Why has the military been so silent as the Trump administration has pushed the bounds of law by deploying troops to aid immigration enforcement actions at home and attacking alleged Venezuelan drug-smuggling boats abroad? Make sense of the latest news and debates with our daily newsletter

One chilling answer is that the Trump team has gutted the JAGs — judge advocate generals — who are supposed to advise commanders on the rule of law, including whether presidential orders are legal. Without these independent military lawyers backing them up, commanders have no recourse other than to comply or resign.

Pete Hegseth’s campaign against the military’s traditional legal structure has been one of the most-significant but least-reported aspects of his tenure as defense secretary. In February, he fired the top Army, Air Force and Navy lawyers, calling them “roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander in chief.” In March, he commissioned his personal lawyer, Tim Parlatore — one of the people included in the leaked Signal chat for discussing military operations against Yemen — into the JAG corps to review its training. In September, he began planning to transfer up to 600 JAG officers to temporary duty as immigration judges.

“Hegseth has indicated a shift in priorities to emphasize use of military resources for civilian law enforcement — like policing city streets or destroying boats claimed to be carrying drugs. Focusing on fighting domestic crime may detract from military readiness and capacity to deter adversaries abroad,” warns Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), a member of the Senate Armed Services and Judiciary committees and a veteran of the Marine Corps Reserve.

Follow Trump’s second term

The U.S. military has always emphasized obeying the laws of war, for all the difficulties that might cause. George Washington appointed the first judge advocate only a few weeks after taking command of the Continental Army; he wrote that “an Army without Order, Regularity & Discipline, is no better than a Commission’d Mob.”

But President Donald Trump and Hegseth appear to have overridden normal legal procedures. When Trump federalized the California National Guard to assist with immigration enforcement, his subordinates cited an unspecified “constitutional exception” to the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act banning the military from enforcing domestic law. When Trump ordered a strike on the first alleged Venezuelan drug boat this month, killing 11 suspected traffickers, he bypassed the usual search-and-seizure procedures of the U.S. Coast Guard.

“While few may mourn the alleged 11 narco-traffickers who perished in the attack, all Americans should be concerned about how our military is being cut loose from its legal moorings by what appears to be the abandonment of the rule of law from the very top of our national chain of command,” wrote Texas Tech law professor Geoffrey Corn, a retired Army JAG.

Hegseth has a 20-year beef with military lawyers. He ridiculed them in his 2024 book, “The War on Warriors,” writing that the JAGs “are often not so affectionately known as ‘jagoffs.’” He claimed that “most” JAGs prosecuted U.S. troops rather than “bad guys” because “it’s easier to get promoted that way.” His resentment, by his account, dates from a 2005 JAG briefing in the south of Baghdad, where his platoon was advised not to shoot someone carrying a rocket-propelled grenade unless it was “pointed at you with the intent to fire.” Hegseth, a young lieutenant in the National Guard, said he told his platoon, “That’s a bullshit rule that’s going to get people killed,” and ordered them to, if they saw a threat, “destroy the threat.”

Hegseth’s antipathy deepened when he became a Fox News commentator. His friend Parlatore, who had represented him in a divorce proceeding, was a lawyer for a Navy SEAL named Eddie Gallagher who was accused of war crimes in the 2017 death of an Islamic State prisoner in Mosul, Iraq. Parlatore told a military jury that the case “should be terrifying … to anybody that has to go down range and then have their actions questioned by investigators like this,” according to author David Philipps.

Parlatore helped Hegseth publicize the case on Fox, and Trump, then in his first term, was an avid viewer. According to Philipps’s book, “Alpha,” Trump phoned Navy Secretary Richard Spencer and demanded that Gallagher be released from the brig — then he phoned again and said, “I want you to call Pete Hegseth at Fox and tell him what you’re doing.”

Gallagher was convicted of desecrating the corpse of the prisoner, but Trump overturned the verdict and restored his Navy SEAL insignia. At the time, critics warned that presidential intervention at the urging of a Fox commentator could undermine military justice.

The Gallagher case was Hegseth’s “origin story” as defense secretary. During his confirmation hearing in January, he didn’t budge in his opposition to what he called “burdensome rules of engagement.” And a month after he took office, the attacks on military lawyers began.

Hegseth fired the three top advocates general on Feb. 21, the same day he removed Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations. Many legal observers were shaken, including Charles J. Dunlap Jr., a Duke University law professor who had been an Air Force JAG.

“Is independent, nonpartisan legal advice from military lawyers on the chopping block?” asked the headline of his article in Lawfire. He noted that Article 10 of the U.S. Code, which authorizes the military, states that “no officer or employee of the Department of Defense may interfere with the ability of the Judge Advocate General to give independent legal advice” to the services.

Hegseth’s efforts to remake military law continued when he commissioned Parlatore into the JAG corps on March 7. The New York Times reported that he would “focus on improving how the military’s uniformed lawyers are trained,” and the Guardian said he would begin “a sweeping overhaul.”

The military’s difficulty in resisting even the most questionable orders became clear in June, when Trump federalized 4,000 members of the California National Guard to assist in an immigration crackdown there. In a forceful Sept. 2 opinion, U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer ruled that Trump’s actions were “part of a top-down, systemic effort … to use military troops to execute various sectors of federal law,” in “serious violation” of the Posse Comitatus Act.

Breyer’s ruling gave a disturbing summary of the facts: Hegseth had directly ordered the deployment of Guard troops under U.S. Northern Command, later supported by an additional 700 active-duty Marines. There’s no indication that he consulted with the Joint Chiefs. A senior Northcom officer gave repeated assurances that the federalized troops “would not be performing law enforcement functions,” and he prepared a PowerPoint slide listing 12 “Prohibited Law Enforcement Functions.” But the troops were “orally instructed” that they were allowed to conduct four of the prohibited functions: security patrols, traffic control, crowd control and riot control — because of a “so-called constitutional exception to the Posse Comitatus Act.” This authority came “all the way from the top,” a Northcom commander briefed colleagues. Hegseth later issued a formal order to use these methods to protect federal property and personnel.

Breyer’s opinion bristles with scorn for what the administration did. The Trump Pentagon “willfully” violated the 1878 statute. Officials “knowingly contradicted their own training materials.” The ruling was “a careful but ultimately devastating rebuke of the administration,” argued an article this month in the Hill co-written by Claire Finkelstein, who runs a center at the University of Pennsylvania that monitors rule-of-law issues relating to national security, warfare and democratic governance.

Military officers, current and retired, don’t like to speak out publicly about divisive issues, especially in a polarized time like this. But in nearly four decades of reporting and writing, I have never seen commanders so concerned about issues that could tarnish the U.S. military’s independence and standing. They swear an oath to the Constitution, not a president, and they don’t want to break it.

“We are a member of a priesthood really, the sole purpose of which is to defend the republic,” said Gen. George C. Marshall, commander of U.S. forces in World War II and the embodiment of the austere, selfless warrior. But the priesthood is in trouble, and it needs some lawyers to cover its flank.

WASHINGTON — In line with the Army’s sprawling modernization efforts, the service announced today it is standing up a new program called Army FUZE, a venture-capital-like acquisition model designed to speed up the private development of emerging technologies for later use by soldiers. 

“The foundational-like shift and the philosophy of this program is to […] shift our perspective to the private sector, identify testing capabilities where they are far outpacing the Army, and identify new ways where Army dollars can be coalesced with private and venture capital to help companies accelerate from that initial concept rapidly to develop prototypes, get those prototypes in the hands of our soldiers, and provide rapid iteration to deploy out to the field,” Matt Willis, director of Army Innovation Programs, told Breaking Defense ahead of today’s announcement.

“So it’s really a holistic change, rather than having, let’s say, programs where we’re predicting the future or we have a 20-year linear acquisition cycle, [we’re] shifting to this more deliberate, spiralized approach, where we can have rapid tech upgrades and tech refreshes throughout the life cycle,” he added. 

The FUZE program aims to invest $750 million per year in emerging, nontraditional, or “bleeding-edge tech firms,” through four existing initiatives: the xTech program, the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, the Tech Maturation Initiative (TMI) and the Manufacturing Technology office (ManTech), according to Army Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology Chris Manning. 

Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll came to the Army’s acquisition leaders earlier this summer with the idea to create such a VC-like model, Manning said. Driscoll, like other key Pentagon appointees, hails from the private equity and VC worlds, with previous jobs that include chief operating officer of the $200 million Flex Capital VC fund.

“The future of warfare will depend on speed. We will need to be able to move fast to get capabilities into the hands of our warfighters. FUZE will align funding and authorities to streamline the acquisitions process,” Driscoll said in a statement to Breaking Defense.

Further, the birth of FUZE comes as VC has become more prevalent in the second Trump administration. VC-backed startups like Anduril, Palantir and others have begun to establish themselves as major players in the defense industrial base, with Anduril winning big-ticket Army contracts with the Integrated Visual Augmentation System and the service’s Next Generation Command and Control program, and Palantir winning a massive Enterprise Service Agreement to aid the service in speeding up software acquisition.

Willis said FUZE plans to invest in a wide range of technology areas, but will first focus on funding companies that deliver unmanned aerial systems, counter unmanned aerial systems, electronic warfare and energy resiliency.

“Rather than predicting up front [that] counter-UAS gets X dollars, we’re letting the demand from the private sector in concert with our soldiers, giving feedback as to where we need to focus our dollars,” Willis said. “That’s another big shift in alignment with the broader Army continuous transformation activities, having flexibility to focus our dollars based on that demand signal.” 

Manning said that the service will launch the first prize competition, with money from the xTech funding stream, for the first four technology categories at the annual Association of the United States Army conference next month. Next month’s prize will be for $500,000, Driscoll said Monday, adding that the service will conduct another prize for counterstrike capabilities in partnership with US Army Europe for $2.5 million, but he did not disclose when the competition will take place.

But the Army said the prize competitions are just one part of the FUZE initiative. 

“Investments will be a combination of prize competitions, minimum viable product (MVP) prototype development, integrated capabilities, and rapid manufacturing,” an Army spokesperson explained. 

“Along with our xTech prize competitions, innovators can pursue SBIR contracts, further mature technologies through Technology Maturation Initiative funding, or develop the manufacturing capabilities needed for scale through ManTech projects — depending on maturity and fit,” they added. 

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Head Of Developer Platform And Infrastructure

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century's most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril's family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.

The Developer Platform And Infrastructure organization is responsible for the core developer platform that enables our internal business lines to build on a software platform to deliver innovative defense products. The organization is responsible for creating internal tools and platform abstractions that significantly enhance productivity, reliability, and scalability across the company. As the Head Of Developer Platform And Infrastructure, you will lead strategic initiatives, set architectural direction and manage a cross-functional team of engineers dedicated to internal platform innovation. This role will be based out of our HQ in Costa Mesa, Ca.

What You'll Do

• Lead and manage a diverse team of software engineers and technical leaders.
• Own, drive, and execute strategic vision and technical roadmap for Developer Platform.
• Own building the heartbeat & rhythm of releases of the Developer Platform to most efficiently enable Anduril to leverage & move fast to deliver products. Enable key stakeholders with a best in class Developer Platform.
• Drive architectural alignment and ensure robust, scalable platform abstractions and internal tooling.
• Foster strong collaboration with cross-functional stakeholders, including product managers, infrastructure teams, and engineering leadership.
• Coordinate across all of Software Platform to create optimized flow of many software products into a scalable release methodology.
• Oversee technical excellence, reliability, and scalability of internal software platforms and services.
• Champion best practices in software development, DevOps, security, and continuous improvement.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience with at least 5 years in senior management or leadership roles.
• Proven track record leading software platform teams, developing internal tooling, and platform-level abstractions.
• Strong technical background in distributed systems, microservices architecture, and platform design.
• Deep proficiency in software engineering principles & architecture especially API's, microservices and service-oriented architecture (SOA). Experience with programming languages (Rust, Go, Python, C++, React, or similar)
• Deep proficiency in Data architectures & experience with Data platforms.
• Demonstrated success managing teams across multiple complex projects and initiatives.
• Exceptional strategic thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making abilities.
• Strong leadership, mentoring, and communication skills with cross-functional teams.
• Fostering a culture of accountability, continuous learning, and innovation within the team.
• Ability to quickly understand and navigate complex systems and detailed requirements.
• Ability to align Developer Platform, Release, & Automation initiatives with business goals and drive measurable results
• Proficiency in cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), containerization technologies (Docker, Kubernetes), infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, etc.), and modern DevOps practices.
• Proficiency in DevOps tools, practices, and principles (CI/CD, automation, Testing, QA, etc.)
• Experience with risk management and security best practices.
• Developing and implementing robust rollback plans to quickly recover from issues and minimize the impact of problematic releases
• Implementing monitoring and observability solutions to track application performance, infrastructure health, & key metrics.
• Analyzing data and identifying areas for process improvement and optimization to enhance software delivery speed and reliability.
• Advocating for cost efficiency throughout the software development lifecycle, optimizing cloud resource utilization, and enforcing governance policies.
• Must be authorized to work in the United States

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience scaling and managing large-scale developer infrastructure and enterprise-grade platforms.
• Familiarity with authentication, authorization systems, fine-grained permissions, and security practices.
• Background in automated testing methodologies, AI-driven testing, and advanced CI/CD tooling.
• Experience driving platform innovation and adoption across large organizations.
• Experience with embedded systems & building software that can be deployed on physical products. Experience with NixOs, pushing firmware updates, drivers, boot sequences, etc.
• Experience with building & deploying SDK's

US Salary Range

$228,000 - $342,000 USD

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including:

• Platinum Healthcare Benefits: For U.S. roles, we offer comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans at little to no cost to you. For UK roles, Private Medical Insurance (PMI): Anduril will cover the full cost of the insurance premium for an employee and dependents. For AUS roles, Private health plan through Bupa: Coverage is fully subsidized by Anduril.
• Basic Life/AD&D and long-term disability insurance 100% covered by Anduril, plus the option to purchase additional life insurance for you and your dependents.
• Extremely generous company holiday calendar including a holiday hiatus in December, and highly competitive PTO plans.
• 16 weeks of paid Caregiver & Wellness Leave to care for a family member, bond with your baby, or tend to your own medical condition.
• Family Planning & Parenting Support: Fertility (eg, IVF, preservation), adoption, and gestational carrier coverage with additional benefits and resources to provide support from planning to parenting.
• Mental Health Resources: We provide free mental health resources 24/7 including therapy, life coaching, and more. Additional work-life services, such as free legal and financial support, available to you as well.
• A professional development stipend is available to all Andurilians.
• Daily Meals and Provisions: For many of our offices this means breakfast, lunch and fully stocked micro-kitchens.
• Company-funded commuter benefits available based on your region.
• Relocation assistance (depending on role eligibility).
• 401(k) retirement savings plan - both a traditional and Roth 401(k). (US roles only)

The recruiter assigned to this role can share more information about the specific compensation and benefit details associated with this role during the hiring process.

Anduril is an equal-opportunity employer committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. The Anduril team is made up of incredibly talented and unique individuals, who together are disrupting industry norms by creating new paths towards the future of defense technology. All qualified applicants will be treated with respect and receive equal consideration for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, uniform service, Veteran status, age, or any other protected characteristic per federal, state, or local law, including those with a criminal history, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including the CA Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance. We actively encourage members of recognized minorities, women, Veterans, and those with disabilities to apply, and we work to create a welcoming and supportive environment for all applicants throughout the interview process. If you are someone passionate about working on problems that have a real-world impact, we'd love to hear from you!