tl;dr: If the brownshirts are on your radar, you might enjoy reading Petraeus’ famous Army manual on counterinsurgency.
I have never really broken through at DK, either in comments or diaries, but I have been a member for a decade, and I lurked before that for a long time. I have read and appreciated many of you. Honestly, I don’t like the infighting and rudeness, but I can’t live without the oxygen and I always come back. I had a more successful (but still limited) run blogging on another site, where I focused on the Fukushima accident. Other than that, I haven’t found my blogging voice, I suppose. This diary is an attempt to reboot. Instead of snarky, something serious. If more than two people read this, I’ll be surprised, but I want to get something written down.
We have an insurgency on our hands. It will take a long time and a lot of resources to overcome the challenges it presents to the people who live here (citizens and non-citizens), to the nation, and to the world, but as long as we fail to acknowledge the aims of the enemy, the costs will be even higher.
Before getting to the main point: I am not claiming Donald Trump wishes to destroy America. He is a garden-variety narcissist; thin-skinned; sure to soil himself soon and frequently; and with an ugly heart. He is not what I am writing about tonight, though he is obviously related to the problem. And unfortunately, he is sure to move quickly toward the chaos because that is how authoritarianism thrives. Again, though: Trump is not the topic of this post.
What I am worried about is the accelerating rise of the violent right-wing elements of our society. American Brownshirts, if you will. I do not know how to respond to the swastikas, the hate, the violence, and all the rest. Love conquers hate, I have always said, but that is evidently not working for us. [typo fixed in update] We are mostly distracted and beaten down. For too long, too many leaders on the left and right have pursued the narrow economic interests of the privileged few instead of focusing on fundamental issues of justice for all. And now, for the first time that I can remember, we have growing right-wing quasi-military nastiness with a Republican coming into the White House. Normally, these nutters quiet down when the Democrats lose. We are in uncharted territory.
None of this is news to anyone at DK, so let me get to my point. I thought it would be interesting to peek into David Petraeus’ famous treatise on counterinsurgency, to see what he had to say about how a nation should respond to violent threats from within. And sure enough, it is an interesting exercise. In this post, I will walk you through some basics. Perhaps you will find this intro interesting and read further on your own; I am not going to review 200+ pages.
First things first: if you want to buy the final version of the Petraeus book, here is an Amazon link. If you want a legal, free copy of a final draft, exactly that is posted at the Federation of American Scientists.
Second: We are not at war with an insurgent force in the United States. The US military has not been deployed. Heck, some of those yahoos who took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge were not even found guilty in court; we are obviously not mobilized against violence and disruption from the right. And yet, we are in a position of growing uncertainty because of growing power on the racist right, and it isn’t helping that Trump’s favorite move seems to be to disrupt conventions and norms with his special mix of hate and chaos.
In Counterinsurgency, Petraeus defines an insurgency as “an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constitutional government through the use of subversion and armed conflict.” He continues: “Political power is the central issue in an insurgency”; while revolutions and coups are in the category of insurgency, so, too, are slower-moving, less obvious efforts “designed to weaken government control and legitimacy while increasing insurgent control.”
Does Richard Spencer imagine he is part of an insurgency? Here are his words, reported by the very brave Joseph Goldstein, of the New York Times: “America, he said, belonged to white people, whom he called the ‘children of the sun’, a race of conquerors and creators who had been marginalized but now, in the era of President-elect Donald J. Trump, were ‘awakening to their own identity’”.
Spencer: “To be white is to be a creator, an explore, a conqueror.” Evidently the choice is to “conquer or die”. About other races, he said, “We don’t exploit other groups, we don’t gain anything from their presence. They need us, and not the other way around.” You have no doubt already read the full NYT article already. It is clear to me that Spencer sees himself as an insurgent. He is certainly fomenting hate and malice.
Does Steven Bannon imagine he is part of an insurgency? Here are his words, widely reported and no doubt already known to you: “Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal, too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” There is a lot more about him splattered all over the internet. A small man with a violent temper, focused explicitly on turning on the hate to overthrow the powers that be.
Have these men or their followers taken up arms? I cannot say with certainty, but having been on the receiving end of a storm of death threats from the flying monkeys that fling their feces at anyone described as a liberal by Bannonites, I can assure you that they wish to instill terror in the hearts of decent people. I can also say this: 99% of the time, they punch down, not up. That is a sure sign of, well, fecal brain matter. Even when they claim to be fighting power (Bannon vs. Ryan, for example), a few minutes at Breitbart and Stormfront is all you need, to see clearly that their only tactic is to pounce on and exploit the defenseless and unsuspecting in some sort of never-ending dominance display.
Back to Petraeus: So insurgency is met with counterinsurgency in what is broadly defined as “internal war”. Critically, he notes that “the contest of internal war is not ‘fair,’ as most of the rules favor the insurgent. That is what insurgency has been a common approach used by the weak to combat the strong. ...[I]nsurgents generally initiate the war. They may strive to disguise their intentions, and the potential counterinsurgent will be at a great disadvantage until political and military leaders recognize that an insurgency exists and are able to determine its makeup and characteristics to facilitate a coordinated reaction.” [emphasis added]
Will the incoming administration focus on this threat? Ha! Their focus will only be to encourage this malevolence, at least in the beginning. Maybe our only hope is that Trump will want to be remembered fondly. Ugh.
Petraeus: “The existing government normally has an initial advantage in resources, but that edge is counterbalanced by the requirement to maintain order. The insurgent succeeds by sowing chaos and disorder anywhere; the government fails unless it maintains order everywhere.” [emphasis added]
Here is the last quote from Petraeus for tonight: “Insurgents have an additional advantage in shaping the information environment. While the counterinsurgent seeking to preserve legitimacy must stick to the truth and make sure that words are backed up by appropriate deeds, the insurgent can make exorbitant promises and point out governmental shortcomings, many caused by the insurgency.”
Seems like truthiness/post-truth tactics to me.
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Whatever you might think about Petraeus, he is widely respected on the right. This manual was written to provide guidance to the American military when given the mission of intervening in insurgencies, such as in failed states. Are we in America in danger of failing? I believe that we are. Things that develop exponentially seem harmless until they burst into view, seemingly out of nowhere. We find ourselves in a unique historical moment. To ignore our American brownshirts until they are more powerful would be a mistake. They may not be the biggest problem today, but I worry about the trend. How to respond? I have not figured it out. I’m reading Petraeus to see if he had any good ideas. (Normally one depends on the FBI for this kind of thing, but they’ve been revealed to be as rotten-hearted as the dunces at the Daily Caller. Comey, Comey, Comey, how it must hurt to know with certainty that you will be reviled by humanity for time immemorial.)
If your Thanksgiving plans involve contact with people who might have voted for Trump or who have sympathy for the alt-right, may I suggest that you recommend this book to them? Perhaps it is a Trojan Horse that would be mistaken for a gift and accepted. Worth a try, anyway. Maybe they will recognize a voice from their team and have an epiphany. (To be clear, I think we all have racist family members and acquaintances; I certainly do. And I often see them on the holidays, because I love them. Such is life.)
There have always been vile racists in this country, but with Sessions as AG, Pence the Dominionist (Christian, Conservative, Republican, as he often says — note that “human” and “American” never show up on his list) and Trump as inciter-in-chief, I fear things will get a lot worse, quickly. The federal government will be in reverse for a while; the foxes will be in the henhouse; a sexual predator will be in the White House; whatever your favorite way of thinking about the problem might be, it is surely the case that armed fools are going to have a freer hand, with permission from the very top to challenge the established order by kicking those who can’t easily defend themselves.
We must organize and resist.
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Update, Mon AM: Wow, woke up to find this post is on the rec list — my first time. Thanks for reading. I’m heading to the comment section now to join the conversation.