Comments on: Beyond COIN: A Potential Answer to “Granular” 4GW Scenarios ?

By: zen

zen — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 04:08:39 +0000

Hi Curtis,
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The cartels, from what I have read, are edging into 5GW already with their emphasis on psycholoigcal warfare and misdirection.
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Unity of purpose is more important than unity of organization but very large organizations, like the SA or Mao’s Red Guards, were always semi-decentralized and impossible to bring under reliable command & control. It’s why Hitler and Mao ultimately destroyed their own creations.
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Hi Lex,
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You’re correct - the raising of the yeomanry is in the common law tradition and it was the root of our own militias in colonial America and the general principle behind the state militias until the 1950’s when Ike made it clear that the Guard was Federalized at the C-in-C.’s discretion. Since then, we have only had a professional army with gradations of reserves. No actual militia exists, except theoretically and legally.

By: Lexington Green

Lexington Green — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 03:24:17 +0000

"…a wide variety of "loyalist" paramilitaries, from corporate to personal to neighborhood — is likely the next step."

Our constitutional heritage is one of armies raised only for particular purposes, and funded for only two years at a time.

The country’s "unorganized reserve" is all able bodied men, after all.

So, we can look to a subset of that, and add women to it, since that is what we do now. People who have concealed carry permits are registered with the state. Ask for volunteers. Network them. Bingo. You can mobilize the "unorganized reserve". Howabout flash mobs of volunteer handgun-armed citizens? Offer training to the volunteers, perhaps trained by private sector companies on a contract basis. All kinds of possibilities suggest themselves.

This is not retrograde. Nor is it, in many ways, novel. It is a return to our Anglospheric roots. Citizens of the shire raising the hue and cry; the Minutemen of colonial New England, citizen militias and voluntary organizations of the western migration. That sort of thing. We don’t need to do it like Ernst Rohm. We can do it like Ethan Allen and John Parker.

By: CurtisGale Weeks

CurtisGale Weeks — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 20:12:04 +0000

What John appears to be describing could be an effect of a 5GW campaign, in which so many c0-opted and seemingly disparate/unconnected forces work toward the same goal or more likely complementary goals the accomplishment of which (effect in toto) becomes the defeat of the granular 4GW.

It is not necessary that these disparate forces be brought into some conscious understanding that they are working together, by a third party or "central board", nor even necessary that they each have their eyes focused on consciously defeating the same 4GW foe although that will be the ultimate effect. No, they can be nudged to do what they want to do anyway, separately (i.e. pursue their own self interests and for their own reasons and benefits); but the key point is, their paths would need to be guided just enough that the ultimate fulfillment of their own pursuits, in toto, results in the defeat of the 4GW threat.

By: zen

zen — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:07:45 +0000

Thanks, John.
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The degree to which the USG is ignoring possible worst-case scenarios on the border is a sign of the selfishness and myopia our our own coastal elite. I can easily see nothing concrete being done until 700,000 refugees begin crossing the border in just a few days to escape a descent into Somalia-like anarchy

By: John Robb

John Robb — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 09:44:00 +0000

Bingo. Open source counter-insurgency — a wide variety of "loyalist" paramilitaries, from corporate to personal to neighborhood — is likely the next step.