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Even if the downward spiral from Democracy to Caesarism is unstoppable, if you act too soon or too rashly (e.g. if Caesar took the crown from Antony and declared himself Rex, the Gracchi brothers holding on to the tribunate at all costs, etc.) you run the risk of the masses and the old elite uniting to tear you down. As such, if you want to seize power you must still occasionally demonstrate obsequious adherence to the rules while working to keep the bulk of the population on your side as you slowly push the Overton window in your preferred direction (for the record, I think Caesarism is bad and this would not be a good outcome).
Also, if you are using the fall of the Roman Republic as an example, the impact of the so-called Marian reforms (I am not qualified to engage in the ancient history nerds' argument about how much Marius is actually to blame) is fundamental, and has no US equivalent. The Roman Republic became vulnerable to military coups (of which Marius' re-election as consul was the first de facto and Sulla's was the first de jure, and which continued even under the Emperors) because the citizens' army (with military service linked to voting rights in the centuriate assembly) was replaced with a long-service professional army drawn from the proles, with legions which were in practice personally loyal to their generals.
The US armed forces swear their oaths to the Constitution. While there is considerable debate about whether the Constitution is living or dead, we all agree that even if alive it lacks the necessary skills to command troops. So if the downward spiral continues much further the question becomes "Who do the troops actually take orders from?" To pick a topical example, Col Meyers thinking she could get away with her insubordinate display in Greenland suggests that there is a broad consensus among the officer corps that an order by President Trump to launch a surprise attack on an ally would not be obeyed.
The Texas border standoffs were another example on the other side of the aisle. Quite literally, the Texan troops who took control of the border were technically US soldiers and the border patrol was not supposed to let them just do that.
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This is a common problem in many countries. Sometimes I think people living in failed states and dictatorships and banana republics have a better idea of how political power works than citizens of stable first world countries. People in first world countries tend to the think of the law and the constitution like the laws of physics, or a magic spell. You just say it and if it’s constitutional and legal it magically happens. People living in the more rickety countries are painfully aware that laws and political orders are something that various people have to actually carry out, and they aren’t always going to.
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FWIW, it remains an unsolved question to what extent the President can bypass the Congressional power to declare war by simply ordering a surprise attack.
Congress has notionally stuck by the War Powers Act, no President of either party has conceded its constitutionality. The courts would punt this as a political question.
So I really don't know -- officers swear an oath that puts them in an impossible place. Certainly the practice of the country for 50-60 years has been that the President can launch some amount of limited military action without Congress, but not larger actions.
Should be may. Regardless of what the Constitution says or means, the President can do that if and only if the armed forces will reliably obey the order, which was what I was thinking about.
If the political feelings of the officer corps were such that the armed forces would reliably obey an order to launch a surprise invasion of Greenland, I suspect Meyers would not have done what she did.
The political feelings of the officer corps reflect, I think, the ambiguity of the situation.
They aren’t independent here in the way you suggest.
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