UMass Amherst’s Human Security Lab polled 818 active-duty US service-members and found that 80% of them understand their moral and legal duty to uphold the US Constitution, human rights, and humanitarian law even if given orders to violate these standards. Results of the poll were first released in August, 2025. Professor Charli Carpenter and Ph.D. student Geraldine Santoso discussed their findings in recent columns in The Conversation and Military Times. Their work has been also cited by Newsweek.
Image at left shows a tag cloud of responses from active-duty service members about when they would disobey an order from a superior.