So if some of the military is joining the breakaway sect, robots or not will not change the situation since both sides will have them.
But it is not a given that the military may not break apart. Supporting the population tends to happen in conscript armies. The US army is a professional army. They are loyal to the USG, and to the Army itself.
"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will
support and defend the Constitution of the United States
against all enemies, foreign *and domestic*"
Not the government, not the Army itself or even the President, the Constitution.
Don't be naive. A majority of people are sufficiently flag-simple that they'll do whatever they're told to do, including rounding the dissenters if necessary. Do they give tests and/or classes in constitutional law and the limits circumscribing the behavior of superior officers in the military? I think not. But we do train all children of school age to pledge their allegiance to a flag every morning, a level of indoctrination which I find both bizarre and troubling.
I don't mean this post to be anti-military or anti-American, but your faith in symbols seems naive to me. Christianity and Islam both lay claim to being peaceable religions subservient to a merciful deity, and yet the history of both is drenched in blood. Besides which, there's a history in the US (as in many other countries, to an even greater degree) of just suspending bits of the constitution as and when 'necessity' demands it.
Actually, there are LOTS of classes and tests on what constitutes the law of land warfare, competent authority, etc. in the military -- way better than anything at MIT or Harvard that I encountered. Yes, these are simplified for junior enlisted personnel ("do this, don't do that", vs. why), but for officers and NCOs it probably goes far beyond what anyone in civilian government, outside the judiciary, thinks about.
Having been in multiple combat zones, I think the US military errs too much on the side of legalism. I actually think the US Government, and especially the military, is the wrong tool for counter-insurgency -- there are a lot of people who just need to disappear, or die colorfully, and it would be better if doing so didn't hurt the image of the US.
(I say this as a libertarian atheist...)
Most of the "rah rah usa usa!" people are not in the military.
Fair enough. I was certainly thinking more of enlisted personnel, and your point about the more mindless kind of patriot not as likely to be in the military is well taken. I apologize for the simplistic dismissal of the issue.
I agree with your other points about counter-insurgency, but that's a whole other discussion.
>> Do they give tests and/or classes in constitutional law and the limits circumscribing the behavior of superior officers in the military? I think not.
As someone who's actually gone thru the training, I can assure you that the US Army does indeed teach, in classes, that a soldier must always obey all lawful orders, and never obey any unlawful ones.
>> Christianity and Islam both lay claim to being peaceable religions subservient to a merciful deity, and yet the history of both is drenched in blood.
They are indeed, which is part of the reason I've been an atheist since I was 11. Socialism claims to be all about helping the little guy", but the vast majority of the blood spilt in the last 100 years has been spilt by Bolshevism, Maoism, the National Socialist German Workers Party, Slobodon Milosovic's Serbian Socialist Party, and the Khmer Rouge.
>> But we do train all children of school age to pledge their allegiance to a flag every morning, a level of indoctrination which I find both bizarre and troubling.
