No offense to our highly competent Marine force, but if this country explodes in chaos there aren’t nearly enough of them to maintain control. You could drop a million troops around this country and you’d barely know they were there. There are simply severe logistical constraints to effective control in a country this size.
These are not logistical dummies.
Seize control of gasoline production and distribution.
Seize control of major bridges.
Seize control of power distribution.
Seize control of transportation.
Seize control of communications.
Seize control of food production, storage and distribution.
Seize control of waterways, distribution and treatment of water.
Seize control of medical facilities.
Seize control of major urban areas by containment and establishment of overlooks at all interchanges and major intersections.
It will not be only Marines. They will have support from other branches and from LEO. Every Federal agency has armed SWAT teams. Many States have similar armed groups in select agencies.
To these ends, they already have the ability to shut down or curtail and control all of our national transportation infrastructure. Drones provide the intelligence they need. The drones can be armed and can communicate with ground forces. They can shut down much of the internet and cell service and with it, much of our communication ability and commerce. The rest follows from there.
They will not care if the urban areas explode, as long as they are contained. Some of the inner suburbs will be included in any cordon. They can allow the residents to eliminate each other and go in later to clean things up.
They can bring in those regional LEO teams to mop up the exurban and rural areas, which would be paralyzed anyway with no diesel, censored communications, limited power and limited water. Military takes over food production, storage and distribution and we are effectively controlled. There are already detailed plans in place in the rural areas designed to effect quarantines. There are already checkpoints all over the rural areas to control transport of firewood between counties and, in some instances, between townships. TSA VIPR teams would assist.
My fear is that it would take them less than a week. Everything is already centralized to the point where a few forces can have a large national effect. Sure, there could well be organized resistance. We already know that many such groups and individuals have been identified. Since they will also be the ones in motion, eradicating them will only take some more time. Individuals not yet identified will self-identify just by not being compliant.
After 9/11, they shut down air transport. If there is more than one incident on a bridge, they will shut down all bridges. If there are incidents on the highways, they will shut those down. This is the SOP and they will keep applying it until they do have total control.
We used to say that an armed America precluded a fascist takeover. We still have our guns and we also have a fascist takeover. I have few illusions about either our military commanders or most LEO. They can lose individuals and they still have force multipliers, many of which, like drones, have been disseminated to LEO.
Again, these forces are far from ignorant. If they are making the training public, they are confident they can complete the mission.