HyperTextHero: When not to obey orders

Linked List / April 2025

Andrew Milburn, former commanding officer of the Marine Raider Regiment and Combined Special Operations Task Force-Iraq, writing at War on The Rocks:

It may seem that the question of dissent in terms of loyalty to the Constitution is of academic importance to most officers, the vast majority of whom will never rise to the rank that will allow them to have a say in matters of policy. But whether obeying civilian masters or a military chain of command, the question of agency — of having an obligation to exercise your own moral judgment — remains the same.

It’s not a topic that fits well into the curriculum of any school — there is no handy acronym that will teach an officer when to disobey orders. Discussions on the subject tend to gravitate to a very binary focus: the differentiation between legal and illegal orders. As officer candidates, regardless of service, we learn that we have a duty to obey all orders that are not illegal, yet many of us learn that it’s not quite as simple as that.