Sharing this recent podcast by me on how civil-military relations (ideally) should work in liberal democracies.

See here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsma...

NYT reporting today that the admin. is planning to use the U.S. military ag/ cartels. This has actually been in the works for awhile as I argued in this Foreign Affairs piece from April.

It's part of what I see as an effort to politicize the military and transform it into a partisan force. 1/

Tunisia is obviously not the U.S. (where I think current senior leaders are committed to the Constitution & democracy). But the case shows how ostensibly "apolitical," professional militaries can abet presidential orders to close down the legislature. The Tunisian military did so in 2021.

A case in point: the atrocious treatment of General Brown during his confirmation as Chairman.

Firing allegedly "woke" & incompetent generals has been a recurrent theme in T's public comments (alongside regrets he didn't invoke the Insurrection Act in June 2020 & deploy the military ag/protests).

There likely will be a partisan litmus-test for promotion/appointment at senior levels.

Here is a link to a large public lecture I gave recently. Lots of global examples and a bunch from the U.S.
Screenshot below. Link to lecture on YouTube here (starts at about 10 min.): www.youtube.com/live/D2gHw_W...

The effort to sow doubt in the country's military leadership continues.