Never before has it been more critical to address the prospect of natural disasters that affect millions of people around the world every year. Efficient military involvement in domestic disaster relief (MI/DDR) is supposed to facilitate disaster response operations. This paper, based on a case study of Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s engagement in DDR, aims to theorize the key legal variables of MI/DDR and offer an analytical framework for it. This paper theorizes five key legal dynamics: legitimacy, domain, command, support, and cost. It also suggests that MI/DDR is, first and foremost, a function of law enforcement and should be one of the visible ways through which a government demonstrates the rule of law. The insufficiency of Chinese MI/DDR within the current legal underpinning illustrates the need to reconsider the re- structuring and application of the aforementioned legal dynamics. This study proposes that comparative studies are needed to further explore the complexities of this issue.