On Doug Mastriano’s 2001 paper “The Civilian Putsch of 2018”

Here is Greg Jaffee of The Washington Post with some context:

Two decades before he was Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor, Doug Mastriano warned in a master’s thesis that the United States was vulnerable to a left-wing “Hitlerian Putsch” that would begin with the dismantling of the U.S. military and end with the destruction of the country’s democracy.

The thesis, written in 2001 when Mastriano was a major at the Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College, is highly unusual for its doomsaying and often fearful point of view, and its prediction that only the U.S. military could save the country from the depredations of the country’s morally debauched civilian leaders. The paper is posted on an official Defense Department website and lists Mastriano as the author at a time when he said he received a master’s degree from the school.

In it, Mastriano adopts the point of view of a colonel who is living in 2018 — some 17 years in the future — and has taken refuge in an “isolated cavern” in the George Washington National Forest. The military’s collapse, in his telling, allowed a left-wing leader obsessed with “political correctness” and backed militarily by the United Nations and the European Union to rise to power in a struggle that led to the deaths of millions of Americans.

In it, Mastriano adopts the point of view of a colonel who is living in 2018 — some 17 years in the future — and has taken refuge in an “isolated cavern” in the George Washington National Forest. The military’s collapse, in his telling, allowed a left-wing leader obsessed with “political correctness” and backed militarily by the United Nations and the European Union to rise to power in a struggle that led to the deaths of millions of Americans.

Ultimately, Mastriano concluded that the U.S. military was the “only institution to prevent the destruction of the republic.”

Read the rest here.

Let’s break it down:

Cover page: The 64-page paper is titled, “The Civilian Putsch of 2018: Debunking the Myth of a Civil-Military Leadership Rift.” The paper was submitted to the faculty of the Air Command and Staff College–Air University. This institution is located on Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama and it bills itself as the “intellectual and leadership-development center of the Air and Space Forces.” Mastriano’s adviser on the thesis was Major Brett Morris. Morris holds a Ph.D in Political Science from the University of Alabama. Since retiring from the Air Force, Morris has served on the board of The Homeschool Institute of Science, an organization that “promotes a reverent exploration of the natural world and the sciences.” The Institute affirms that the “historical origins of scientific endeavor are firmly rooted in a Judeo Christian worldview. It also affirms the “importance of six-day Creation and the historical Adam as set forth in the Genesis record.” Morris currently teaching courses in Security Studies at the University of Texas El-Paso. He has also taught courses at Lewis Clark Bible Institute in Lewiston, Idaho. His Lewis Clark Bible Institute faculty page says that he attends River City Church in Lewiston.

p. v: Mastriano begins the paper:

The 1990s political correctness movement had a grave and detrimental impact upon the foundational institution of the US Armed Forces with the impression being deeper than most are willing to admit. The results of this are manifest in numerous areas, ranging from the conduct of basic training to the exodus of captains from the US Army. Meanwhile, those who remain in the Armed Service, believe that they must apologize for being part of a martial and, often, conservative culture. One way to do penance for clinging to a divergent worldview is to not only entertain, but also study the extreme ideas of those who not only loathe the nature of military culture but completely misunderstand the traditions of our Officer Corps.

I am not an expert on what passes for an academic paper in the United States Air Force, but the use of the words “detrimental,” “do penance,” “extreme,” “clinging”, and “loathe” suggests that this is not a detached piece of academic work, but an opinion piece passing as an academic paper. Here we see a conservative culture-warrior in the making.

p.v-vi: Mastriano lays out his thesis:

One of the views we entertain at Air Command and Staff College encompassed the admonition from elite civilian academics that the US military is on a collision course with US civil culture, which, they suggest, may ultimately end in coup in the distant future. Obviously the mere through of the military destroying the republic is not only repugnant but also completely contrary to its nature and ideals. However, those who believe that there is a lethal rift between the military and civil leadership have put forth an array of recommendations on how to “depoliticize” the military and suppress it to prevent it from attacking our civil government in the future. The recommendations set forth by the civil-military relationship detractors are the focus of this research paper. It asserts the manner in which many elites recommend to suppress the military is more likely to result in a civilian putsch, than a military coup (if the armed forces are not tampered with). In this vein, suppose the fears of the anti-military bloc are taken seriously, and the executive and judicial branches impose the recommended ‘safeguards’ to limit the power/influence of the military. This research project asserts that these safeguards will set the stage for a Hitlerian Putsch, which leaves the military on the sidelines unwilling to save the republic.…The bottom line, the military does not represent a threat to the republic and requires a martial culture that differs from the civil society at large. There is no reason why we should regret this divergence and should ardently defend it from those who are willing to destroy it because of some misguided notion.”

To clarify: Mastriano is going to argue in this paper that the political correctness of civilian leaders (presumably on the Left) will emasculate the military and make it unable to defend the country from a Hitleresque left-wing takeover. Notice his attack on “elites.” (Later in the paper he will use the phrase “elite academia.”)

At this point, we need more context from Jaffee’s Washington Post piece:

Mastriano adopts the point of view of a colonel who is living in 2018 — some 17 years in the future — and has taken refuge in an “isolated cavern” in the George Washington National Forest. The military’s collapse, in his telling, allowed a left-wing leader obsessed with “political correctness” and backed militarily by the United Nations and the European Union to rise to power in a struggle that led to the deaths of millions of Americans.

Jaffe adds:

His paper was written in response to a 1992 essay by then-Lt. Col. Charles J. Dunlap Jr., who took the point of view of a retired military officer 20 years in the future who had been jailed for joining the resistance to a successful military coup. Dunlap’s award-winning essay highlighted the military’s worrisome drift into civilian affairs and the tendency of the country to view the armed forces as “America’s most — and perhaps only — trusted arm of government.” Dunlap, who would retire as a major general, was selected as the winner of the National Defense University’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Strategy Essay Competition and honored by Colin Powell at the awards ceremony.

p.4: After chronicling a mythical left-wing political coup/putsch that takes place in 2012, Mastriano turns to the year 2018:

I, Colonel Nathan H. Greene, am writing this from a self-imposed exile in an isolated cavern in the George Washington National Forest near Lexington, Virginia. I took refuge here shortly after the putsch occurred when the dictator, Benedict Aurelius (the radical, popular and charismatic third party leader) abolished the Constitution, dismissed Congress and compelled the president to resign. While consolidating power, dictator Aurelius declared martial law and conducted a massive purge. The purge went deep and impacted nearly every family in the nation with millions perishing. Dictator Aurelius’ form of political correctness was then imposed upon the populace with scores being sent to reeducation camps to adapt their views to his

So here we go. Mastriano connects “political correctness” with tyranny and a “massive” political purge. How much has Mastriano’s thinking really changed since 2001? Now that he is running for governor of Pennsylvania, it is hard not to think about his warnings concerning the forces of political correctness in light of our current debates over critical race theory, “cultural Marxism,” and other right-wing bogeymen. Does Mastriano believe that those who oppose these theories will one day be killed, imprisoned, or re-educated? If so, this explains the Mastriano campaign’s sense of urgency–its desperate need to “win back” America from the forces that will one day carry out such a purge. (I imagine Mastriano already sees signs of this purge in the so-called “cancel culture.”) This 2001 paper provides historical context that helps explain Mastriano’s fear-mongering political campaign for governor. He sees himself as a heroic, courageous, virtuous figure who will save the republic from certain destruction.

Mastriano continues:

In this, the military was powerless to defend the republic with only a handful of military officers opposing the putsch. Aurelius killed most of these subsequent police operations. Only a few pockets of resistance remain scattered across remote parts of the U.S.

Because the military is not there to save the republic from Mastriano’s fictional politically correct putsch, the global adversaries of the United States are able to destroy “vital space assets” and wage “cyberwar against U.S. computer networks.” In this future world a “Sino Russian alliance” attacks America’s “vital interests abroad, with massive Chinese offensives in Asia and the Pacific and a Russian Federation attack into the Middle East.” On the domestic front, Mastriano’s dystopian America is characterized by “rampant drug culture, hedonism, and a plethora of ‘alternate’ religions dominating the American youth.” I am assuming that Mastriano’s “alternate religions” are any religions that are not Christian.

Mastriano writes: “The US population lacked a common moral foundation and did whatever each ‘felt’ was right.” (p.5-6). Mastriano’s decision to put the word “felt” in quotes is revealing. Rather than standing on what Mastriano believes to be the unchangeable principles of moral truth, which are found in the Bible, the people in his 2018 dystopian society have become selfish, individualistic, and, to paraphrase Judges 21:25, do “that which is right in their own eyes.” (I wonder how he would apply this view of selfishness to mask mandates, vaccines, and his understanding of freedom– a word he used over and over in his acceptance speech on Tuesday night).

But Mastriano doesn’t stop there: “The government supported this debauchery, because of the so-called ‘wall of separation.'” This, of course, is a common Christian Right talking point. Those on the Christian Right are correct to say that the “wall of separation” is not found in the United States Constitution. But Mastriano seems to imply that the United States government has the responsibility of enforcing Christian morality on its people. Again, we may be getting a glimpse here of a potential 2023-2027 Mastriano governorship.

At this point Mastriano quotes John Adams: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality…Our Constitution was made only for moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” He adds a quote from Elias Boudinot: “If the moral character of a people once degenerate, their political character must soon follow…these considerations should lead to an attentive licitude…to be religious careful in our choice of all public officers…and judge of the tree by its fruits.”

Rather than pulling these these quotes come from original sources or citing academic scholarship that examines the relationship between religion and the founding, Mastriano cites Christian Right activist David Barton’s “Wallbuilders” web page. It is worth noting here that today Mastriano has a Ph.D in military history from the University of New Brunswick. While I am sure he has some expertise in military history (although some have even questioned that), his knowledge of the American founding and American religious history–both in his military career and civilian career– comes directly from people like Barton.

I would encourage people to read the entire Adams letter. Mastriano doesn’t give us the full context. Adams says that religion and morality serve as checks to the “avarice,” “ambition,” “revenge” and “galantry” of the American people. I wonder what Adams would think about ambitious state politicians who build revengeful campaigns for governor around the lie that a presidential election was stolen because their ambitious, revengeful and avaricious presidential candidate did not win a second term in office.

p.8ff: Here Mastriano plays to the declension narrative that has been a fixture of American church history for centuries:

The putsch did not occur overnight, but was the culmination of decade old trends. This is the story of a nation that forgot its history, abandoned its roots and worshiped hedonism. In retrospect, it is now amazing how clear the warning signs in the 1990s and early 2000s (sic). But, by the time we realized it, it was too late since the military was no longer in a position to defend the Republic.

Mastriano argues that the American government and its people put the military into such a weak position because these civilians “embraced relativistic morality” and forced such immorality on the military, “the last institution to cling to the Judeo-Christian worldview.” The Left “perceived” the military as a “dangerous” politically incorrect institution that stood in the way of its “larger cultural transformational agenda.” The Left’s assault on the military began when homosexuals were allowed to join and eventually the “moral underpinnings of the US military were replaced by a neo-pagan world view,” making it a “docile social service institution unable to pose any imagined threats to the republic.” Military officers would come to believe that the only way to advance their careers was to conform to these politically correct ideas. (If Mastriano were writing this thesis today he might reference Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff). Such leaders, Mastriano argues, are “weak” and “dangerous.” Mastriano also believes that the elites on the Left try to emasculate the military because they do not like the fact that so many military officers vote for Republican political candidates.

p.25: Mastriano makes a case for retired military officers engaging in political activity: “The assertion that when a retiree becomes politically active, he ‘prostitutes’ his military service is contextually ignorant and historically unfounded.'” Interesting.

p.26: Mastriano concludes that “disassembling the military’s moral standards to reflect the civil society at large is not a wise endeavor. The military needs more absolutes and must instill these in their recruits, because of the nature of the organization.”

p.27: Mastriano’s Colonel Greene, still in a cavern in the woods, gets the last word:

This concludes this humble memoir with the prayer that posterity, if again blessed with a republic, will do its utmost to defend from both foreign and domestic assaults. You will not hear from me again unless God predestines it since word has reached us that our enclave has been compromised and is surrounded by forces dedicated to the dictator. I am sealing this document with the hopes and prayers that a future generation will more diligently guard its freedoms from the selfish ambitions of those who would rather enslave men. Will Durant summed it up best, when he said, ‘A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within.”

There is a lot in this report that others more knowledgeable with the military and military history will need to parse, but I think it is fair to say that Mastriano has now taken his moral crusade beyond the armed forces to the people of Pennsylvania and the nation writ-large. Mastriano believes we now live in his 2018 dystopia and he is here to save us.