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Home Front: WoT
Pentagon studying protesters to prep for 'mass civil breakdown'
2014-06-15
[Washington Times] The Department of Defense has disbursed some funds to universities so that scientists might study the dynamics of civil unrest -- and how the U.S. military might best respond.
That would have been useful knowledge for former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, I imagine, and whatsisname who used to run Yemen...
It's called the "Minerva Research Initiative," and it's a program that was kicked off in 2008 to "improve DoD's basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the U.S.," The Guardian reported.

More to point: the multi-million dollar research program seeks to uncover "warfighter-relevant insights" to help senior ranking officials in the "defense policy community" come up with "combatant commands" that work in civil unrest situations, The Guardian reported.
Link to the Guardian story.
Posted by:Besoeker

#10  Prepping for the day when post-2015 Washington may have to unilaterally give up sovereign US territory(s) for variable reasons, perhaps even widout the consent of the US Congress andor the Electorate.

US Politicos' job is to achieve the above wid the PCorrect seeming applause + mass approval of the Amerikan people.

[To paraph STAR WARS' PREQUELS QUEEN PADME AMYGDALA = "SO THIS IS HOW DEMOCRACY/FREEDOM ENDS - WID CLAPPING-N-APPLAUSE"].
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2014-06-15 22:23  

#9  I think this administration would be more interested in starting unrest to gather opponents so they can be discredited and destroyed by the media and selected security details.

I would not be surprised to learn that this administration planted tea party agitators to reach out to tea party folks from their irs list that was monitored by the FBI.
Posted by: Airandee   2014-06-15 19:41  

#8  Even coprolite has value.
Posted by: Uncle Phester   2014-06-15 15:17  

#7  49 Pan, because it became Cool.
Posted by: Shipman   2014-06-15 12:57  

#6  I think academia studies on this are good. There are two sides to this. First is, the one that drives paranoia, is to learn how to stop it. This is important because of the second one.

If we learn how these happen, from inception to revolution, Arab spring being a good example, we can learn how to incite this in countries we do not like. Starting revolution in the 60's thru the 90's was easy because we did not have social media like we do now. We need to learn how it starts, the phases of it and then we can, again, do two things. Identify it when our enemies are using the information weapon to stir up our nation and have plans to defeat it. And second to look at our enemies and use this weapon against them so we wont have to use troops. Let their people fight our wars for us.

The Occupy movement is a great example. Exactly who started it? How did they get it going? How did they get it to go viral? I was in NYC the second day of the occupy movement and there were less than 50 people there. How did they get traction and motivate the dregs of our society to become active? Imagine if we could do that in Palestine? Instead of watching it happen, we could control it.
Posted by: 49 Pan   2014-06-15 12:54  

#5  It would seem that if the military were used domestically, that might be the tipping point in this country.

Some might call this a feature, not a bug.
Posted by: Uncle Phester   2014-06-15 12:16  

#4  And won't be. Otherwise Thad Cochran would run half the former US.
Posted by: Shipman   2014-06-15 12:11  

#3  The Act prevents the military from being used domestically.

That is not correct. The Insurrection Act is still in effect and has not been repealed or overturned.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2014-06-15 10:31  

#2  Although the current administration is lawless, we do have a fairly strong Posse Comitatus Act on the books. The law was modified to provide exceptions after Hurricane Katrina but the the exceptions were later repealed. The Act prevents the military from being used domestically. The National Guard can be used if the governor so directs. It would seem that if the military were used domestically, that might be the tipping point in this country.

Posted by: JohnQC   2014-06-15 10:08  

#1  Far more academic cronyism.
The military has been called and used in civil disturbance from the Pullman Strike to the LA riots. They have the records, lessons learned, and the Field Manual. What they don't have is the ability to address wide spread collapse of civil order. They do have the experience as recently as Iraq in trying to put back together a country bereft of effective and/or legitimate government. Improvise, adapt, overcome. They just don't want to have to contemplate that happening at home. It's one of those good/bad cultural traits, in that it's good they really don't want to run a country, it's bad in that they may end up as the only adults left to do so.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2014-06-15 08:46  

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