Ensign Joseph Bunyard

From 31 December 2023 to early June 2024, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69), along with several other ships from Carrier Strike Group 2 and coalition partners, engaged in combat against Houthi rebels in Yemen. These operations, aimed at degrading the rebels’ ability to target innocent civilian mariners, occurred in what many consider the most dangerous kinetic environment the U.S. Navy has experienced since World War II. Near-daily attacks went both ways in the fight, with the Dwight D.

Naval officers are supposed to be fiercely apolitical because our country’s civilian leaders rely on the military to provide advice and take action that is free of partisanship. However, the advent of social media has introduced a new pressure on the apolitical nature of the military. At the Naval Academy, for example, the challenges of navigating social media as midshipmen has introduced a dynamic that could strain the military’s reputation as being above politics.

1. Navy Office of Information, U.S. Navy Social Media Handbook (March 2019), 5. 2. Caroline Delbert, “A Chinese Database Is Tracking American Nuclear Scientists and Military Officers,” Popular Mechanics, 28 October 2020; and Katrina Manson, “U.S. Charges Eight with Alleged Plot to Harass and Kidnap Chinese Citizens,” Financial Times, 28 October 2020. 3. Raphael Satter, “Ukraine Soldiers Bombarded by ‘Pinpoint Propaganda’ Texts,” Associated Press, 11 May 2017. 4.