Originally posted by warrenb
reply to post by libertytoall

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4-6 months sounds about right

time to start stocking up on resources people

make friends with like minded people to survive

the initial collapse will be a completely chaotic time so its best to plan ahead

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
MSU

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
Washington's Farewell Address

Originally posted by ADVISOR
Since the subject of Presidential warnings has been added, I must add this next bit. Member Someone336 indirectly helped me find this piece, and it is only a minute and forty five seconds. Please listen to the few words from Kennedy and what he has to say about "conspiracy", "infiltration instead of invasion", "subversion instead of elections", "intimidation instead of free choice", "I am asking your help, a tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people".

These last patriots warned us of what was to come, and asked that we help each other. There are other historical examples, I could go on with presenting them to be viewed, but I will settle for this last addition. Of course, in another thread I feel it may be essential to post the record of the generations worth of warnings to the people.

A selected paragraph, of which the context is about political parties.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
Washington's Farewell Address

The Overburden of America’s Outdated Defenses

Lt. Col. John Sayen (U.S. Marine Corps, ret.)

Most of America’s military problems are not new. The most important problems can briefly be summarized as follows:

• Our military has broken its constitutional controls. Our Founding Fathers wanted no more than a very limited size and role for a federal military. They feared standing armies not only because they might be used against the American public, i.e. to establish military rule, but also for their potential to involve us in costly foreign wars that would drain our treasury, erode our freedoms and involve us in the “entangling alliances” that George Washington warned of in his farewell address.

America’s Defense Meltdown

America’s Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress

The Overburden of America’s Outdated Defenses

Lt. Col. John Sayen (U.S. Marine Corps, ret.)

Most of America’s military problems are not new. The most important problems can briefly be summarized as follows:

• Our military has broken its constitutional controls. Our Founding Fathers wanted no more than a very limited size and role for a federal military. They feared standing armies not only because they might be used against the American public, i.e. to establish military rule, but also for their potential to involve us in costly foreign wars that would drain our treasury, erode our freedoms and involve us in the “entangling alliances” that George Washington warned of in his farewell address. At that time our armies were composed mainly of state militias that the president needed the cooperation of Congress and the state governors in order to use. Today, we have one large all-volunteer federal Army, which for all practical purposes responds only to the president and the executive branch. It has engaged in numerous foreign wars, involved us in many entangling alliances, drained our treasury and eroded our liberties just as our Founding Fathers foresaw. It has enabled the president to take the nation to war on little more than his own authority. The recent repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 allows him to unilaterally use the military not only against foreigners, but against the American people as well.

• Our military is inwardly focused. This is to say that it focuses on itself and its internal concerns, rather than looking outward at the world and reacting to what occurs there. This is partly a consequence of domestic politics, which determine the military budget, and partly due to a climate of intellectual laziness and complacency that prefers the glories of the past over the unpleasant realities of the present and future. This has made it very difficult for us either to produce or implement a realistic grand strategy or to adjust to changing realities, particularly the emergence of Fourth Generation War (4GW).

• Our military is very expensive. The “official” budget will soon hit $600 billion per year. This approximates the military budgets of all other nations of the world combined. Some have argued that this amounts to only a few percent of our gross national product (GNP) and that it should be increased. One might reply, however, that the military budget might instead be determined by the military needs of the nation (the determination of which requires looking outward at potential threats) more than an arbitrarily determined portion of its economy. Also, the real budget is much higher than the official one. The official budget does not include the Department of Homeland Security or Veterans Affairs, both of which are really military expenses. The current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are paid for by offline “supplemental” budgets so they are not included either. If one adds these costs the budget climbs to about a trillion dollars. It absorbs much of the government’s discretionary spending and has contributed significantly to the depreciation of the dollar.

• As our military gets more expensive it gets smaller and less capable. Although the current military budget, even adjusting for inflation, is the highest since World War II it buys us only modest forces. At the height of the Reagan military buildup in the 1980s the U.S. Army had 18 active divisions. Yet today, with a higher budget, it has only 10. At the height of the Vietnam War the U.S. military maintained over 500,000 men in Vietnam besides a substantial force in Germany under NATO. It fought an enemy with more than half a million men under arms that had armor, heavy artillery, and even small naval and air forces. The North Vietnamese were also receiving assistance from both the Soviet Union and Communist China. Today, it is all the U.S. military can do to maintain 140,000 to 150,000 troops in Iraq and 30,000 in Afghanistan, where they fight enemies whose combined strength (after Saddam’s fall) seldom if ever exceeded 30,000. Unlike in Vietnam these enemies have no air or naval forces, no modern heavy weapons, little or no formal military training, and no outside support. This dramatic decrease in U.S. capabilities should be no less astonishing than the simultaneous increases in the budget. Worse, the strength of the forces we have is eroded by the skyrocketing costs of new weapons. It has resulted in a shrinking inventory of aging weapon systems only a fraction of which can be replaced because their replacements are too costly.

• Our military is not professional. That is to say its officers, especially the senior ones, are poorly educated in the military profession. U.S. Army training in mechanical skills such as flying an airplane or repairing a truck compares very well to similar training in foreign militaries. However, true comprehension of why things are done as opposed to how to do them, is usually deficient. This makes it much harder to deal with the unfamiliar and unexpected. This in turn relates to the military’s inward focus already referred to. It is easier to focus inwardly on the familiar than outwardly on the unfamiliar. This follows a long American tradition of commissioning officers at the last-minute (usually when a war is just beginning) based largely on civil education and social status, and then giving them training not unlike that of enlisted recruits. Subsequent promotion depends more on politics, social skills and personal ambition than on military and leadership skills. This has left us with a military that has a leadership that has never really learned to “think” in its own profession. Such leaders find it difficult to devise sound strategy or offer advice to their political superiors that they can clearly explain and justify.

__________

Related:

jamesfallows.theatlantic.com...