As his first official act, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revoked retired Gen. Mark A. Milley’s security detail, suspended his security clearance, and launched an inspector general inquiry into his tenure as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. During his confirmation process, Hegseth preached “military lethality” as his sole mission. This brazen act of political retribution makes a mockery of that so-called mission.

But Hegseth was merely following orders. Because Trump is launching his Trumpification of America by making an example of Milley to keep all military officers in line. Ominously, he’s aping how Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his Putinization of Russia — by arresting, persecuting, and jailing oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Trump using Putin’s playbook for dictatorship

I’ve written too many commentaries on the Putinization of Russia to count. Suffice it to say that Putin orchestrated the arrest of Khodorkovsky, then Russia’s wealthiest man and head of the Yukos oil company, on trumped-up charges of fraud and tax evasion. But Khodorkovsky’s real crime was challenging Putin’s political authority by funding the opposition. His arrest sent a clear warning to Russian Oligarchs: stay in your lane, or end up in jail or worse.

Incidentally, Putin grew up a poor military officer. That might explain why he felt he had more to fear from rich Oligarchs. Whereas Trump grew up a rich draft dodger. That might explain why he feels he has more to fear from military officers.

In any event, American Oligarchs are too busy groveling for Trump’s favor to pose a threat. Military officers, however, are proving far less obsequious. That’s why the way Trump is treating Gen. Milley is straight out of Putin’s playbook.

Mind you, no military officer has criticized any commander-in-chief as harshly as Milley has criticized Trump. Granted, no commander-in-chief has given any military officer just cause to denounce him follows:

He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions … but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country.

— The Hill, October 11, 2024

By targeting Milley, Trump is sending a clear message: salute smartly and serve silently — or suffer his fate.

The artful dodger stealing valor by demoting a decorated general

The irony here is almost too brazen for words. Trump infamously dodged the Vietnam War draft by complaining about bone spurs. Yet his improbable election as commander-in-chief has him now exacting petty revenge against one of the most decorated military officers in US history.

Unsurprisingly, he’s still too cowardly to face Milley. Instead, Trump ordered his drunk, spousal-abusing, sycophantic, DEI (didn’t earn it) defense secretary to do his dirty work. Secretary Hegseth has framed his attack on Milley as part of an effort to “restore warfighter culture” in the Pentagon. But that’s just code for purging military leaders who fail to show blind loyalty to Trump.

After all, Milley is a decorated combat veteran who embodies that culture. Thus, Hegseth’s attack is more Trumpian projection than military prosecution.

Frankly, stripping Milley of his security detail, removing his portraits from the Pentagon, and publicly humiliating him reek of the very wannabe dictator behavior Milley warned about in his famous farewell address, which included this rallying cry:

‘We are unique among the world’s militaries,’ Milley said. ‘We don’t take an oath to a country, we don’t take an oath to a tribe, we don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,’ he spat. ‘We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America – and we’re willing to die to protect it.’

Trump’s threats of court-martial courting a coup

Trump may think targeting Milley will instill fear in rank-and-file members of the military, so much so that they will be as solicitors to do his bidding as broligarchs like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. However, he might find that he has more to fear from an American Claus von Stauffenberg than from the misguided fanatics who attempted to assassinate him last year. Of course, von Stauffenberg was the German military officer who led the infamous attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944.

Frankly, Trump has given American military officers every reason to be as disillusioned with his authoritarian streak as von Stauffenberg was with Hitler’s. After all, these career officers spent decades defending American democracy, only to watch their commander-in-chief punish a top general for prioritizing national security over loyalty to him.

So no one should be shocked if a military officer decides to save America from him, too. Because history teaches that the line between loyalty and rebellion is often as thin as the line between love and hate.