The Washington Times has a nice summary of the garbage published by the Small Wars Journal (SJA): http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/7/the-civil-war-of-2016/
For those that don’t know the story, a senior militar officer teamed up with a historian recently to publish an article detailing how the US military could be used to conduct combat operations against Americans. The fact that the Pentagon brass is wasting their time wargaming scenarios for the domestic use of military force means it is absolutely on their agenda and is chilling. It is disturbing colonels are more concerned with turning guns on Americans than say the North Koreans. The fact the writers used the “Tea Party,” a group that has never committed a single act of violence or suggested one is very telling. Instead of using a more likely scenario such as a region of the south-west breaks away and claims it is now a part of Mexico or some left-wing eco-terrorists take over an area, they intentionally chose to fabricate and perpetuate a political storyline and stereotype. What’s worse is that the underlying cause for the use of military force is a citizens revolt against the excesses of a tyrannical government and the military’s answer seems to default to brutally cracking down on it. This is ironic in light of how our media has painted the peoples’ wars against dictators in Egypt, Libya, and Syria as just and worthy of our military’s support. It would appear then that our military now serves to topple foreign dictators for freedom except when it’s the United States government in question. There should be no doubt that this article was submitted to test the acceptance level within the military ranks to the idea of conducting offensive combat operations against Americans.
As I read this article in the SWJ, one obvious conclusion became apparent about the senior DoD thinkers. Specifically, the brass apparently has learned NOTHING from the last decade of fighting insurgencies around the globe. Even the suggestion the proper course of action to deal with civil disorder should be a full military combat operation is absurd. It is probably the worst course of action unless you want to spark a full civil war or at least a full-blown insurgency. Apparently, the generals think it wise to try to promote jobs and build infrastructure in Afghanistan to overcome and insurgency, but in their backyard, the answer is to shoot our citizens now.
The authors also seem to disregard the impact of a well armed American population and that the military still has plenty of independent people who will not follow orders and bear allegiance to the “continuity of government” and instead, keep their oath to the “Constitution” and to protect this country from all enemies, foreign and “domestic.” One should note a subtle but important distinction between enlisted and officer oaths. The enlisted are sworn to follow orders, but the officers are not and in fact have an explicit duty not to follow unlawful orders. Usurpers and tyrants are the historical enemies of Americans…NOT the people. Anyone that tries to pervert that concept and flip it on its head is the enemy Colonel!
If the order is given to attack citizens, the military will fracture…and thankfully so. Some will no doubt say aye aye and pull the trigger. Those brainless idiots will not only sign their own death warrants, but guarantee the implosion of our once great nation. Turning the U.S. military on the civilian population would cause some units to defect completely…many of them will be of your best trained and equipped fighters to include many of your special operations forces, officers, and pilots, which are almost exclusively a club of educated, highly motivated, well-informed, men with conservative views. If given the order, the military will most likely initially go along with the plan and then fracture once American citizens start to be killed. Even some of our best cyber geeks have a near anarchist streak in them that suggest the government’s plan to spy on an insurgency also run quickly into problems. The cyber spying will initially work, but soon will alienate many and morph into the insurgency spying on the government spying on them. This is the evolution you see again and again in insurgencies from around the world. The defections of senior Syrian leaders is just one example of this in contemporary times. It’s easy to use your military against other nations and peoples, but much more difficult when used domestically and the soldiers realize their brother, mother, or friend is the one that is in a detention facility, cordoned town, or shot dead by an 18-year-old that was told he was doing what was necessary to maintain continuity of government.
You should have no doubt that if the brass are writing on this from the war colleges, they are seriously contemplating the action. A dedication of professional time to it alone constitutes a traitorous act of sedition from within the military, but in practice is an undoubted litmus test for the readiness of the military to turns its guns on the homeland. The officer corps needs to be cognizant of this treachery and collectively and intellectually make it well-known that in no way shape or form would they consent to these actions as acceptable or legal and would not follow any orders of the such as they are illegal and illegitimate. This needs to transcend to operations policy and plans as well as down to the doctrine at the tactical level. Unless our officers educate our 18 year olds that their Constitutional oath does not cover killing Americans to protect a regime…in fact the exact opposite, they have failed in their responsibilities.
