Thread: The Military’s Most Important Role Is Border Defense

The Military’s Most Important Role Is Border Defense

By Christopher Roach| October 29th, 2018

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Your country has been thrust into a scene out of The Camp of the Saints: a large caravan of migrants organized in Honduras is streaming towards our southern border proclaiming the right to enter and work in our country. They’re not invited, nor is this legal, but they are seizing their destiny (and ours) as pueblos sin fronteras, “workers without borders.”

The Fourth Generation Threat to National Sovereignty

Some have scoffed at the description of this “caravan” as an invasion, dismissing it as right-wing hyperbole. But what is the difference? Formal or informal, through modern armies or tribal warriors, invasions are objects of concern because they determine who controls a land and its resources.

Post-Westphalia, states and their professional armies became dominant; noncombatants were mostly off limits. Tribal warriors gave way to professional soldiers. Armies would cross borders, leaders would change, and the peasants would go about their affairs mostly with indifference. Then nationalism appeared on the scene. It tapped into a deep emotional well, the abiding quest for community. National leadership was perceived as more legitimate, more in line with the ethos of the governed, and thus naturally less burdensome. Various choices a state and its leaders face—what language to speak, which religions to respect, which heroes to honor—are less disruptive when there is an alignment of political borders and national culture. The natural justice of nationalism was one of the reasons it became a formula for peace between nations and happiness within them.

Before nation-states, the alternatives included: multinational empires, nations without states, and nations divided among dozens of indefensible statelets. In the past, as now, there were transnational allegiances—religion, language, ethnicity—and there were local allegiances, as well. But the nation-state proved, until recently, the most legitimate and powerful mode of political organization.

Much of the literature about “fourth-generation warfare” recognizes that nation-states and their authority are under threat, diminished by global and transnational forces—powerful multinational corporations, mass migration, and international religious movements—as well as competing, less hierarchical organizations, such as terrorist cells and criminal gangs.

This destruction of state authority is not completely apparent within our borders, but it appears dramatically so elsewhere.

Who runs Mexico, for example? Is it the government? And, if so, which part of it? Clearly the Mexican government is, at best, only nominally in charge, having given up on stopping the caravan after a pro forma attempt to assert sovereignty and placate its stronger neighbor.

The U.S. Military Can Be Legally Deployed on the Border

Threats to nation-states, including military threats, are not limited to other states and their militaries. The U.S. military spent the better part of the 19th century fighting pirates and hostile Indians, only briefly becoming a modern conscript force during the Civil War. The army reverted to its heritage as a frontier constabulary thereafter. More recently, the military has been fighting a plethora of nonstate enemies, especially Islamic Jihadist groups and drug cartels. Yet, unlike the earlier Indian Wars, nearly all of this activity takes place today overseas.

Before its growth and dominance in the two world wars, the U.S. military was focused inward, operating almost exclusively within U.S. territories and on the border. In addition to the Indian wars, it played a large role in occupying the defeated South. The latter proved controversial, however, ushering in strong limits against the employment of the military in domestic “law enforcement” through the Posse Comitatus Act.

But just because the military operates domestically does not mean it is engaged in law enforcement. Using the military on the border is as American as the Constitution, which provides: “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.”

The divorce of the military from border defense—an artifact of World War II and the subsequent Cold War—should be considered more critically.

No one saw a conflict between Posse Comitatus and the deployment of troops in a string of forts along the border with Mexico to deter and punish incursions. This use of the army in border security culminated in Black Jack Pershing’s 1916 punitive expedition against Pancho Villa. Thereafter, the military focused almost exclusively on overseas threats from nation-states, particularly in Europe, mostly ceding its role at the border to a law enforcement agency in 1924 when the Border Patrol was created.

In the 1950s, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed massive illegal immigration from Mexico, the military demurred. Historian Matt Matthews, in his excellent paper on the deployment of the army on the Mexican border, described the decision as follows:

In 1954, U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell launched Operation WETBACK, a major coordinated effort to round up and expel illegal aliens. Hoping to reinforce the Border Patrol, Brownell turned to the U.S. Army for help. To his dismay, the proposal was rejected. The Army claimed such an operation would “seriously disrupt training programs at a time when the administration’s economy slashes were forcing the service to drastically cut its strength. Army generals also opposed the idea because a division would be needed just to begin to control the influx, while sealing off the border would require even more troops.”

The Military Must Reorient Itself to National Defense

While renaming itself the Department of Defense in 1947, the old Department of War was far more concerned with immediate national defense. The post-war military prepared to refight World War II in many respects, devoting its training and equipment to countering a conventional threat, the Soviet Union. The wars we actually fought, particularly the one in Vietnam, deviated from this plan, as the fighting tended to be counterinsurgencies against mostly unconventional enemies.

As with border protection, counterinsurgency did not align with the large conventional military’s ethos and strengths. It had inherent ambiguity and required the skills of the soldier, as well as the teacher, policeman, engineer, and social worker. After Vietnam, the military refocused on confronting the Soviets, ditching much of its hard-won counterinsurgency wisdom. This culminated in a big victory in the first Gulf War, but thereafter—whether in Somalia, Iraq, or Afghanistan—the U.S. military found itself facing unconventional threats for which its training, doctrine, and equipment have yielded mostly inconclusive results.

This institutional resistance from the Pentagon to countering unconventional, transnational threats has not dissipated, in spite of the loss in Vietnam and the inconclusive results of the long War on Terror. The military continues to buy expensive weaponry mostly useless against guerillas and criminals, while pivoting its doctrine and training towards conflicts with “near peer” competitors. This reboot is happening even though international gangs, illegal aliens, and insurgents have killed far more Americans than any Russian soldier ever did, and even though the majority of wars we have fought since World War II have been “low-intensity conflicts.”

The creation of a Department of Homeland Security in wake of the 9/11 attacks should have been far more controversial than it was. If we needed such a department, what the hell was the Department Defense doing?

The Pentagon was devoted to preparing for a conventional war. But such conventional conflict is mostly avoidable and highly unlikely—not least because of the possibility of escalation to nuclear war—even as unavoidable and extant fourth-generation conflict is already here, most dramatically in the immigration caravan.

Trump’s call for the military to stop the caravan and protect the border—along with his call for the wall—are controversial because they call into question the entire paradigm of our foreign policy experts and the related “defense” apparatus. His “America First” policies aim to provide a tangible benefit to America and its people, as opposed to pursuing purely global interests such as “stability” and “influence.”

Playing whack-a-mole with mobile terrorists, massive forward deployment of U.S. forces, and occasional brinkmanship with Russia and China have proven to be expensive dead ends. By contrast, the application of military power and a sophisticated wall along a defined frontier leverages the power of the state against non-state actors. It surely can work; it’s a question of will and resources. It worked for Israel, which effectively shut down the problem of far-more-motivated Palestinian terrorists through a sophisticated wall.

Non-state actors threaten our country, but they cannot take on our military power head on. Our poorly protected southern border and Byzantine protection for dubious “refugees” benefits big business, the Democratic Party, and illegal immigrants themselves, but this neglect of the border comes at a high price to American citizens. The flow of mere economic migrants provides a crowd in which dangerous groups can hide. Moreover, the steady flow of illegal aliens represents a cumulative threat to our national sovereignty, prosperity, and unity.

Our military and political leaders must adapt to the times. The reluctance to use the military on the border comes from the obsolete paradigm of a world where nation-states have a “monopoly on force.”

Yet many historically transformative invasions were not by uniformed militaries and may not have even been particularly violent. The first English colonists in North America came as religious farmers seeking peace. At first, they had peaceful relations with native tribes, which we celebrate on Thanksgiving. The barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire were as much an immigration phenomenon as they were a military invasion. Whether violent or not, the result in each of these cases was the same: displacement of the existing people and their way of life.

Before political correctness stifled common sense, it was common to say, “If we hadn’t won World War II we’d all be speaking German.” This metaphor spoke to something deep and powerful: the fear of feeling like a stranger in the land of your birth. Today, in many parts of the country, you need to know Spanish just to get by; Germans and Frenchmen are now finding their streets filled with the sounds of Arabic and Turkish. These shifts in linguistic unity signal a broader disunity, the fruits of massive, unrestrained, and unassimilable levels of immigration.

The caravan forces us to face a very important question: does the state and the military protect the nation and their way of life?

A nation without borders will not long exist. President Trump, with his uncommon common sense, knows this, but his subordinates are reluctant to change course. The military’s own history, however, and the history of every defeated army on earth, should provide a ready source of wisdom: militaries lose when they are preparing to fight the last war. A new type of invasion is manifest, and it calls for a new type of military, one at home on the border.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/29/t...order-defense/

Originally Posted by MW

The Military’s Most Important Role Is Border Defense

Absolutely! Only the left wing, globalist will throw out the excuse---we can't because of Posse Comitatus, and apparently some Republicans fall for it.

The Posse Comitatus Act does not prohibit US Military on our borders.


US Military is allowed as authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress This is from Carlton Meyer’s new book: The Spectrum of Future Warfare.
http://www.g2mil.com/border.htm


Myth #1 The US Constitution prohibits posting US troops on the border.The US Constitution says no such thing. In fact, Article IV states: Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence. So the US Constitution clearly requires the federal government to protect states from invasion. Almost a million aliens illegally pouring across the border into states each year is clearly an invasion.


Myth #2 The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits US troops from guarding US borders.
This 1878 act was enacted to prevent Union troops from continuing to enforce federal laws in the defeated South after the American Civil war. Here is the text as modified by Congress in recent years:


Sec. 1385. – Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatusWhoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.


Guarding US borders from foreign invasion is not “law enforcement.” The US Army exists to defend the US from foreign invasion, which is expressly authorized by the US Constitution. Guarding the Mexican border was the Army’s primary peacetime mission until 1940, and no one ever declared this was in violation of this 1878 act. The US Border Patrol wasn’t even formed until 1924, so claiming the intent of this law was to prevent US Army troops from guarding the border is absurd. The map at left shows US Army forts in Texas in the late 1880s when the entire US Army had fewer than 40,000 soldiers; it has 500,000 today. Clearly, defending the US border was a primary mission of the US Army for decades after this act was passed.Some may argue that Chapter 18, Section 375 of Title 10 US Code prevents military personnel from direct participation in law enforcement. However, defending US borders from foreign invaders is not law enforcement, it’s the basic purpose of the US military. While defending these United States from invasion, civilian law enforcement may be called upon to assist the US military. Does anyone believe the Border Patrol must operate fighter aircraft because the US Air Force can’t intercept aircraft crossing into the US because that’s “law enforcement”? When you read about proposals in Congress to put US troops on the border, those are not proposals to allow US troops on the border, but proposals to force the President to put troops back on the border. However, recent Presidents have listened to their corporate advisors and their slogans and ignored the threat of unsecured US borders.


Myth #3 The National Guard should guard the border, not active duty troops.
The National Guard is an organized militia to deal with state and national emergencies. Guarding the US border is a full-time mission that the federal government is required to perform by Article IV, Section 4 of the US Constitution. The few states along the border shouldn’t be expected to defend the entire country from invasion. This myth is also spread by imperial minded Generals who prefer to rule an empire overseas than to defend their own citizens. Whenever citizens demand the Army protect their nation, Generals dodge this issue by stating that it may be a mission for the National Guard, so as not to waste resources of the US Army. This is absurd; the primary mission of the US Army is to protect US citizens, and the US Constitution requires the federal government to protect states from invasion. If there is a major war and the Army would like to deploy its border troops overseas, then National Guard troops from any state can be mobilized to guard the border until the war ends.


Myth #4 The US Army hasn’t the resources for border troops. The active duty army has 500,000 full-time troops supported by over 300,000 civilians. The Border Patrol has 9700 agents. Certainly, the Army can form a infantry division of 10,000 troops to actually defend the USA, or Congress can authorize more troops. This G2mil article: Cut Surplus Army Units identifies more than 10,000 unneeded positions in the US Army that can be cut to form an infantry division. There are several US military bases along the border that can host an infantry battalion for border security: NAS Whidbey Island, WA; Minot AFB, SD; Selfridge ARNG base, MI; Fort Drum, NY; Laughlin AFB, TX; Fort Bliss, TX; Fort Huachuca, AZ, Yuma Proving Grounds, AZ; and NAS El Centro, CA; plus several military facilities in the San Diego area. Some Army officers may express concern that border duty will hurt readiness for Army missions overseas. They don’t understand that defending the USA is their primary mission!


Myth #5 Soldiers aren’t trained for such missions Soldiers are ideally trained to guard remote areas of the border. All they need are a few days of orientation training and to learn some Spanish or French phrases they can shout into a bullhorn: “Stop, you cannot enter the United States here, go back!” They will not process arrestees, fill out paperwork, search houses, run checkpoints, appear in court, or conduct investigations. They will just confront people who they directly view invading the USA. They will insist that foreign intruders turn back or face arrest by the Border Patrol. This will prevent odd incidents like in 1997 when a marine on drug war duty near the border shot a local goat herder who had fired in his direction. Some suspect this young man was paid by drug dealers to provoke an incident in hopes of getting the marines removed. He succeeded, but didn’t expect to die. The marines were there because the President had authorized their use after Army Generals refused. The Marine shooter was there on temporary duty and did not view the goat herder entering the USA illegally. The establishment of orientation training and strict rules of engagement can ensure that US troops have no contact with US citizens.


Myth #6 Illegal immigration cannot be stopped Of course it can. There is no illegal immigration from North to South Korea because that border is heavily guarded. Perhaps some of the 20,000 US troops there can transfer to the US border. Guarding the border will not stop the hundreds of thousands of visitors who overstay their visas in the USA, but at least they were checked and inspected prior to arrival. The Border Patrol estimates that 700,000 unknown persons slipped past them last year, cutting that to 7000 a year is not unrealistic. Some claim that illegals will just find another way to cross. However, most illegals cannot obtain a visa or shopping pass because they haven’t an address and job.


http://www.unitedpatriotsofamerica.c...r-borders.html

No restrictions!

Give them full authority to complete the mission "Operation Return to Sender".

NO ONE STAYS! DEPORT THEM ALL.