Vian Technocrats:
I was once a soldier in the United States Regular Army. I was told, by my Drill Sergeant, that sometime in my career or after we would be ordered to turn our weapons on the Citizens of the USA. If that order ever did come down, we were to march and take Washington, D. C., as the Army was a tool of the people to protect them from Dictatorial Governments that may wish to do civilians harm.
I will still fight to defend the citizens of the USA, in whatever capacity needed, from oppressive government rule.
The talks of another Civil War being fought on our streets these days, has me prepping for the worst and hoping for the best. My bug-out bag is ready. Our rendezvous point has already been established. We will hold them off for as long as we can. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights will prevail.
I can verify the contentions that US Military personnel in the past 20 years have been selectively asked or required to agree to using military force against the US Civilian Population if so requested. However, the rank and file of the military would never go for it. There would be a military coup if any such orders were give, or at least a mass refusal for any number of reasons.
Civil war is not likely in the US because that would require an institutional movement (such as states warring against each other for control of the whole country). States seceding from the Union would, if met with force from the US Federal Government, would not be a civil war, but rather a war of secession not unlike the American "Revolution". That is not likely either (although there is some carping by people in California who aren't happy with the recent US Presidential Election results, and which will go nowhere for any number of reasons. It is a non-starter.).
As for WWIII starting, from a strategic point, that is also a non-starter, also given the recent Elections in the US. As for nuclear conflicts, only an idiot would try to nuke the US because the standard in place is that the US will nuke first rather than take a first strike and wait to retaliate. In other words, the standing doctrine is that if we even think there is a possibility that someone will try to nuke US targets, the US will hit them first before any missiles headed towards the US leave the ground.
Most of the US nuclear strike capability is sea under the Trident-Polaris system. Nuke sub captains can actually launch nukes so much as a by-your-leave if certain conditions are met, and if a nuclear strike on the US or its NATO allies is under way or has already occurred, the standing order is that sea-borne nuclear assets get launched regardless of any orders to the contrary by the President.
As for the US Federal Government going rogue and implementing Martial Law, that also is not likely to happen because the Federal Government would lose miserably should Martial Law be enacted to suppress the general population rather than to protect the general population from a foreign actor.
That said, it would be very hard for the 350,000 combat arms personnel stationed in the US to actually fight off about 170 million gun owning US Citizens (along with civilian and military personnel who would simply thumb their nose at a Federal Government declaration of Martial Law to suppress anything resembling a real insurrection). The political implications of the Federal Government using force against its own population would be political suicide assuring an insurrection turn into a real civil war or revolution on a wide-spread scale).
The thin that has to be worried about is large groups of anarchist types who go violent and the government doing or saying nothing about it. Such anarchists would be wiped out or simply fizzle out whether or not there was a armed response from the Federal Government. Anarchists are not organised, hence "anarchist" by definition. Rioters tend to follow the tactic of destroying their own supporters' property and disrupting their own supporters' lives which is very ironic.
And that said, the real reason to prepare to bug-out is the collapse of civil order, which is very possible, but not likely to be promulgated by the US Federal Government. For instance, if the Internet goes down for an extended period of time, everyone, including the Federal Government and the planet in general, is screwed, royally. That needs no further explanation.
Now for the Militia issue - In the US, civilian militias, armed or otherwise, is protected constitutionally by the US Constitution, State Constitutions, Federal Laws and State Laws in every state. Legitimate militias are not political and have no political goal. Their goal is to preserve civil order in the face of anything that threatens civil order (and that includes any governmental actions which violate the Constitution).
In North Carolina and South Carolina, we have legally recognised Civilian Militia units who are available for use upon the request of local and state authorities. Said militia units are all volunteer, self supporting and if requested by the militia unit, the state will train them on military equipment if they so desire.
I'm a member of a local Militia Unit whose purpose is "C3" (Command, Control and Communication). We are there in the event if emergencies in which normal communications (this includes situations in which road traffic is impaired by bridges that get washed out or failure of other communications occurs). We are mounted on horseback (yes, horses!) and are armed with modern weapons. For the most part, under normal situations (abnormal situations have thankfully never occurred), we engage in SRR (Search, Rescue and Reconnaissance) operations if requested to do so (we go looking for lost kiddies in the wilderness or check out suspected crack labs in the mountains, etc.). We operate to affect civil authority and general safety. We are not right or left wing kooks. We also are bound to protect and uphold the US Constitution as is the regular military. We have Democrats and Republicans in the unit and we keep it absolutely apolitical because civil defence is not a political issue unless a governmental issue makes it political (such as the declaration of martial law in a totally unwarrented fashion).
As for the whack-job militias that go political, they have no place in the real world and they need to go and get a job.
