From Check to Complicity?
A Soldier’s Guide for Serving (or Stepping Away) in Times of Democratic Backsliding.
By Isaiah (Ike) Wilson III
A few nights nights ago, after a three-hour “Salon” with former students I mentored from cadet to mid-career officer, one asked to stay on the Zoom.
His question hit like a rucksack: “Sir, do you think I’m complicit in democratic backsliding by staying in the ranks as a Reserve officer?”
I saw the pain in his face—and recognized it as a generational dilemma.
That question—when does continued service stop acting as a check on illiberal drift and start enabling it?—is the hardest one a professional officer can ask. It requires more than slogans about “staying to hold the line” or “resigning in protest.” It demands a principled method for judgment in gray zones.
The Oath, the Profession, and the Pressure
American officers swear an oath to the Constitution—not a party or person.
The profession of arms rests on apolitical competence, candor, and subordination to civilian authority within constitutional bounds. In polarized environments, those basics are strained. Self-censorship creeps in. Doctrine is trimmed to fit narratives. Professional Military Education bends to flatter power. The line between lawful and legitimate blurs.
Remaining can still be noble—shielding subordinates, preserving standards, and preventing worse outcomes.
Remaining can also slide into rationalization and, eventually, complicity.
The difference isn’t how loudly one denounces politics; it’s whether one’s presence helps preserve constitutional integrity—or helps mask its erosion.
Why History Should Make Us Wary
History is a stern instructor.
Weimar-era officers told themselves they were preserving professionalism, then watched silence become scaffolding for authoritarianism. In Chile’s 1973 crisis, officers rationalized loyalty to the government of the day and became instruments of a coup that ended democracy. In our own history, moments in Vietnam and Iraq showed how euphemism and quiet acquiescence can prolong dysfunction and harm.
The lesson is not that today equals yesterday. It’s that “bending the knee” is never neutral.
In periods of backsliding, passivity is a position.
A Practical Test: Six Questions
Officers need a compact, workable test.
Here is a shortened version of the fuller checklist I give my mentees. If you are answering “yes” to several, you’re drifting from ‘check’ toward ‘complicity’:
Oath Fidelity: Am I prioritizing loyalty to leaders or factions over fidelity to the Constitution and law?
Professional Integrity: Have I adjusted standards, doctrine, or evaluations to serve partisan narratives rather than mission effectiveness?
Truth-Telling: Am I withholding professional judgment primarily out of fear for my career rather than prudence for the mission?
Legality vs. Legitimacy: Am I executing orders that are technically lawful yet clearly corrosive to democratic norms, public trust, or nonpartisanship?
Example & Effects: Am I modeling impartial service—or signaling to subordinates that success requires factional alignment and silence?
Exit Threshold: Does my continued presence still mitigate harm from within—or is it now used to legitimize illiberal behavior I would not defend in public?
These questions are not abstract ethics. They are operational diagnostics. They force clarity about what your service is actually serving.
Stay or Go? Red Lines and Realities
Staying can be principled when:
You can shield your people and enforce professional standards.
You can speak candidly up the chain and your counsel still matters.
Your presence measurably slows or blocks pressure to politicize the force.
You are building successors who will carry apolitical professionalism forward.
Leaving can be principled when:
Your uniformed presence is performatively displayed to legitimate illiberal actions.
Candor is consistently punished, your counsel neutered, standards bent for optics.
You are directed to enforce rules or actions that, while nominally lawful, normalize partisanship or target domestic opponents outside legitimate security aims.
Your continued service teaches the next generation that silence and factional loyalty are the path to advancement.
These thresholds are not about personal outrage. They are about institutional integrity.
Officers should define their red lines now, calmly, and privately, before the heat of the moment.
The Two-Sided COIN at Home
We face both external and internal threats.
Externally, gray-zone proxies, transnational networks, and imported tradecraft migrate “over-there to here”—probing ports, grids, and communities.
Internally, hyper-partisan tribalism risks tipping into vendetta-style political violence; simultaneously, illiberal, or authoritarian impulses can push government to stretch or weaponize institutions.
In that combustible triangle—street factions, state–federal confrontation, and selective administration—officers must be disciplined guardians of apolitical order, not carriers of anyone’s revolution or counter-revolution.
That means neutral security postures at civic events; transparent rules for election protection; joint state–federal channels that prevent “Federalism-at-war” dynamics; and a relentless commitment to fairness and restraint in the use of force.
Overseas, and in combat, I learned: you don’t shoot your way out of an insurgency; you out-legitimize it. The same lesson applies here at home.
If You Leave, Your Service Continues
Resignation, when warranted, is not abdication; it’s fidelity to the oath in a different uniform.
Republics are defended by teachers, journalists, election workers, state judges, veterans who lead with calm, and citizens who insist on decency.
If your calculus says you are more effective outside—advancing constitutionalism and civic trust—then step out with discipline and humility. And say why.
Counsel to My Mentee—and to You
If your continued presence still functions as a brake on politicization, stay—and stand tall.
But if your presence has become a mask that hides backsliding, it is no longer service. Take off the cloth and keep the oath.
We are not the first generation to face drift.
We may be the first in a while to face it at home with this speed and scale.
The remedy is the same one my mentors handed down to me decades ago: clear eyes, steady hands, and a conscience you can live with when the ribbons gather dust.
About the author: Isaiah (Ike) Wilson III, Ph.D., Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.), is a soldier-scholar and former President of the Joint Special Operations University. He led West Point’s American Politics, Policy, and Strategy program and currently advises on strategy, civil-military relations, and compound security. He writes Compound Security, Unlocked on Substack, and hosts the podcast, The Civic Brief.
Editor’s note: A longer version of this essay—including a full 10-question checklist and historical cases—appears on the author’s Substack.
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