. maintain a residual force of soldiers to buttress the American-allied government in Kabul. Biden, Milley said, listened to the military\u2019s advice, weighed it, and then chose another path. \u201cIt was a lawful order, and we carried out a lawful order,\u201d Milley said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, I asked him, did you think Afghanistan was winnable?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it would have been a sustainable level of effort over time,\u201d he answered. \u201cTake where we\u2019re at right now. We are still in Korea today, 70 years after the armistice was signed. When North Korea came across the border in the summer of 1950, the South Korean military was essentially a constabulary, and we had a limited number of advisers here. And then we reinforced very rapidly from our occupation forces in Japan, and then we fought the Korean War. So we ended up preventing North Korea from conquering South Korea, and that effort led to one of the most flourishing countries in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He went on to say, however, that he understood why leaders of both political parties, and a majority of Americans, wanted U.S. troops pulled out of Afghanistan. \u201cThese operations aren\u2019t sustainable without the will of the people,\u201d he said. \u201cWould I and every soldier who served there wish that there was a better outcome? Absolutely, yes, and to that extent, that\u2019s a regret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe end in Afghanistan didn\u2019t happen because of a couple of decisions in the last days,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was cumulative decisions over 20 years. The American people, as expressed in various polls, and two presidents of two different parties and the majority of members of Congress wanted us to withdraw\u2014and we did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the withdrawal from Afghanistan was a low, then a continuing high point for the Defense Department is its enormous effort to keep the Ukrainian army in the fight against Russia. Milley and Lloyd Austin, his former commander and Biden\u2019s secretary of defense, have created a useful partnership, particularly regarding Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two men could not be more unalike: Milley cannot stop talking, and Austin is loath to speak more than the minimum number of words necessary to get through the day. But they seem to trust each other, and they sought, after Austin\u2019s appointment, to bring stability back to the Pentagon. When I met Austin in his office in mid-September, he alluded to this common desire, and to the turbulence of the recent past. \u201cWe needed to make sure we had the relationship right and the swim lanes right\u2014who is responsible for what,\u201d he said. \u201cThe trust was there, so it was easy to work together to reestablish what we both knew should be the rules of the road.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The massive effort to equip, train, and provide intelligence to Ukrainian forces\u2014all while preventing the outbreak of direct warfare between the U.S. and Russia\u2014must be considered (provisionally, of course) a consequential achievement of the Austin-Milley team. \u201cWe\u2019ve provided Ukraine with its best chance of success in protecting its sovereign territory,\u201d Austin told me. \u201cWe\u2019ve pulled NATO together in a way that\u2019s not been done, ever. This requires a lot of work by the Department of Defense. If you look at what he and I do every month\u2014we\u2019re talking with ministers of defense and chiefs of defense every month\u2014it\u2019s extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milley has been less hawkish than some Biden-\u00adadministration officials on the war with Russia. But he agrees that Ukraine is now the main battlefield between authoritarianism and the democratic order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mark
Ashley Gilbertson \/ VII for The Atlantic<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWorld War II ended with the establishment of the rules-based international order. People often ridicule it\u2014they call it \u2018globalism\u2019 and so on\u2014but in fact, in my view, World War II was fought in order to establish a better peace,\u201d Milley told me. \u201cWe the Americans are the primary authors of the basic rules of the road\u2014and these rules are under stress, and they\u2019re fraying at the edges. That\u2019s why Ukraine is so important. President Putin has made a mockery of those rules. He\u2019s making a mockery of everything. He has assaulted the very first principle of the United Nations, which is that you can\u2019t tolerate wars of aggression and you can\u2019t allow large countries to attack small countries by military means. He is making a direct frontal assault on the rules that were written in 1945.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The magnitude of this assault requires a commensurate response, but with a vigilant eye toward the worst possible outcome, nuclear war. \u201cIt is incumbent upon all of us in positions of leadership to do the very best to maintain a sense of global stability,\u201d Milley told me. \u201cIf we don\u2019t, we\u2019re going to pay the butcher\u2019s bill. It will be horrific, worse than World War I, worse than World War II.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The close relationship between Milley and Austin may help explain one of Milley\u2019s missteps as chairman: his congressional testimony on the subject of critical race theory and \u201cwhite rage.\u201d In June 2021, both Milley and Austin were testifying before the House Armed Services Committee when Michael Waltz, a Republican representative from Florida (and, like Milley, a former Green Beret), asked Austin about a lecture given at West Point called \u201cUnderstanding Whiteness and White Rage.\u201d Austin said that the lecture sounded to him like \u201csomething that should not occur.\u201d A short while later, Milley provided his own, more expansive views. \u201cI want to understand white rage, and I\u2019m white<\/a>,\u201d he said. And then it seemed as if the anger he felt about the assault on the Capitol spilled out of its container. \u201cWhat is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America?\u201d he asked. \u201cWhat is wrong with having some situational understanding about the country for which we are here to defend?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These comments caused a new round of criticism of Milley in some senior military circles, including from generals who agreed with him but believed that this sort of commentary was the purview of the political echelon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colonel Ross Davidson, Milley\u2019s former operations officer, who was watching the hearing, told me he thinks Milley\u2019s contempt for the January 6 insurrectionists was not the only thing that motivated his testimony. Seeing Austin, the first Black secretary of defense and his friend, under sustained criticism led Milley, as Davidson describes it, to \u201cmove to the sound of the guns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s in his nature,\u201d Davidson said. \u201c\u200a\u2018Hey, man, my battle buddy Lloyd is being attacked.\u2019\u200a\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Austin defends Milley\u2019s statements: \u201cIn one instance, in one academic institution, a professor was exposing his students to this,\u201d he said, referring to critical race theory. \u201cIf you are familiar with all of our curriculum and what we do in our various schools and how we train leaders, it\u2019s kind of upsetting and insulting\u201d to suggest that the military has gone \u201cwoke.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I asked Milley recently about this episode, his answer was, predictably, lengthier, more caustic, and substantially more fervent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of discourse around whether it\u2019s a tough Army or a woke Army,\u201d he said, referring to commentary on right-wing news channels. \u201cHere\u2019s my answer: First of all, it\u2019s all bullshit. Second, these accusations are coming from people who don\u2019t know what they\u2019re talking about. They\u2019re doing it for political purposes. Our military wasn\u2019t woke 24 months ago, and now it\u2019s woke?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He continued, \u201cYou want woke? I\u2019ll give you woke. Here\u2019s what your military\u2019s doing: There are 5,000 sorties a day, including combat patrols protecting the U.S.A. and our interests around the world. At least 60 to 100 Navy warships are patrolling the seven seas, keeping the world free for ocean transport. We have 250,000 troops overseas, in 140 countries, defending the rules-based international order. We\u2019ve got kids training constantly. This military is trained, well equipped, well led, and focused on readiness. Our readiness statuses are at the highest levels they\u2019ve been in 20 years. So this idea of a woke military is total, utter, made-up bullshit. They are taking two or three incidents, single anecdotes, a drag show that is against DOD policy. I don\u2019t think these shows should be on bases, and neither does the secretary of defense or the chain of command.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This table-pounder of a speech prompted an obvious question: What will Milley say publicly once he\u2019s retired? Donald Trump is the presumptive favorite to win the Republican nomination for president, and Trump represents to Milley\u2014as numerous books, and my understanding of the man, strongly suggest\u2014an existential threat to American democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI won\u2019t speak up in politics. I won\u2019t. You can hold me to it,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to comment on elected officials. I\u2019ll comment on policies, which is my purview. I have a certain degree of expertise and experience that I think enable me to make rational contributions to conversations about complex topics about war and peace. To make personal comments on certain political leaders, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s my place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are exceptions that can be made under certain circumstances,\u201d he said. \u201cBut they\u2019re pretty rare.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is hard to imagine Milley restraining himself if Trump attacks him directly\u2014and it is as close to a sure thing as you can have in American politics that Trump will. At one point during his presidency, Trump proposed calling back to active duty two retired flag officers who had been critical of him, Admiral William McRaven and General Stanley McChrystal, so that they could be court-martialed. Mark Esper, who was the defense secretary at the time, says he and Milley had to talk Trump out of such a plan.Trump has already threatened officials he sees as disloyal with imprisonment, and there is little reason to imagine that he would not attempt to carry out his threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During one conversation at Quarters Six, Milley said, \u201cIf there\u2019s something we\u2019ve learned from history, it\u2019s that aggression left un\u00adanswered leads to more aggression.\u201d He was talking about Vladimir Putin, but I got the sense that he was talking about someone else as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Trump is reelected president, there will be no Espers or Milleys in his administration. Nor will there be any officials of the stature and independence of John Kelly, H. R. McMaster, or James Mattis. Trump and his allies have already threatened officials they see as disloyal with imprisonment, and there is little reason to imagine that he would not attempt to carry out his threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milley has told friends that he expects that if Trump returns to the White House, the newly elected president will come after him. \u201cHe\u2019ll start throwing people in jail, and I\u2019d be on the top of the list,\u201d he has said. But he\u2019s also told friends that he does not believe the country will reelect Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I asked him about this, he wouldn\u2019t answer directly, but when I asked him to describe his level of optimism about the country\u2019s future, he said: \u201cI have a lot of confidence in the general officer corps, and I have confidence in the American people. The United States of America is an extraordinarily resilient country, agile and flexible, and the inherent goodness of the American people is there. I\u2019ve always believed that, and I will go to my grave believing that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I pressed him: After all you\u2019ve been through, you believe that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are bumps in the road, to be sure, and you get through the bumps, but I don\u2019t want to overstate this. What did I do? All I did was try to preserve the integrity of the military and to keep the military out of domestic politics. That\u2019s all I did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These assertions will be debated for a long time. But it is fair to say that Milley came close to red lines that are meant to keep uniformed officers from participating in politics. It is also fair to say that no president has ever challenged the idea of competent civilian control in the manner of Donald Trump, and that no president has ever threatened the constitutional underpinnings of the American project in the manner Trump has. The apportion\u00adment of responsibility in the American system\u2014presidents give orders; the military carries them out\u2014works best when the president is sane. The preservation of a proper civil-military relationship is hugely important to democracy\u2014but so too is universal acceptance of the principle that political officials leave office when they lose legitimate elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Milley cedes the chairmanship, he also cedes Quarters Six. I visited him there on a number of occasions, and almost every time he walked me out onto the porch, he would look out theatri\u00adcally on the city before us\u2014on the Capitol that was sacked but not burned\u2014and say, \u201cRome hasn\u2019t fallen!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One time, though, he said, \u201cRome hasn\u2019t fallen\u2014yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

This article appears in the November 2023<\/a> print edition with the headline \u201cThe Patriot.\u201d <\/em>When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting <\/em>The Atlantic.<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeffrey Goldberg<\/a> is the editor in chief of The Atlantic <\/strong><\/em>and the moderator of Washington Week With The Atlantic<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The cover story in the November 2023 issue of The Atlantic is a revelation, except more like the Book of Revelations revealing the apocalypse. Prophecy of course has a purpose, and its not to show off psychic wares, but to warn, and point to a better direction. But first, a related diversion. The long-running series […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14907"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14907"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14924,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14907\/revisions\/14924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}