Not since Harry S. Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur for insubordination during the Korean War has an American president imposed his will on the U.S. military with more authority than President Trump.

Civilian control of an apolitical armed forces is a bedrock principle of the of the U.S. military, enshrined by George Washington when his eloquence defused the so-called “Newburgh Conspiracy,” a veiled threat of a military coup in 1783, and then cemented by Abraham Lincoln, who fired Civil War generals who didn’t carry out his orders with appropriate alacrity.