Dissecting alleged "Fantasies."

Please give this fellow the courtesy of reading his entire article before returning here for my critique: "The fantasy of “Modern Militia” and the III%."

Let's begin with some basic things about local militia that we certainly agree upon:

2. Learn your AO. Master it. . .

3. Be realistic about your preps and plans. . .

4. Network. Know your neighbors – especially if you live out in the boonies. . .

Now, for the rest:

I’ve seen a lot over the years. More than I really care for. But what leaves me amazed is the folks in the “Patriot Movement”, the “III%”, and the Militia Movement that believe they will make some grandiose stand ala Lexington Green to face down the evil and corruption we are confronted with. It makes for good fiction and film but is it feasible?

In two words – f**k no. Those fine folks clad in multicam with their ARs, AKs, and other assorted Tchotchkes and gee-gaws assembled as the bastions for liberty are going to find one thing at that future Lexington Green – their wholesale slaughter. And when it happens the “revolution” is going to be televised all right – only it will be portrayed by the MSM as “separatists” “sovereign citizens” “right-wing radicals” “racists” and god knows what else. Large unit tactics of any kind are an easy invitation to easily clean up for unca screwya.

Now that's quite a straw man, because I haven't seen anything like that in the Constitutional militia movement since the early idiocies of the 90s. Large public units are beyond passe, with most self-defense formations being local, made up of friends, family and neighbors. They've learned the lessons of the 90s when large public units were routinely infiltrated, riddled with informers and provocateurs and subject to set-ups such as the ATF carried out on Bob Starr over in Georgia. The overwhelming majority of armed citizenry formations these days are, at best, squad-sized. Yet they know of, and sometimes interface with, other small formations. The author's advice to "Quit reading and practicing Army small unit tactics straight out of the FMs. . . you’re not going to win at the Battalion or Company level fight . . . drop FM 7-8" is a bit contradictory since FM 7-8 is titled Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad and has nothing to do with company or battalion tactics. It would seem that he is not enamored of the four-man fire team tactics taught in 7-8 (from his later embrace of the "combat triad") but one does not need a straw man lede and a misrepresentation of the fire team and squad tactical manual to make that point.

As for myself, I have always been a fan of the thirteen-man Marine Corps squad, consisting of three four-man fire teams and a squad leader, with designated marksmen and improvised rifle grenadiers replacing the automatic weapons and M203s. The four-man fire team is familiar to both Marine Corps and Army veterans. It is the basic tactical building block that all are familiar. It is much more robust than the triad in the absorption of eventual casualties. But were that the extent of our disagreement, I wouldn't have wasted the time responding. The article's title suggests more about the author's intent than mere desire to impart tactical advice can explain.

My first point is that the author assumes that the function of the armed citizenry is solely to confront "TPTB" -- that old, omniscient, all-powerful boogeyman, "The Powers That Be." Yet to prepare for that and only that is to deny the rest of the Founders' intent for the "well-regulated militia." Militia formations have to be ready to confront multiple situations that the author ignores -- disaster operations, confronting breakdowns of law and order, sometimes in support of local authorities, sometimes in their absence. The fire-team and squad tactics of FM 7-8 are eminently suitable for dealing with looters, even large gangs of them, as most are untrained, undisciplined, individualistic and opportunistic raiders easily deterred by competent military force, even a couple of fire teams combining with others, or, more likely in an emergency, filling out the trained cadre with volunteers of some experience (and that experience will be with four-man fire teams). Thus a trained four-man fire team, familiar with its AO, can expand to a squad with each fire-team member becoming a leader of his/her own fire-team with the fourth member acting as squad leader.

"The struggle we are waging (in the East) against the Partisans resembles very much the struggle in North America against the Red Indians. Victory will go to the strong, and strength is on our side. At all costs we will establish law and order there." -- Adolf Hitler, 8 August 1942, from Hitler's Table Talk, 1941-1944: His Private Conversations, page 469.

Well, that didn't quite work out the way Hitler intended, and while the Partisans sure didn't kick the Wehrmacht out of Russia by themselves, neither were the Germans ever able to suppress them. Russia was just too vast. And that brings me to my principal criticism of the author's arguments.

The first string of items labelled one through three begin with "TPTB already have a monopoly on appreciable force." This is remarkably similar to the whole "resistance is futile" argument of the citizen disarmament folks ("the government has A-bombs, you don't, so you lose") and smacks of the same defeatism. The whole shorthand characterization of "The Powers That Be" assumes that the collectivists who run the regime have overwhelming power that -- more importantly -- will be obeyed in what will be a political war that is of their own making. This assumes levels of competence, legitimacy and subordinate loyalty down the chain of command that they certainly will not have. This regime is delegitimizing itself as fast as it can, and that's before it asks its soldiers and police to turn their guns on their own people.

Secondly, comparing a civil war in the United States with the counterinsurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan is, in sheer land masses and population sizes, laughable. Look up the populations of those two countries, look up their sizes, and compare them to the United States. Like I said, laughable. Just as laughable as Hitler's boast that he was going to beat the Partisans in the vast marshes and forests of the Soviet Union and Poland. And not even Hitler was faced with the prospect of fighting a civil war against his own people within his cities and across his own logistical production plants and communications networks. Atomic bombs, even Abrams tanks, are of limited utility in such a scenario.

Thirdly, as Clausewitz famously observed, "In military affairs, quantity has a quality all its own." Leaving aside the fact that most of the tip-of-the-spear units of the United States military are made up of OUR sons and daughters (since collectivists don't teach their kids the responsibility of defending the country), we have the bastards outnumbered even before the inevitable individual desertions and wholesale defections that such tyranny would provoke. That is the whole point of the Three Percent. Yes, we are a determined minority but compared to what? We ARE everywhere, and even if you count that Three Percent as 3% of American firearm owners not of the entire population, we still have the bastards surrounded.

I say again, plainly, to assign too much power to "The Powers That Be" not only ignores complex realities but it is, unintentional or not, defeatism. One might as well yell, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"

Item 2. in the author's initial list says, before going on again about how powerful "The Powers That Be" are, "You probably won’t get the chance to mass to begin with." Mass? Who said anything about massing? Again the straw man pokes his empty head up out of the corn to the complete unconcern of the savvy crows.

I would refer the author, and you gentle readers to my piece Tyrants beware. 4th Generation Warfare: How the next civil war will be fought.

In a country as well armed as the United States, successful 4GW only requires the dissemination of an idea. And you cannot kill an idea. As wrote back in 2009, "decapitation," the regime's favorite counterinsurgency strategy, works both ways:

Johnston is as wrong as he can be when comparing past history to 4th Generation warfare, distributed networks and leaderless resistance, especially as will be practiced in the United States if it ever goes to war with itself.

He is wrong, but the powerful men and women he is writing for think he's right.

Unfortunately for them, in the situation the administration would find itself after Waco Two, the "decapitation" strategy would for them more resemble Russian Roulette played with an automatic pistol.

Hypothetical: They kill some of (the Three Percent), at first accidentally perhaps, but almost immediately thereafter intentionally. The spasm of defensive killing begins, targeted at their leadership. They spasm in return. They would not be able to scuttle into their "green zones" fast enough. For each clumsy attack on (the Three Percent), they receive a lesson in the 500 meter war, one bullet (or many bullets) at a time. They commit "collateral damage" of our innocents, (the Three Percent) stay(s) within the rules of engagement and kill only war-planners and war-wagers.

I have asked this question before. They will fight to the last ATF agent or to the last oath-breaking soldier. Will they fight to the first senior bureaucrat, the second Congressman, the third newspaper editor, the fourth Senator, the fifth White House aide? Can they stand Bill Clinton's rules of engagement?

Do you see anything in my concepts of 4GW as applied by the Three Percent in a hypothetical American civil war that says anything about "massing"? It is a scarecrow argument, written for what purposes I can only guess.

I invite your comments.