Invasion
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I just read Bill Whittle's "Freedom" (possiby the oldest essay on the site? Second oldest?). It was a marvelous essay as usual. While not terribly revolutionary in its arguments, he once again put things so damn perfectly and clearly that it renewed in me my vigor on the subject of the Second Amendment. Something he said in it, though, triggered a thought that I'd never before allowed myself.
The thing that bugged me was the word "unthinkable." I guess it's something I've always believed myself, that an invasion of the United States is something reserved for wildly imaginative fiction, something that I literally had never given serious thought to before. My whole life, even being the paranoid fantasist that I am, I have never allowed the reality into my head that any force or country could try to invade the U.S. I've imagined countless fascist takeover-scenarios where our government's invasiveness reached a boiling point and federalist troops have come to take away our rights and our weapons to ensure the continuation of their oppressive regime, always resulting in my dad and I staging a heroic last stand or forming a kind of underground resistance (hell, I even started writing a short story about it long ago, and my NaNo story is an extrapolation along the same lines). But it wasn't until Bill Whittle said a foreign invasion of our homeland was impossible, unthinkable, that I realized it's not unthinkable at all.
Most any country in the world could not even begin to hope for victory in invading American soil. There is not a country in all the world, nor has there ever been a country, who could even consider an invasion of our mainland without risking complete depletion of all their resources in attempting such a task, especially not while we have even a single ally. The fighting spirit not only of our military but that which is imbued in every American citizen is simply too great and too common. But it's possible. Communist China has the manpower for such an invasion force, if they were to enlist a quarter of their populace into their armed services. Pretty much every able man and woman of military age would be needed, but they've got enough to throw at us that they would stand a chance at crippling our government, if they could reach our shores. They've got the industrial power to arm so many if needed, I think. And they've probably got a political climate unstable enough where a person of sufficient insanity and boldness could come into power. The chances of these things ever happening are infinitesimally small, but there is still a chance that it could happen.
The reason I decided this thought was worth posting about is that I don't think it's something we should consider unthinkable. If it sounds unpatriotic to imagine a foreign army able of taking down our military and then a significant chunk of our civilian populace, I'd say it's just the opposite. In a strange paradox, it seems to me that so much of the American populace is convinced of our invulnerability, they've lost the appreciation for what we have. It's complacency at its worst. Our national identity is crippled by our strength. We've been so lulled into feeling safe that we have forgotten how fragile our national existence is. That's why September 11th was such a shock, and also why flags flew from every home for months afterwards. When we forget that there are millions, perhaps billions, of people in the world who would like to see us destroyed, or when we let that knowledge become so unreal to us that we can't even imagine a full frontal attack on our home soil, we tend to forget why our nation is something worth defending, and indeed something that needs defending.
This, I think, is a thought that is fairly peculiar to the most recent generations of Americans. Up to 1865, the United States was in a frequent state of war fought to truly establish and preserve its existence as a nation, and fought largely on our own turf. We continued to fight conventional wars against powerful, organized enemies through 1945, and indeed our last full-scale war against uniformed enemies was fought in Vietnam, though it was far from a conventional war, with a great deal of guerilla war in the mix, and a vast swath of opposition to the war here at home. According to my limited understanding, that was the beginning of modern anti-war sentiment, or anyways the first time there had been a sizable chunk of Americans back home who were vociferously against the war we were fighting. Everything since then has been smaller conflicts, or in the cases of Desert Shield/Desert Storm and now the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, wildly one-sided in the case of the former and almost entirely a fight against guerilla combatants in the case of the latter.
Anyways, I'd argue that the last serious, cohesive threat to the United States was gone in 1991, when I was eight years old. So my generation was mostly too young to ever understand and appreciate what it's like to feel my nation threatened by a powerful, capable enemy that existed as more than an ideology. My whole politically-conscious life has been while the United States was the sole superpower, so I never had to fear for the life of my nation. And at that, I think the last great, uniting, open battle against a common foe ended in 1945. Even the baby boomers have never seen a traditional full-scale war. And I posit that these last sixty years of "peace" and prosperity for the American people, these years since our last conventional war, have lulled us into a sense of national security so impenetrable that many of us can't understand the imminent, everlasting need for "a well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms". We've only fought elective wars for sixty years, and we've learned to dismiss any possibilities that our great nation could ever be challenged, so we've begun to challenge it ourselves. This complacency towards our national existence for lack of examples of its fragility is what then rots into anti-nationalism. All the apathy towards the safeguards on our freedom, and the attitudes of protectionism that spawned those safeguards, is what results from that complacency. To the Founding Fathers, it was easy to understand how essential an armed populace is to ensuring the security of a free state. But there hasn't been a military-industrial power capable of seriously threatening our borders in at least sixteen years, and we haven't fought a full-scale war on our own soil in 143 years. Still, how quickly people forget.
Somebody named Mark William Paules responded to Bill Whittle's most recent post, "FREEDOM versus JUSTICE", saying that "an engaged and educated citizenry is necessary for a healthy democracy, but there comes a point in the history of every civilization where decadence sets in", citing as an example that when "the Vandal horde [sic] approached Rome in AD 455, the able youth of the city refused to man the walls," essentially having forgotten what it was to be Roman out of complacency. I can only hope that this period without the U.S. fighting wars for its right to exist has not made us forget what it is to be American, fighting tooth and nail not for a tribal leader or a king but for ourselves and the nation in which we can choose our own paths and live with more true liberty than any other civilization in the history of the world.
I just read Bill Whittle's "Freedom" (possiby the oldest essay on the site? Second oldest?). It was a marvelous essay as usual. While not terribly revolutionary in its arguments, he once again put things so damn perfectly and clearly that it renewed in me my vigor on the subject of the Second Amendment. Something he said in it, though, triggered a thought that I'd never before allowed myself.
"And by the way, gun rights supporters are frequently mocked when they say it deters foreign invasion -- after all, come on, grow up, be realistic: Who's nuts enough to invade America? Exactly. It's unthinkable. Good. 2nd Amendment Mission 1 accomplished."
The thing that bugged me was the word "unthinkable." I guess it's something I've always believed myself, that an invasion of the United States is something reserved for wildly imaginative fiction, something that I literally had never given serious thought to before. My whole life, even being the paranoid fantasist that I am, I have never allowed the reality into my head that any force or country could try to invade the U.S. I've imagined countless fascist takeover-scenarios where our government's invasiveness reached a boiling point and federalist troops have come to take away our rights and our weapons to ensure the continuation of their oppressive regime, always resulting in my dad and I staging a heroic last stand or forming a kind of underground resistance (hell, I even started writing a short story about it long ago, and my NaNo story is an extrapolation along the same lines). But it wasn't until Bill Whittle said a foreign invasion of our homeland was impossible, unthinkable, that I realized it's not unthinkable at all.
Most any country in the world could not even begin to hope for victory in invading American soil. There is not a country in all the world, nor has there ever been a country, who could even consider an invasion of our mainland without risking complete depletion of all their resources in attempting such a task, especially not while we have even a single ally. The fighting spirit not only of our military but that which is imbued in every American citizen is simply too great and too common. But it's possible. Communist China has the manpower for such an invasion force, if they were to enlist a quarter of their populace into their armed services. Pretty much every able man and woman of military age would be needed, but they've got enough to throw at us that they would stand a chance at crippling our government, if they could reach our shores. They've got the industrial power to arm so many if needed, I think. And they've probably got a political climate unstable enough where a person of sufficient insanity and boldness could come into power. The chances of these things ever happening are infinitesimally small, but there is still a chance that it could happen.
The reason I decided this thought was worth posting about is that I don't think it's something we should consider unthinkable. If it sounds unpatriotic to imagine a foreign army able of taking down our military and then a significant chunk of our civilian populace, I'd say it's just the opposite. In a strange paradox, it seems to me that so much of the American populace is convinced of our invulnerability, they've lost the appreciation for what we have. It's complacency at its worst. Our national identity is crippled by our strength. We've been so lulled into feeling safe that we have forgotten how fragile our national existence is. That's why September 11th was such a shock, and also why flags flew from every home for months afterwards. When we forget that there are millions, perhaps billions, of people in the world who would like to see us destroyed, or when we let that knowledge become so unreal to us that we can't even imagine a full frontal attack on our home soil, we tend to forget why our nation is something worth defending, and indeed something that needs defending.
This, I think, is a thought that is fairly peculiar to the most recent generations of Americans. Up to 1865, the United States was in a frequent state of war fought to truly establish and preserve its existence as a nation, and fought largely on our own turf. We continued to fight conventional wars against powerful, organized enemies through 1945, and indeed our last full-scale war against uniformed enemies was fought in Vietnam, though it was far from a conventional war, with a great deal of guerilla war in the mix, and a vast swath of opposition to the war here at home. According to my limited understanding, that was the beginning of modern anti-war sentiment, or anyways the first time there had been a sizable chunk of Americans back home who were vociferously against the war we were fighting. Everything since then has been smaller conflicts, or in the cases of Desert Shield/Desert Storm and now the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, wildly one-sided in the case of the former and almost entirely a fight against guerilla combatants in the case of the latter.
Anyways, I'd argue that the last serious, cohesive threat to the United States was gone in 1991, when I was eight years old. So my generation was mostly too young to ever understand and appreciate what it's like to feel my nation threatened by a powerful, capable enemy that existed as more than an ideology. My whole politically-conscious life has been while the United States was the sole superpower, so I never had to fear for the life of my nation. And at that, I think the last great, uniting, open battle against a common foe ended in 1945. Even the baby boomers have never seen a traditional full-scale war. And I posit that these last sixty years of "peace" and prosperity for the American people, these years since our last conventional war, have lulled us into a sense of national security so impenetrable that many of us can't understand the imminent, everlasting need for "a well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms". We've only fought elective wars for sixty years, and we've learned to dismiss any possibilities that our great nation could ever be challenged, so we've begun to challenge it ourselves. This complacency towards our national existence for lack of examples of its fragility is what then rots into anti-nationalism. All the apathy towards the safeguards on our freedom, and the attitudes of protectionism that spawned those safeguards, is what results from that complacency. To the Founding Fathers, it was easy to understand how essential an armed populace is to ensuring the security of a free state. But there hasn't been a military-industrial power capable of seriously threatening our borders in at least sixteen years, and we haven't fought a full-scale war on our own soil in 143 years. Still, how quickly people forget.
Somebody named Mark William Paules responded to Bill Whittle's most recent post, "FREEDOM versus JUSTICE", saying that "an engaged and educated citizenry is necessary for a healthy democracy, but there comes a point in the history of every civilization where decadence sets in", citing as an example that when "the Vandal horde [sic] approached Rome in AD 455, the able youth of the city refused to man the walls," essentially having forgotten what it was to be Roman out of complacency. I can only hope that this period without the U.S. fighting wars for its right to exist has not made us forget what it is to be American, fighting tooth and nail not for a tribal leader or a king but for ourselves and the nation in which we can choose our own paths and live with more true liberty than any other civilization in the history of the world.
posted by Roger W. at 3:36 AM
6 Comments:
Roger,
I understand your sentiments, but think you underestimate our nation. We've always had the slackers, the slanderers, and the Fifth Columnists. Think of what Abraham Lincoln had to deal with with the Copperheads, George McLellan, and the New York draft riots.
I have to respond to your last paragraph. You write,
Somebody named Mark William Paules responded to Bill Whittle's most recent post, "FREEDOM versus JUSTICE", saying that "an engaged and educated citizenry is necessary for a healthy democracy, but there comes a point in the history of every civilization where decadence sets in", citing as an example that when "the Vandal horde [sic] approached Rome in AD 455, the able youth of the city refused to man the walls," essentially having forgotten what it was to be Roman out of complacency. I can only hope that this period without the U.S. fighting wars for its right to exist has not made us forget what it is to be American, fighting tooth and nail not for a tribal leader or a king but for ourselves and the nation in which we can choose our own paths and live with more true liberty than any other civilization in the history of the world.
The able youth of our civilization are far from decadent, and they do not refuse to man the walls! I know some of their names; Willey, Schauer, and Klauer. If another country invaded our shores, there would be many other names added to the list; A. Willey, G. Willey, B. Willey, K. Willey, J. Lowe, R. Traman, R. West and even S. Willey. Do not despair for we shall not fall. Not yet!
Dad
Let me just say on a related tangent that like you I do not consider an invasion of the USA something that is to be taken lightly or outside the realm of possibility. Think of the alliances that occured during the World Wars. If China was to team up with a few other countries I think it is entirely possible that there could be full scale war on American soil in the next century. Of course with the advent of nukes I do wonder if such wars would in fact happen or if we might just nuke each other. That's a question for folks more well versed in military tactics than myself.
I think the idea of an invasion of our country by a Chinese army is an idea that borders on being delusional. Let us do a simple thought experiment using the first and second Iraq wars as examples. We can agree that the U.S. has the largest military air and sea-lift capability in the world. Even with all our resources, it took months and months to position troops in Kuwait and other neighboring countries before we were able to invade. The invasion was preceded by taking out Iraqi radar and missile batteries by U.S. and coalition aircraft that had flown from bases located in coalition countries and the continental U.S. (stealth bomber missions). We quickly had total air superiority, and actual ground combat against organized Iraqi units lasted a short period of time. But the actual occupation has lasted for years. All of this took place against a country of perhaps 35 million people, and a country whose military had already been greatly degraded by the 1991 Iraq war.
How would the Chinese manage such a task against the U.S.? Their air and naval assets are a small fraction of what the U.S. has, and they have no significant air refueling capability, (at least that I am aware of). Their is no way that they could pre-position troops, equipment, and supplies near the U.S. undetected and unmolested, because they have no natural allies in Canada or Mexico. If they tried to launch some sort of invasion fleet, a/la the D-day invasion of Normandy, our airpower and submarines would send them to the bottom of the sea in short order. If somehow they made it ashore, how would they supply their troops as they made their way into the continental United States? Their supply lines would be huge, and highly vulnerable to attack from the air and ground. How would they protect the flanks of such a force? The logistics alone would be a staggering problem.
This is a nation of 300 million people. We used approximately 160,000 combat troops and associated support personnel to take down a country of around 30 million. So, it is reasonable to assume the Chinese would have to have an invasion force of at least 1,600,000 to be successful. However, this estimate would be insanely low, because our country is about 3,537,441 square miles, compared to Iraq's 170,000 (approximately the size of California). How many soldiers would they have to have in their invasion force to conquer and occupy a population 10 times the size and 20 times the area of Iraq? Ten million? Twenty? And to do all this they would have to conquer the most powerful military force the world has ever seen, who are defending their own homes and family, and trust that we would not counterattack against their population with the most powerful nuclear weapons ever made riding on the most advanced missiles on the planet.
Napoleon and Hitler may have been stupid enough to try something like that against the Russians, but I don't think the Chinese are. Besides, it would be way too expensive.
They would be better off conquering Mexico first. They could gain the use of Mexican oil, and use Mexico as a staging area for their conquest of the U.S. The Mexicans have already shown how to invade the U.S. with supposedly 40 million illegal aliens, so it would be much easier to accomplish that way than with a frontal assault. If they did it that way, they could count on our own government to feed them and give them driver's licenses and free medical care.
Dad,
While I agree that the practicality of China (or anyone else) invading us would make chances of invasion infinitesimally small, my point was more that it's a dangerous line of thinking to get into. I sleep soundly at night knowing that there's virtually no chance of such a thing occurring, but that kind of complacency, taking our security for granted, is often taken to the point of negligence. Especially, if not for that complacency, I think we would see much less anti-nationalism. And I think it would really change people's perspectives on the Second Amendment as it relates to national security. It's bad enough that people trust our government so blindly that they can't even imagine a scenario where an armed populace would be a powerful check on the rise of domestic tyrants, but it's worse that we're not willing to ensure our defense from invasion through civilian defense. I guess it's that whole "It's somebody else's problem" part of human nature that worries me.
Roger,
Maybe it's a family thing, i've often considered this scenario many times. could an invasion be a legitimate concern? i have to agree with everybody else on this and say no. while it seems that much of our country is anti-war i believe that if our own soil was being taken, they'd see things in a different light. i believe they'd much rather put down their protest banners and pick up the rifles and man the walls. by the way, uncle ken, i'm proud to be on that list you wrote. on another note, uncle ken is right, logistically it wouldn't bode well for china. during WWII eruopean countries such as germany and britian had 100 percent of their industrial might going towards the war effort while we on the other hand, had somewhere near 40 percent of our industrial might going towards the war and we still produced more material than germany and britian combined. if we were to be invaded, i believe our manufactures would retool their assembly lines to push out more war materials just like they did nearly 70 years ago. i believe our country would rise to the occasion and meet the enemy wherever and whenever and stay there until he was gone. i realize i'm a bit late on this post, but i still felt i should add to it.
Ryan
Heh, I think the truth is Ryan that our family produces more crackpots per capita than is usual. At least we're the good kind of crackpots, the gun totin' government haters. And yeah, I'm pretty sure you're right that if such a scenario did take place we'd rise to meet the occasion. We've certainly got the potential to never be beat whenever we want to rise to the occasion.
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