Those are the only rules.

We don’t want a military that is ‘apolitical’. We instead want a military that avoids partisanship, institutional endorsements, and electoral influence. If those things happen, then we are no better than a banana republic with military juntas. Instead, we take an oath to “support and defend the Constitution and from within that framework, political change can exist.

But, because the purpose of the Defense Department is inherently political, it ultimately does no good for military leadership to imagine or prefer otherwise. Anyone familiar with the officer career track (especially as one gets to 0-5, LTC) understands, politics starts to become very heavy as officers wanting a star (or two) start to align themselves with a political party in hopes that the party they align themselves with will make its way to the executive office and they can "earn" their stars through networking and gamesmanship.