I had no idea that our Marines had an SOP in place on how, when or why to: ‘Destroy Personal Weapons’ in accordance with the ‘rules’. (Damn, I hope to heck I read or heard or just completely screwed up my understanding of that story from last night.) Any FReeper Marines ever heard of that SOP?
Every time the potential event may occur wherein an Embassy is threatened, branch and contingency planning is conducted, with preliminary actions taken to prepare for future courses of action.
This means every threat to a US Embassy is segued by an extraordinary number of actions to prepare for its closure.
Destruction of friendly assets prior to enemy capture is only one of many preliminary tasks considered.
What the adversaries don’t consider is that the number of resources dedicated to the embassy, pale in comparison to the economic, political, religious, intellectual, and military resources which now become focused upon their threats.
Threats to an embassy, real or imagined, simply amplify the focus of all other authorities and powers upon those who have realized such threats. It’s a fool’s game.
The US military of every stripe has an SOP, TM, FM, TB, Regulation, OPLAN, etc. to cover nearly every potentiality that can possibly be anticipated. This includes the destruction of weapons of every kind, from the nukes on down. They don’t take a dump without a specified sequence or a five-paragraph ops order.