Military and Veterans Studies Commons^™

Lawyering Wars: Failing Leadership, Risk Aversion, And Lawyer Creep—Should We Expect More Lone Survivors?, Arthur Rizer

Indiana Law Journal

“We are a nation of laws, not men.” This motto—made famous by the Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison1—has existed since the founding of the United States. This maxim embodies the sentiment that, in order to prevent tyranny, citizens should be governed by fixed law rather than the whims of a dictator. In his decision, Chief Justice John Marshall did not qualify his remarks by saying, “we are a nation of laws, except in time of war.” Indeed with the modern U.S. military, Cicero’s observation that “[l]aws are inoperative in war” has never been further from the truth. Never before …