Exactly one year ago today, I resigned my commission as a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy. For fourteen years, I had voluntarily accepted the standard bargain of military service that included signing away a substantial portion of my First Amendment rights. I reclaimed them just in time.
Upon entering civilian life with a decade of active-duty observations, I started writing more. Over the past twelve months, I contributed over twenty op-eds to The Fulcrum (in addition to being published by VoteVets, Slate, and The New York Times). The vast majority of my pieces have touched on national security or the military-connected community. Turns out, I have a lot to say. Also, there’s been no shortage of material.
We are currently observing a hostile takeover of the American armed forces. The Trump regime is deliberately engineering the military apparatus to enforce unquestioning obedience to the executive branch, attempting to transform the ranks into what I call a “brute squad of religiously motivated loyalists.” Concurrently, there is reason to believe Trump’s war in Iran is being extended simply to manipulate the markets and create a windfall of self-enrichment for the President and his friends, fundamentally compromising the integrity of military leadership. To accomplish these goals, the administration is actively working to suppress internal dissent and external oversight.
The scope of this effort is broad and alarming. President Trump has bypassed traditional Constitutional checks by committing service members to an ill-defined and illegal war of indefinite length with Iran, all while systematically weakening veteran services. Meanwhile, internal changes at the Pentagon include: the purging of women and people of color from leadership ranks, the restriction of independent press access, the gutting of civilian harm mitigation programs, the manipulation of casualty data, and the indoctrination of white Christian nationalist ideologies.
Perhaps most ominous is Defense Secretary Hegseth’s attacks on the Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps, or the military’s cadre of lawyers. He just announced a sweeping review of the military justice and legal system, intending to ensure “maximum lethality” rather than “tepid legality.” Given that legality is being framed as an obstacle, this is a highly precarious situation for the force, to say the least. Not every military officer gets a law degree in her free time. Putting the onus on the average service member in a fast-moving battlespace to decipher complex constitutional boundaries or evaluate lawfulness is an immense burden.
Evidently, Trump wants to disempower service members from questioning what is unlawful. In the past year, he tried to convince a Grand Jury to indict several veteran lawmakers after they posted a 90-second video reminding servicemembers of their legal obligation to refuse such orders. Trump called the video “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL,” branded the lawmakers “traitors,” demanded they be “ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL,” and called their actions “punishable by DEATH!” When the President is threatening sitting Congressmen executions for simply restating the law, what 18-year-old kid is prepared to actually challenge an order? A leader anticipating illegal activity may hope that the question is rhetorical. Fear and intimidation help secure compliance.
Even I, as a relatively anonymous veteran, have been advised countless times this past year, in response to my advocacy, to “be safe.” There is a pervasive, palpable anxiety that public criticism of the current administration–especially of its military policy–carries real personal danger. I recognize both the privilege and the danger that come with using my voice as a veteran to advocate for those still serving. And though I do not claim to represent the views of all servicemembers, nor will the entirety of the force agree with my analyses, my inbox has been filled with messages over the past year from active-duty personnel offering quiet thank yous.
Trump and Hegseth do not represent the views of all service members either. There are plenty of folks serving who wish they could quit, which might be why the number of military personnel inquiring about conscientious objection has risen by 1,000% since the start of the Iran war. Many joined for the promise of stability and upward mobility, and now they are stuck in an organization run by a draft dodger who “finds the notion of military service difficult to understand, and the idea of volunteering to serve especially incomprehensible” and keeps putting off making a deal with Iran, claiming he could fight forever, flippantly suggesting there will likely be more deaths while referring to fallen Americans as ‘losers’ and ‘suckers’. I will keep fighting for them, and for this republic.
Veteran voices are obviously critical to these conversations, but Trump and Hegseth are actively seeking to stifle them. As dozens of retired high-ranking military leaders warned in an amicus brief submitted by the Vet Voice Foundation, it could easily become “unclear what constitutional protection would remain for veterans wishing to express public disagreement with a present Administration…” We need backup. Unfortunately, a profound civilian-military divide has allowed the public to often overlook the structural vulnerabilities of the force. I empathize with those who have kept the military at arm’s length out of anti-war sentiment or otherwise, but we cannot afford to abandon the actual human beings within it now. Leaving vulnerable service members to navigate a lawless command structure alone may allow the military to be turned into a weapon against our own democracy.
An understanding between civilians and veterans could go a long way in strengthening the forces of reform anyway. Take healthcare reform or student debt cancellation. Because our volunteer military relies heavily on the “poverty draft,” where access to higher education, comprehensive medical care, and basic financial security is leveraged as a recruitment tool, robust civilian social safety nets would take away the best carrots the armed forces have to dangle. As a result, we cannot meaningfully discuss these domestic social policies without simultaneously analyzing how our military model relies on these structural inequities. When we talk about almost any issue facing this country, the state of the military-industrial complex is relevant.
Ultimately, we cannot separate the fate of the troops from the fate of our own domestic battles. If we let those who swore an oath to support the Constitution fall, what will be left? Let’s not find out.
If you are a veteran, you possess a unique credibility on these issues, and I hope you join me in leveraging it. But if you are a civilian, I hope you recognize that the subversion of the military threatens the architecture of our democracy and join us too. We could use your help.
There is a new call of duty now, and we must answer. Our voices will be louder together.
Julie Roland was a Naval Officer for ten years, deploying to both the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf as a helicopter pilot before separating in June 2025 as a Lieutenant Commander. She has a law degree from the University of San Diego, a Master of Laws from Columbia University, and is a member of the Truman National Security Project.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.