Tuesday, June 02, 2020

Spotting the Past in the Present.


Is America ripe for an insurgency? A lunatic in the White House is just what any insurgent dreams of.

A priority for insurgents is to drive a wedge between the government and its people. The goal is to make the public distrustful of authority and then gradually hostile to the government, willing to assist the insurgency in countless ways.

One tactic in the insurgents' playbook is to goad the government into over reacting in ways that don't secure but rather suppress the public. Random acts of violence - bombings, shootings - are usually enough to trigger government crackdowns by officials who can't distinguish insurgents from the general public and hence punish both.

All we have to do is revisit how the Viet Cong undermined a succession of governments of South Viet Nam during and before America's Vietnam War.

This is also discussed in detail in the American counterinsurgency field manual, FM 3-24, created by a team of civilian and military experts led by General David Petraeus before he became a household name. It's an exceptionally fine digest of the lessons of counterinsurgency going back to Julius Caesar.  The inability of America's generals to heed that manual was instrumental in their failure in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Trump admires strength and abhors weakness but, today, he may be America's Achilles Heel. He's a mark for provocateurs. A random shooting is about all it would take to set him off. Extremists - radical Left or radical Right, it doesn't matter - can set Americans at each other's throats. Piece of cake with Trump in the wheelhouse.






10 comments:

Anonymous said...

"We was always taking these long walks, and we was always looking for this guy named Charlie. Never did find that Charlie." - David Petraeus FM 3-24

Cap

The Disaffected Lib said...

Yeah, David "Forrest" Petraeus is apt, Cap. I was astonished. He had led this team to produce this incredible Army/Marines field manual but, when he arrived to command the US Army in Iraq, he threw it all out the window. Like his predecessors, he did the very things the manual warned had proven, over and again, to fail.

"All the King's horses and all the King's men"

Anonymous said...

"One tactic in the insurgents' playbook is to goad the government into over reacting in ways that don't secure but rather suppress the public." I noticed that Trump had his regular "Dictators for Dummies" briefing with Putin yesterday. Shortly thereafter he berated the governors on a conference call for not "dominating" the protestors enough, then used a photo op as a pretext for tear-gassing peaceful demonstrators outside the WH. Looks like Vlad has his own copy of the FM 3-24.

Cap

Toby said...

The 2001 attack on the WTC was as effective as any insurgency. The US has been going nuts ever since.

The Disaffected Lib said...

Deja vu all over again, eh Cap? Trump as Moscow's puppet, dancing at the pull of his strings. If Moscow wanted to diminish the United States they could hardly wish for a more flawed, dim-witted and steerable character than Trump.

We think we know his quirks and foibles. I expect what we think we know would seem childish compared to what Putin's SVR, successor to the KGB, knows. For example, driving a wedge between America and Europe. Who wants that more than the Kremlin? Who teased that out of Trump? I don't know.

The Disaffected Lib said...

Toby you bring back memories of the Patriot Act, the Department of Total Information Awareness and all the excesses perpetrated while the US struggled, and failed, to cope with the 9/11 trauma.

Anonymous said...

Looks like we've now got mercenaries operating on the streets of DC: https://mobile.twitter.com/dfriedman33/status/1267936203522932738

Things are going from bad to worse.

Cap

The Disaffected Lib said...

They remind me of Putin's little green men he deployed into Ukraine, strange troops who appeared with all badges, etc. removed so their nationality and unit affiliation could not be discerned.

the salamander said...

.. the story being drooled out is dream girl Hope Hicks dreamed out the Bible photo-op. A great use of the Joint Chiefs Of Staff, CIA, FBI, Homeland Security to 'game that out'.. clear the path.. get a Secret Service Counter Insurgency warrior with Barrett 50 mm sniper rifle on point.. so William Barr could 'walk the route'.. then the entourage blah blah woof woof.. get back to the bunker for conference call with uh.. Hannity.. and down a burger

If it wasn't such pitiful pathetic & idiotic kabuki theatre.. twould be laughable
Bone Spurs In Every Pot !!

The Disaffected Lib said...

Apparently Hicks was in Trump's posse as they meandered over to the church, Sal.