Foreign Policy Research Institute A Nation Must Think Before it Acts Assessing Civil-Military Relations and the January 6th Capitol Insurrection
Assessing Civil-Military Relations and the January 6th Capitol Insurrection

Assessing Civil-Military Relations and the January 6th Capitol Insurrection

Access the Summer 2021 issue of Orbis here.

Abstract

The events of January 6, 2021, when violent rioters attacked the Capitol building in Washington in order to disrupt validation of the 2020 presidential election, forced an unprecedented reckoning with the state of American politics. Members of Congress struggled to account for the rhetoric that gave rise to the event; law enforcement grappled with the challenge of holding accountable those who perpetrated the violence; and journalistic outlets wrestled with reporting a complex web of conspiracy theories and disinformation that gave rise to the insurrection. But for senior military leaders, the question was how to explain the troubling presence of active duty servicemembers and veterans in the first attack on the American seat of government in two centuries. The result is a profound and urgent discussion in U.S. civil-military relations.

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