@edg
I am a bit sceptical of what you assume, because of for example this:
Constitution Check: Could the military disobey orders issued by a President Trump?

comments from retired Air Force General Michael Hayden about possible conflict between the military and a civilian President over controversial orders - a debate triggered by recent comments from GOP candidate Donald Trump.
Michael_V._Hayden536
Retired Air Force General Michael Hayden:

THE STATEMENTS AT ISSUE:

“I would be incredibly concerned if a President Trump governed in a way that was consistent with the language that candidate Trump expressed during the campaign….Let me give you a punchline: If he were to order that [the killing of family members of terrorists] once in government, the American armed forces would refuse to act. You are not required to follow an unlawful order. That would be in violation of all the international laws of armed conflict.”

... If Trump were to win the office, and if he were, in fact, to move forward with some of his ideas for waging the war on terrorism, including a return to torture of terrorist suspects and even more brutal strategies for demoralizing them by killing their families, it is reasonable to expect that he would encounter stiff resistance from within his in-house military advisers, without a rebellion by them. But would military commanders actually refuse to obey direct orders from Trump as their ultimate commander?

One can surmise that, even if Trump were to undertake such commands to his military subordinates, there would be many points of resistance within the government to going forward, well before military commanders might resort to open defiance. And one can imagine that a good measure of resistance would come from at least some congressional leaders.

But, assuming the worst-case scenario, is such insubordination out of the question?

Retired General Michael Hayden last week suggested that very possibility, relying on an argument that such resistance would have international law on its side. Perhaps the former leader of the National Security Agency and of the Central Intelligence Agency was trying to reassure himself that the modern development of international war crimes commissions for the punishment of outright violations of the law of nations is now making legitimate the acts of disobedience to orders to commit atrocities.

I also remember a press stake out with General Petraeus and Rumsfeld in which Petraeus explained to Rumssfeld that a soldier does not have to obey an unlawful order (an order to commit a crime like torturing a prisoner of wark for example) and has the duty to bring any criminal conduct of soldiers to the attention to the superior commanders and up the command chain. So if the unlawful order comes directly from the Commander in Chief, where should the military commnders under the Commander in Chier turn to?

Unfortunately I can't find the video anymore, although I have posted it once a long time ago, but lost in either on Flickr or in my old computer.

So, you say the order by the US president to assassinate of a foreign military commander in a foreign country is NOT an unlawful order?

I have a hard time to believe that and if it might be so, I give up.

#16

No US soldier has the right to disobey an order, lawful or unlawful. Either can result in disciplinary action. The proper procedure is to escalate the dispute about an order to the immediate supervisor of the person giving the order, and then from there up the "chain of command", that is, each level of upper management.

A soldier can say, "Sir, I respectfully decline to obey that order because it is unlawful for this reason...". But they will still be relieved of their duties and possibly imprisoned. Another soldier will then almost always carry out the order. If an entire unit refuses the order, that's mutiny.

On the other hand, a soldier can refuse to obey an order to commit a crime, but even then they may be on shaky ground. The Court of Military Appeals has held that "the justification for acts done pursuant to orders does not exist if the order was of such a nature that a man of ordinary sense and understanding would know it to be illegal." Ordinary sense and understanding is, of course, open to interpretation.

I hope that helped some.