Major General Charles J. Dunlap Jr. (born June 16, 1950) is a retired military officer who served as the Deputy Judge Advocate General at the U.S. Air Force Headquarters in Washington, D.C. He retired from this position in February 2010. As of 2018, Dunlap is executive director of Duke Law School's Centre on Law, Ethics and National Security.

Military career

In his capacity as deputy judge advocate general, Dunlap assisted the Judge Advocate General in the professional oversight of more than 2,200 judge advocates, 350 civilian attorneys, 1,400 enlisted paralegals and 550 civilians assigned worldwide. In addition to overseeing an array of military justice, operational, international and civil law functions, Dunlap provided legal advice to the Air Staff and commanders at all levels. Dunlap was commissioned through the AFROTC program at St. Joseph's University in May 1972, and was admitted to the Bar of the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1975. He has deployed to support various operations in the Middle East and Africa, including Provide Relief, Restore Hope, Vigilant Warrior, Desert Fox, Bright Star, and Enduring Freedom. He has led military-to-military delegations to Uruguay, the Czech Republic, South Africa and Colombia. Dunlap speaks widely on legal and national security issues, and he is published in Air and Space Power Journal, Peacekeeping & International Relations, Parameters, Proceedings, Military Review, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Air Force Times, the Wake Forest Law Review, the Air Force Law Review, the Tennessee Law Review, the Strategic Review, and the War on the Rocks foreign policy and national security platform, among others. Prior to assuming his current position, General Dunlap served as the staff judge advocate at Headquarters Air Combat Command. Dunlap is currently a professor at Duke University School of Law, where he teaches courses on national security law and the use of force in international law, among other topics. Dunlap wrote an essay in 1992 called The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012, presented as a work written by a jailed anti-coup military officer 20 years into the future, in which he asserted that the blurring of the military role of the armed forces into civilian missions might be dangerous to democracy and civilian government. Douglas V. Mastriano's 2001 master's thesis, which was written as a response to Dunlap's essay and which similarly presented itself as a work by a military officer of the future, argued to the contrary; Mastriano claimed that only the military could save the United States from "morally debauched" civilian leaders.

Education

1972 Bachelor of Arts degree, St. Joseph's University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1975 Juris Doctor, Villanova University School of Law, Villanova, Pennsylvania 1979 Squadron Officer School, Maxwell AFB, Alabama 1984 Armed Forces Staff College, Norfolk, Virginia 1989 Air War College, by correspondence 1992 Distinguished graduate, National War College, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C. 1996 National Security Program, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, New York

Assignments

Awards and decorations

Other achievements

1984 Outstanding Judge Advocate of the Year, Strategic Air Command 1992 U.S. Air Force Outstanding Career Armed Services Attorney 1996 Thomas P. Keenan Award for international and operations law

Effective dates of promotion