The ROE in Afghanistan and Iraq were very tight. I don't ask this next question idly; this is a very serious element of this article's miscalculation.
Do you know why our ROEs were that tight?
Assuming that you know the reason for that, you'll understand that in the event of counterinsurgency operations within CONUS, the ROE would be tighter than ever before seen. It may seem counter-intuitive, but the closer the fighting gets to our vital interests, the less direct force the government will be able to bring to bear. The overlapping political and social concerns about using the uniformed U.S. security apparatus to unleash lethal force would intensify immensely if the fighting were local and not several thousand miles away.
(And yes, I'm aware of the historical background of military/LEO crackdowns in the U.S., but this is 2012, not 1912. Even Waco, the last large scale example, is still bitterly criticized today, and the Branch Dividians were isolated whackos with zero political pull or constituency outside of their compound walls. The TEA Party has sitting congressmen and tens of millions of supporters.)
The idea that the fundamental political mechanics behind tight ROEs would lessen once the contributing factors to tightening it increase astronomically is simply a non-starter. Many of our most potent capabilities would become as politically unusable as nuclear weapons. Using even comparatively gentle measures could create backlashes in public opinion that (1) would be unpopular among people on the fence, (2) ferociously energize the people opposed, and (3) weaken the resolve of supporters of the crackdown.
How many videos of helicopters (allegedly accidentally) gunning down unarmed civilians in the street would it take for public opinion to swing an additional 30% against the government? Losing control of the 'white hat/black hat' narrative is nothing less than the difference between victory and defeat. Remember, a few pictures of Abu Ghraib led to Fallujah. What would a Fallujah uprising look like in a nation of 350 million people, not 25 million?
This article was written in such a way as to ignore or minimize the social and political ramifications of stateside counterinsurgency in favor of looking at the doctrinal minutia of it, but avoiding the I/O topic isn't the same as having a plan for it.
At best, what the authors did by engineering the overt racism theme into the scenario was a bit of wishful thinking that won the I/O fight for them before it started. "These people are neo-Confederate Klansmen meanies, and nobody likes them." That's, at best, lazy writing and and lazier thinking that lets them deus ex machina their way to the fun doctrinal stuff at the end. At worst, it indicates that they don't have a blessed idea of what they're up against. Talking about an I/O plan that headlines Shows of Force (fighter jet flybys, etc) against the insurgents indicates an adequate understanding of counterinsurgency tactics, and a tragically flawed understanding of the strategies.
When dead bodies from gunfights at hospitals and schools start rolling onto CNN prime time, it's going to take a lot more than sending Jay Carney out to tapdance for the cameras and hope your presence patrols scare the insurgents into throwing down their weapons and begging for mercy.
*That's* the real danger; that the radicals on the far side of the spectrum who think they want this fight don't realize that you can't simply bomb Pearl Harbor, sail home and declare victory. You kick that dog and it's going to bite you and keep on biting you until one of your are dead.
Excellent intelligent analysis.
A cogent, and spot-on analytical analysis, Steel Wolf. Very well done.
You do not credit the blood thirst of Obama's circle. These people are ideologues and Communists. They're middle-class armchair executioners who seriously want Middle America to Go Away (the 25,000,000 remark, which has been bid up in the meantime to God knows how many).
Middle-class Communists are the worst, the most bloody-minded. Check your hole card; it might not be worth as much as you think.
NB, have you been following this thread?
IOW, "shock and awe", misapplied against the owners of same, would degenerate to "awk! and pshaw!"
Hope you're right.
That is a very good point. But I have looked at modern civil wars, and they don’t stay limited for long.
Tight ROE may be used at first, but as things esculate the State will start getting more and more bloody. If you look at Finland, Spain, the Balkans, and Greece (granted only the Balkan wars happened post WWII era), things get very bloody very quickly. Once everyone is forced to choose a side, the ROE will end.
If they believe that they can simply announce ROE such as “Anybody outside carrying a firearm can be killed as a hostile,” they have just outlawed hunting. In hard times especially, a lot of folks hunt to put meat in the freezer.
I see this scenario repeated a few times. “Uncle Cletus was out turkey hunting, like every year. A drone dropped a missile on him and blew him to pieces!”
Word (and photos) of such incidents would spread by wildfire on the internet, all over the country. If they try to squelch the internet, it will just lead to disbelief in any govt pronouncements. After “collateral” strikes on innocent civilians, even the non-political will burn with hate against the fedgov.
As it's been mentioned, a few hundred active IRA tied down much of the British military on a small island for decades. Nobody has studied a modern dirty civil war in a nation where millions shoot scoped rifles for sport, among other things.
Once begun, CW2 might become Argentina's Dirty War X The Balkan Wars X Rwanda etc. It would be impossible to contain to a county in South Carolina. The Colonel's female sidekick “the Civil War expert” is tossing lit matches into dry tinder with this deliberately provocative race-baiting scenario. I question her motives.
An excellent, but possibly fatally flawed analysis.
You are assuming the goal is not to destroy the United States.