Who Decides Who Is a ‘Domestic Enemy’? – By Professor James Joyner (Defense One) / Aug 13 2020
The short answer: not the Joint Chiefs chairman. The longer answer is more interesting.
Retired soldiers John Nagl and Paul Yingling, who came to national prominence on opposite sides of the counterinsurgency debates, joined forces to argue that, if Donald Trump were to lose the election and yet refuse to leave office at noon next January 20, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs must give the order to have him removed by military force. Kori Schake and Jim Golby, two of our leading experts on civil-military relations, ably explained why this is wrong on many levels.
While this was far from Nagl and Yingling’s best work, they have nonetheless done us a service in kicking off a tendentious debate. They raise some difficult questions and it is far better to come to a consensus on the answers now while they are theoretical rather than waiting for a fait accompli.
What is a domestic enemy? Nagl and Yingling begin their plea by referring to the oath taken by all commissioned officers to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” When Congress added that phrase to the oath of office in 1861, they were responding to an ongoing rebellion by the Southern states.
One can find well-meaning people making the case that all manner of forces and any number of their fellow citizens constitute a domestic enemy to the Constitution. For example, an Air Force colonel argued in 2013 that “perpetrators of sexual assault and harassment” within the military were domestic enemies because they “revolt against civil authority by committing criminal acts against other members of our service.” That is by no means the silliest example out there.
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