Imma up this from a comment about nukular kodes, w/ some mods: /// People imagine the relationship between the president and the JCS/etc to be very different than it is. It’s not POTUS: “Do this!” SECDEF: “OK, boss!” It’s (a) a set of established and adapting contingency plans and procedures coupled with (b) a laborious process of ongoing and sometimes intensifying consultation involving many people. In this context the president is given a limited range of ‘military’ options — “You can do X (which will take N weeks), Y (Nx2 weeks), or Z (N*3 weeks); A and B are off the table” — each of which involves the DoD, State, Intel, and many other agencies. Each has possible ramifications across the board, which other coordinating agencies need to plan for; all of these ramifications and contingencies need to be attended to before a big decision is made. So in that sense, ‘defying’ the president already has happened, or rather is in a continuous state of happening. This isn’t conspiratorial, it’s organizational, and largely based on logistics, coordination, contingency-planning in every field — which of course also masks a lot of bureaucratic intrigue under any circumstances. My guess is that, from the POV of the DOD, a key differences with Trump is that he’s the first person who might ‘defy’ them — or, more accurately, try to go outside of this structure — by causing a dispute and making it public. That threatens a grave breach of trust, and I expect there have been serious discussions going on in the DOD/etc about whether or how to apply entirely different branches of an established tree of command-structure options. ///