Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A ‘Vision’ of the Future

I began writing this post three weeks ago, but each time I sat down to write it just kept growing longer. So I decided to break it up into a 5-part series and elaborate a bit more on each (related) topic. Enjoy!

Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland
A ‘Vision’ of the Future Insurrection? The Desperation of a Broke(n) Ruling Class Civil War? Yes, They Really Will Shoot

 
A ‘Vision’ of the Future

First,please watch this short, 2:40 minute concept trailer.
 

 
Yes, the movie trailer you just watched is pure fiction. Got it. Now please read the following editorial published August 7, 2012, in the Beltway Washington Times.
The Civil War of 2016

Imagine Tea Party extremists seizing control of a South Carolina town and the Army being sent in to crush the rebellion. This farcical vision is now part of the discussion in professional military circles.

At issue is an article in the respected Small Wars Journal titled “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A ‘Vision’ of the Future.” It was written by retired Army Col. Kevin Benson of the Army’s University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and Jennifer Weber, a Civil War expert at the University of Kansas. It posits an “extremist militia motivated by the goals of the ‘tea party’ movement” seizing control of Darlington, S.C., in 2016, “occupying City Hall, disbanding the city council and placing the mayor under house arrest.” …

The authors make a quasi-legal case for military action and then apply the Army’s Operating Concept 2016-2028 to the situation. They write bloodlessly that “once it is put into play, Americans will expect the military to execute without pause and as professionally as if it were acting overseas.”

Twenty years ago, then-Air Force Lt. Col. Charles J. Dunlap Jr. created a stir with an article in Parameters titled “The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012.” It carried a disclaimer that the coup scenario was “purely a literary device intended to dramatize my concern over certain contemporary developments affecting the armed forces, and is emphatically not a prediction.”

The scenario presented in Small Wars Journal isn’t a literary device but an operational lay-down intended to present the rationale and mechanisms for Americans to fight Americans. Col. Benson and Ms. Weber contend, “Army officers are professionally obligated to consider the conduct of operations on U.S. soil.” This is a dark, pessimistic and wrongheaded view of what military leaders should spend their time studying.

You can read the entire report here.

Strangely, at least to me, very few pixels have been spilled over this report. Where it has been discussed, the harebrained “Tea Party” scenario has been the focal point … How dare they point their fingers at the Tea Party! Outrageously outrageous! … But what about the fact that the Pentagon is actually mulling over military operations against American citizens? Isn’t that significant? Isn’t that outrageous?

Obvious holes in the premise aside, you should take this report seriously.

“Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A ‘Vision’ of the Future” was published in Small Wars Journal, a highly influential peer-reviewed publication for career military instruction.

Lead author, retired Army Colonel Kevin Benson (USMA, 1977), is a major Ruling Class player in defense circles. Currently a seminar leader[1] at the University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Benson’s last Army assignment was as “Director of plans for the initial invasion and occupation of Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom.”[2]

His coauthor, Jennifer Weber, is an Associate Professor of History (Ph.D. Princeton, 2003) at the University of Kansas, who specializes in Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. As Old Rebel notes, it’s “interesting, that is, in the way rattlesnakes and rabid wolves are interesting, is how the use of extreme force is justified by citing the precedent of Abraham Lincoln.”

This report was not an exercise in futility. As far as Ruling Class circles go, Benson and Weber are serious people. Government “leaders” listen to what they have to say. This isn’t the first such operational report drawn up by our Betters either. For example, as the above Washington Times editorial notes, a similar report was published by former Air Force Lt. Col. Charles J. Dunlap Jr. During the Reagan administration, Lt. Col. Oliver North coauthored “a controversial plan to suspend the Constitution in the event of a national crisis, such as nuclear war, violent and widespread internal dissent or national opposition to a U.S. military invasion abroad.”

Something must be on their minds.

You can find a lot more background information by visiting here: Bringing the War Back Home. “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland.”

The “Tea Party” Premise

I think the “Tea Party” premise tells us a lot more than we may at first realize …

In an amazing display of insular Ruling Class thinking, Benson and Weber’s report demonstrates a colossal deficit of knowledge concerning American culture, and less than even an elementary-level understanding of economics. This report gives you a glimpse through the warped lens from which the Ruling Class sees the world. They all think this way, Democrats and Republicans alike.

They can’t read the zeitgeist. They don’t understand America at all … let alone Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, etc. Are you starting to see the picture? Are you now beginning to understand why their “nation-building” schemes have been such a tremendous disaster? And also why everything is so messed up right here at home?

I will give them this much though … Theoretically, anyway, the folks wearing tri-cornered hats, invoking the revolution against King George III, should be the folks most willing to “alter or to abolish” the federal government, and therefore should be those the state fears most. Let’s face it. The state has nothing to fear from the Occupy folks, who may like to whine, protest, and litter, but love government all the same (Rousseau’s messianic “general will” and all). Unfortunately, the Tea Party loves government too. So much so I fear that if caught in such an unlikely scenario as that authored by Benson and Weber, they’d happily “support the troops” against themselves.

Anyway, the “Tea Party” premise is the last thing anyone should worry about. It really doesn’t matter at all. Yes, the federal government hates “patriots.” But they hate the “left” too. For that matter, they hate all of us mere mundanes. The Ruling Class sees the public at large as the enemy … Especially those who question their competence, motives, and legitimacy.

These are perilous times. Because something can will occur — “either a major war or a collapse of the economy” — provoking chaos, the Ruling Class knows their legitimacy is in jeopardy. Which is why they’ve been so busy forging a police state … (praying to Gaia) in hopes of clinging to their (ill-gotten) privilege and control.
 

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Notes

[1] Benson works directly for AECOM Technology Corporation, a professional technical and management support services conglomerate, as Senior Analyst for defense policy and business development as AECOM’s Seminar leader at the University of Foreign Military & Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth.

[2] LinkedIn profile, Kevin C. M. Benson.

Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A ‘Vision’ of the Future is a post from: Classic Liberal Blog

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