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(Continued from Part 2. This concludes the article.)

Military Training

Standard training for United States military troops is commonly called boot camp, basic training, or some variation of this. This training takes place at any one of several forts and bases around the United States. It lasts between 8 and 10 weeks depending on which service branch is entered. All members of all branches receive basic firearms training using standard-issue rifles/carbines. Any additional training occurs depending on your rating, duty assignment, and abilities.

Handgun training is relatively rare in the U.S. military except for some members of units with handguns in their Tables of Organization and Equipment (TO&Es). Even those officers and NCOs issued handguns rarely get training equivalent to that of police departments in the United States. This is simply due to the roles required for each type of organization. In the military, handguns are considered backup weapons. But for police departments, they are primary weapons. Law Enforcement is not meant to be an assault force, while the military is. Handguns are defensive tools with limited range and stopping power while a rifle or carbine is far more suited to active combat situations.

Basic training in the military is a mixture of classroom learning, physical fitness, and a much smaller emphasis on firearms and tactics. Again, these are areas that are expanded based on duty assignment or individual abilities of the soldiers. More in-depth training in these areas tends to take place in additional qualification schools, over time. [JWR Adds:  Only a very small number of military service members ever receive sniper training.] More importantly, basic training and police academies are designed to institute in the soldiers and police officers obedience to their commanding officers, organizational rules, and the rule of law. Individual thought is not appreciated in the common soldier or police officer. Rather, that is allowed and sometimes promoted only when individuals gain in rank. This is a weakness and a strength for both military and Law Enforcement in the United States.

There are only a limited number of advanced-trained military and law enforcement in the United States. It is these units would be used to strike at known insurgent targets. To prevent being located and attacked, insurgents would need to restrict their radio communications and adopt a largely disconnected cellular organization. This could make it impossible to field larger units to combat.

For insurgents, striking at regular units would have only limited benefits. It would be better to instead strike at leaders — both elected and appointed. Several cells might briefly work together to strike at special counterinsurgency teams. This would mean a greater likelihood of taking casualties. However, it would also help lead to assistance from within by regular troops and law enforcement. It should be assumed that there is a percentage of military and law enforcement that would either refuse or even actively work with insurgents if they were ordered to pacify the United States as a whole. Disarming the citizenry is blatantly unconstitutional, so many in both the military and law enforcement would balk at it.Continue reading“The Efficacy of Insurgency in Modern America – Part 3, by Just A Dad”

(Continued from Part 1.)

Insurgencies can be won in many ways, “including overthrow of the government, successful annexation of independent territory, a marked recognition of minority rights or property rights, or, for the purposes of this study, dramatic political success.” (Connable & Libicki, 2010) Within the United States one could win an insurgency by utilizing a number of the following approaches, or all of them. Ensuring property rights that have been taken by the current government are reinstated. Guaranteeing that regardless of race, color, creed, or religion one would be fully accepted as long as they followed the basic tenets given. Guaranteeing all persons have equal voice and getting rid of the currently bloated overreaching government as it exists now. Reinstating the complete total rights of all felons who were incarcerated for “victimless” crimes. Reducing, dismantling or completely changing the current system of laws. Any one or all of these could be incorporated into the initial statements released to people to gain support.

Keeping these commitments would be essential to the success of the venture.

A successful insurgency in the United States would require a large base of disenfranchised individuals in reasonable location to each other to support it. For example, the U.S. Civil War of the 1860s is the best example of this, though the initial belligerents failed. The Northern states gained an upper hand when they utilized what is known today as virtue signaling to rally support. By freeing only the slaves in those states that were in rebellion, Lincoln destabilized the South. And with the massive influx of recruits in the form of Europeans fleeing famine alongside the industrial ability of the North and you have a recipe for disaster that the South was unable to overcome. Such issues would need to be avoided for any modern insurgency to survive and win in the United States. Obviously, slavery is no longer an issue. However, there are other issues that could and would be used in the same way today.

Zambri notes: “In many cases, governmental institutions could not keep pace with societal change, leading to disorder and instability. This instability left societies vulnerable to insurgent influences. Insurgents could thus take advantage of this flux to gain popular support, by promising alternatives to the government. The government, unable to ameliorate the problems of the population, would increasingly be isolated and weakened. ” (Zambri, et al., 2017) This single phrase explains how a group could effectively engage in insurgency against the current government of the United States. Current state governments of world powers are bloated monstrosities that fail in almost every metric to engage the public. In fact the current sitting government (elected individuals) hold some of the worst approval ratings in history, and yes, this is all of them not just one party or branch.

Successful insurgency requires the same items that successful business requires: Hard work, money, support, and luck in timing.

Demographics

Understanding the population of the region where one decides to form the base for an insurgency is absolutely essential to its success. Attempting to draw support from middle and upper-class individuals in largely urban environments would see negative results. Drawing support from working-class but poor urbanites and rural working-class would have far better results. This is why many insurgencies that have been successful were based originally in the ghettos and rural areas of the nations that they eventually claimed. Having a gifted statesman (this includes men and women) at the helm would be essential. Magnetic personalities would be the greatest asset in today’s world of social media.Continue reading“The Efficacy of Insurgency in Modern America – Part 2, by Just A Dad”

Editor’s Introductory Note: Because of its length, the following essay will be presented in three parts. The footnotes can be found at the end of Part 3. – JWR

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“Insurgency” as a word is relatively new in application. Where there is rule of law an insurgency is simply an act of rebellion against the current lawful authority. For the purposes of this essay, we will be looking at many different conflicts, some fall within this definition and others do not.

While this essay will not address every recorded rebellion, we will establish a timeline using significant rebellions or insurgent activity until current times. Additionally, we will address the efficacy of insurgency in the United States of America, specifically modern insurgency.

One of the first recorded rebellions occurred around 2700 B.C., it is known as The Seth rebellion of the 2nd Dynasty, in Ancient Egypt. (Newberry, 1922) At this time there is not much known about it, though there were major famines at the time which may have helped increase the potential for rebellion. From that time to the present-day, thousands of rebellions, insurgencies, and revolutions have taken place in every corner of the world against every form of government that has existed.

Since the focus of this essay is the United States of America as a nation and the efficacy of insurgency against it, we will focus instead on the various incidents that have occurred after the Revolutionary War that birthed this nation. Historically rebellions of any type include belligerents or insurgents fighting against a more powerful foe. The United States, as of 2018, has a standing combined military force numbering 1,119,003 individuals. This includes 471,990 U.S. Army personnel, 325,395 U.S. Navy personnel, and 321,618 U.S. Air Force personnel.

Within the U.S. military exists the largest most advanced air force, naval forces, and ground-based technical options. Though Russia and China both have significantly more tanks than the United States, superiority is maintained by virtue of the manned and unmanned air ability held by the United States military. Air superiority has in many instances been the deciding factor when it comes to conflicts since the advent of aircraft as a military asset. It should be noted that even with no air ability current insurgencies and “terrorist actions” in the Middle East as well as Eastern and Northern Africa we have seen insurgencies continue to grow.

What Constitutes Winning an Insurgency?

The use of guerrilla tactics and localized nature of the fighters have made it difficult to truly “win” any of these conflicts. The continued fluid nature of these conflicts as well as the lack of understanding by many in the United States has led our forces to be mired in endless and mostly fruitless attempts to police a population that is tired of war and of us. Philip Gordon writes, “Victory will come only when Washington succeeds in discrediting the terrorists’ ideology and undermining their support. These achievements, in turn, will require accepting that the terrorist threat can never be eradicated completely and that acting as though it can [be] will only make it worse.” (Gordon, 2007)

In a more recent article Hal Brands states, “Getting deeply involved in the Middle East ran the risk of making America the target of that radicalism and anger; it also ran the risk of distracting the United States from other areas where the prospects for constructive change seemed more promising.” (Brands, 2019) The understanding is that because of the glaring disparity in wealth, income, and social ability there is a large easily-guided grouping of persons that can be and are used regularly as cannon fodder by those desiring change for their own benefit. Certainly, there can be seen some benefits as a whole to increasing the educational opportunities, social and economic abilities of all individuals residing around the globe today. However, due in no small part to the highly radical behavior of religion applied in several key areas within the Middle East, these ideals championed in other places around the globe are decades from fruition in the Middle East.Continue reading“The Efficacy of Insurgency in Modern America – Part 1, by Just A Dad”