Majority of US Troops Surveyed Say They’re Aware of Their Duty to Not Follow Illegal Orders

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With his August 11, 2025, he announced that he was sending the National Guard – as well as the Federal Laws – to Washington, DC to fight crime, President Donald Trump has brought US US troops together with the type of civilian military confrontations that could cross ethical and legal lines.

Indeed, since Trump came into office, many of his actions alarmed international human rights observers. His administration expelled immigrants without regular procedure, held prisoners in inhuman conditions, threatened the forced withdrawal of the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and deployed both the National Guard and the federal military troops in Los Angeles to conduct largely peaceful demonstrations.

When a chief commander authorizes acts like these, which many affirm are clear violations of the law, men and women in uniform are confronted with an ethical dilemma: how should they respond to an order they believe that he is illegal?

The question can already affect morale of the troops. “The moral injuries of this operation, I think, will be durable,” said a member of the National Guard who had been deployed to repress public disorders on immigration arrests in Los Angeles in New York Times. “This is not at all what the soldiers of our country were designed.”

The troops which are ordered to do something illegal are put in place – so much so that some argue that the troops themselves are injured when they are given such orders. They are not trained in legal nuances and they are conditioned to obey. However, if they obey “obviously illegal” orders, they can be prosecuted. Some analysts fear that American troops be poorly equipped to recognize this threshold.

We are scholars of international relations and international law. We have conducted investigations at the University of Massachusetts at the Human Security Laboratory of Amherst and discovered that many soldiers include the distinction between legal and illegal orders, the obligation to disobey certain orders and, when they should do so.

Forced to disobey

The American soldiers take an oath to maintain the constitution. In addition, under article 92 of the uniform military justice code and the American manual for martial courts, members of the service must obey legitimate orders and disobey illegal ordinances. The illegal orders are those that clearly violate the American Constitution, international human rights standards or Geneva conventions.

Members of the service following an illegal prescription can be held responsible and martials in court or subject to prosecution by international courts. Following the orders of a superior is not a defense.

Our survey, aligned between June 13 and June 30, 2025, shows that members of the service include these rules. Of the 818 troops in active service that we interviewed, only 9% said they “would obey any order”. Only 9% “did not know” and only 2% had “no comments”.

When they were asked to describe illegal orders in their own words, about 25% of respondents wrote on their duty to disobey the orders that were “obviously bad”, “obviously criminal” or “obviously unconstitutional”.

8% additional spoke of immoral orders. A defendant wrote that “orders that clearly break international law, such as the targeting of non -combatants, are not only illegal – they are immoral. As military staff, we have a duty to respect the law and refuse commandments that betray this obligation. ”

Just over 40% of respondents listed specific examples of orders that they would feel forced to disobey.

The response no longer common, no longer common, cited by 26% of those questioned, was to “harm civilians”, while 15% of respondents gave a variety of other examples of duty and law violations, such as “torturing prisoners” and “harm American troops”.

One wrote that “an order would obviously be illegal if it involved harming civilians, using torture, targeting people according to identity or punishing others without legal process.”

Soldiers, not lawyers

But the open responses underlined another struggle with which the troops are faced: some no longer trust American law as useful advice.

Writing in their own words on how they experienced an illegal order when they saw it, more troops have stressed international law as a norm of illegality than to underline American law.

Others have suggested that acts that are illegal under international law could become legal in the United States

“Trump will issue illegal orders,” wrote a defendant. “The new laws will allow it,” wrote another. A third wrote: “We are not required to obey these laws.”

Several have underlined the American political situation directly in their remarks, declaring that they would disobey “oppression or to harm us to civilians who clearly go against the Constitution” or to an order for “the use of the military to carry out deportations”.

However, the percentage of respondents who declared to disobey specific orders – such as torture – is less than the percentage of respondents who recognized the responsibility of disobeying in general.

It is not surprising: the troops are formed to obey and face many social, psychological and institutional pressures to do so. On the other hand, most troops receive relatively little training in the laws of war or the law of human rights.

The political scientists have however found that having information on international law affects attitudes as to the use of force among the general public. This can also affect decision -making by military personnel.

This observation was also confirmed in our survey.

When we explicitly reminded the troops that the civilian shooting was a violation of international law, their will to disobey increased 8 percentage points.

Line

As my research with another scholar has shown in 2020, even thinking of the law and morality can make a difference in opposition to certain war crimes.

The preliminary results of our survey led to a similar conclusion. The troops who answered questions about “obviously illegal orders” before they were asked questions about specific scenarios, it was much more likely to say that they would refuse these specific illegal orders.

When they were asked if they would follow an order to drop a nuclear bomb in a civilian city, for example, 69% of the troops who received this question first declared that they would obey order.

But when the respondents were invited to reflect and comment on the obligation to disobey illegal orders before they are asked if they follow the bombing order, the percentage which would obey order fell from 13 points to 56%.

While many troops have declared that they could obey questionable orders, the large number which would not be remarkable.

Military culture makes disobedience difficult: soldiers can be in court martial for obeying an illegal order or to disobey a legal order.

However, between a third and half of the American troops that we interviewed would be willing to disobey if it was ordered to shoot or hunger civilians, torture prisoners or drop a nuclear bomb on a city.

The members of the service have described the methods they would use. Some would directly face their superiors. Others have imagined indirect methods: asking questions, creating diversions, going to awol, “becoming violently ill”.

The criminologist Eva Whitehead looked for real cases of disobedience to the troops of illegal orders and found that when some troops disobey – even indirectly – others can find the courage to do the same more easily.

Whitehead’s research has shown that those who refuse to follow illegal or immoral orders are more effective when they openly defend their actions.

The initial results of our survey – associated with a recent peak in the Hotline of the GI rights Hotline suggest that American men and women in uniform do not want to obey illegal orders.

Some stand up loudly. Many are thinking about what they could do if they are faced with illegal orders. And those we interviewed are looking for councils of the Constitution and international law to determine where they may have to draw this line.

Zahra Morashi, undergraduate research assistant at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, contributed to the search for this article.