Not military justice, but . . . (another in the series)

The UK's Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan has a user-friendly website here. Hats off to the Inquiry for going the extra mile on transparency, including translation into Dari and Pashto. "On 15 December 2022, the Government established an independent statutory inquiry to investigate matters arising from the deployment of British Special Forces to Afghanistan between mid-2010 and mid-2013. Lord Justice Sir Charles Haddon-Cave chairs the Inquiry."

Decaying legal culture in DoD

Prof. Jack Goldsmith writes here about the "decaying legal culture" in the Defense Department. Excerpt:

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth came to office openly hostile to his department’s legal culture and determined to change it. He is succeeding. One result is persistent lawbreaking by the Department of Defense in derogation of the rule-of-law culture that the department has fostered since Vietnam. The courts, which have done an admirable job of checking the administration’s legal violations, cannot help here, since these matters are beyond judicial review. That leaves Congress, which, largely due to Republican control, has been sadly passive in Trump 2.0. When the reckoning comes, the Armed Services Committees in Congress will have a lot of explaining to do.

Can a state regulate practice in veterans cases?

Held, Louisiana's effort to cap fees and impose other requirements is both unconstitutional and preempted by federal law. The opinion of Judge Brian A. Jackson in Military Veterans Advocacy, Inc v. Landry, Civil No. 24-446 (M.D. La. Feb. 6, 2026), can be found here. Military.com has this summary.

Rotting from within

While Russia has turned a blind eye (with exceedingly rare exception) to widespread war crimes committed by its troops during its war against Ukraine, it apparently is now taking a stronger position at least for some, some of the time, regarding the corruption rotting its armed forces from within. Here's a recent detailed NYT piece on the Russian military fraud prosecution of a colonel whose unit is accused by Ukraine of numerous war crimes in Bucha at the beginning of the full-scale invasion. The colonel is apparently pleading guilty to fraud, bribery and weapons trafficking charges, though he protests that the charges are retaliation for his video "accusing a former Ministry of Defense official of incompetent leadership and forcing troops into mass-casualty missions known as 'meat grinder' assaults." 

According to the Times, "[a]t least 12 high-ranking Russian military officials and generals, as well as dozens of lower-ranking officers, have been indicted on corruption charges in the past couple of years."  

For more on the horror of serving in the Russian military today and those "meat grinder" assaults  mentioned by the above-mentioned colonel, see this excellent and disturbing piece regarding Russian brutality vis a vis its own. I do believe how military treats its own has a correlation to how it treats its enemies and civilians .... brutality within encourages brutality to the external world.

Comparison of the Indonesian Military Legal System with the Malaysian Military Legal System

This post's title is the title of an article by Anis Fauzan, Walidul Halim, and Irwan Triadi, in 2 J. of Law Perspectives Rev. 39 (2026). Abstract:

This study addresses the problem of how differences in legal traditions influence the structure and enforcement of military law in Indonesia and Malaysia. It aims to examine and compare the legal foundations, institutional structures of military courts, and the characteristics of law enforcement applied to members of the armed forces in both countries. The research employs a normative juridical method with a comparative law approach by analyzing statutory regulations, particularly Law Number 31 of 1997 on Military Courts in Indonesia and the Armed Forces Act 1972 (Act 77) in Malaysia, as well as relevant legal literature and doctrines. The findings reveal that the principal differences between the two systems derive from their respective legal traditions—Civil Law in Indonesia and Common Law in Malaysia—which shape the organization of military courts, jurisdictional design, and procedural mechanisms for adjudicating military offenses. Indonesia relies on a codified and hierarchical military judicial structure, whereas Malaysia integrates common law principles within its court-martial system. Nevertheless, both systems share a fundamental objective, namely maintaining discipline, hierarchy, and command effectiveness within military institutions. In conclusion, despite structural and procedural distinctions, the military legal systems of Indonesia and Malaysia pursue similar normative goals. This study contributes to the development of comparative military law and offers a reference for strengthening military legal reform in Indonesia in alignment with the principles of the rule of law, military professionalism, and legal supremacy.