Guns of August
Written by Elizabeth Moon
Many readers have probably read Barbara Tuchman’s superb history of the early days of World War I (if not, go find a used or library copy and read it.) Tensions mounted between great blocks of power in Europe–Germany, Austria, Russia, France, Britain, before August 1914, but many thought–and more hoped–that the “balance of power” would stay balanced.
As we all know, it didn’t. And Tuchman’s book, and others, have pointed out the many, many signs that it could not hold in the face of the pressures on it. Each power bloc had internal pressures pushing its stability to the limit already.
Long before January 6, 2021, there were ample signs–visible to many ordinary citizens–that the traditional balance of political power in this nation was failing, and by September 2020, it was clear that one of the two main political parties had stepped so far out of its internal balance that its titular leader, the sitting president, was refusing to say that the change in Administration would be peaceful, should he lose. Refused to say that he would concede if the count went against him.
Once again, many people thought tradition, more than two centuries of peaceful transfer of power between one Administration and another, would surely prevail. Many others worried, and hoped the sitting president was just trying to wring more votes out of those scared by the prospect of violence.
And once again, that balance of power sustained in our case for centuries…the tradition of healthy inertia, of habit, could not sustain this, and its fracture led to the attack on the Capitol, the sedition, the treason, the conspiracy that threatened the lives of Congress and staff, and resulted in deaths, injuries, damage. And the still unbroken will of those who broke the peace, who clearly intend to try again. Who are eager to try again.
The title Tuchman used, The Guns of August, is still, and peculiarly, appropriate to discuss the next insurrection/rebellion/treason/sedition planned by those who want to take our nation down. Because it is in August–next month–they plan to make another attempt to seize power and restore the former president to the White House, this time using the guns, bombs, and other weapons they did not use in January.
You may remember I said earlier that the January 6 attack could have been intended as the actual attempt to overthrow the government, using minimal violence (compared to war, the injuries and deaths, the damage to the building, etc were minimal) with the secondary aim of probing defenses and reconnoitering the physical plant which was not normally available to public view. The success of the attack, on this secondary goal, was complete.
They found which entrances were easiest to enter; they got through the tunnels into both House and Senate office buildings, identified blind spots, choke points, and other things attacking forces can use to do more harm with fewer troops. They activated at least some of their allies in our military, men and women already knowledgeable about urban combat and assessment of the defensibility of structures. They tested at least some of their equipment. And of course they terrorized those members of Congress who weren’t in on it, while assessing the reactions of those who were (and thus did not feel threatened because they believed they would not be harmed.)
In the aftermath of January 6th, the Republican Party has gone right ahead with inflammatory rhetoric, some of its members in Congress insisting that the attack wasn’t really an attack, and themselves claiming that it’s the Democrats’ fault: the election was stolen, the Democrats are the Nazis, the Democrats are Communists, the Democrats are “enemies of the people” and “enemies of the state.” (I wonder if they even realize those are Communist term, heavily used in the Stalinist USSR and all its satellites, as well as in China? These are not terms Americans typically used unless they had been subject to Leninist or Maoist dialectic. They were tossed around in the Sixties by the most far-Left campus orators when I was in college.) The former president has come back into politics with a firm intention to run again, and dog-whistles calling his attack troops to his side.
In among this are the trickles coming out of 4chan and 8chan, usually single posts tossed into Twitter revealing the clear intention to strike again and use the lethal weapons they already possess against our government and the American people who aren’t on their side…which they believe are a minority. “This time we bring the guns.”
Is there any chance a second attack could succeed where the first didn’t? Indeed yes. Because the first attack, designed to look spontaneous and (at first) harmless with that crowd of MAGA-hatted obvious civilians acting as cover under which the Proud Boys and other obviously military-trained troops moved until the final assault, did not have the firepower it could have had. The designers wanted time inside, photograph everything, measure everything, decide the best way to do more next time.
Next time will be highly lethal for the defenders if they are not prepared and in place. Next time the guns waiting nearby in a truck will be carried by the invaders. Next time it won’t be pepper spray and bear spray but CS and CN and maybe worse gases. It won’t be tasers, effective as they are one on one, but actual bullets, the kind mass-shooters use. Next time…well, here’s how Dunnigan and Nofi put it in their book on military failures, Shooting Blanks: “…your average coup only requires a few hundred infantry and some armored vehicles.”
Two other books by Tuchman are relevant both in the WWI era and now: The Zimmerman Telegram, which showed how a foreign power (England) was able to manipulate American politics to their own advantage, getting the US into the war. And The Proud Tower, tracing back further to how the rickety “balance of power” was created and seen. I think the Zimmerman Telegram was based on Tuchman’s dissertation.
Less directly relevant, The March of Folly covered many examples of self-destruction by cultures and nations through history. But it’s a great title in any case.
More to the point: it is frightening to consider what would have happened if Trump had least amount of competence. Either of Hitler or Mussolini could have easily turned the events of November-January into a successful coup d’etat.
1Surly Professor and Elizabeth Moon, I wish I thought you were wrong, but I’m a whole lot less certain of that than I was before January 6.
2Thank you! Yes the conservative domestic terrorists will definitely be better prepared. They will have remembered to ‘bring the snacks’!
‘That Oregon Militia Group Wants You to Bring Them Snacks’
3https://www.vice.com/en/article/4xbab9/that-oregon-militia-group-wants-you-to-bring-them-snacks
If we really learned the lessons of history, then we would have most of our history, since it contains the same stupid mistakes made over and over.
4There would need to be some major event for them to attack. Otherwise, taking the Capital Building only has a symbolic impact.
I’d suggest beefing up security when major events are scheduled, such as a vote on the infrastructure bills – or a new voting rights act. Disrupting such a vote would be something they’d feel was worthy of the effort.
5I’m not sure what the future is for a major coup attempt this year. I think it more likely they will be like guerrilla warfare attacks similar to the plot to blow up the CA democratic HQ in Sacramento.
6After all, one of their major leaders, the genius my pillow guy, is now claiming that he never said everything would be completed in August as far as trumpf being reinstated. But hey, there are plenty of idiot followers of trumpf that anything is possible. And they’ll be armed with heavier weapons (and snacks) when it happens.
@EM: wise words, and thank you.
7For an alternate view, take a look at something written up on Daily Kos:
But author Waitman Wade Beorn (“Marching Into Darkness: The Wehrmacht and the Holocaust in Belarus”) has written an insightful analysis about exactly why Trump could never pull off a successful military coup. Please note that Mr. Beorn is also an Iraq veteran, a Holocaust & genocide studies historian, senior lecturer in history @ Northumbria University in the UK and graduate of West Point. Here is the link:
Trump stoked fears of a Nazi-style coup. But he couldn’t have pulled it off.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/7/16/2040300/-Iraq-vet-Trump-stoked-fears-of-a-Nazi-style-coup-But-he-couldn-t-have-pulled-it-off
8John in Denver, I agree that the orange shitgibbon couldn’t do it. It’s his minions that scares the liver out of me.
9Elizabeth, if I ever have to plan a war, I want you as my tactician. Your analysis clearly shows the Marine you are. And, special event or not, I will not be surprised if these Brown Shirts try to pull off something. I hope the Capitol defenders are better-prepared this time.
10I come down on the side that says that the true seditionists way overplayed their hand on 1/6. This is talking about the ones that actually planned and executed, not the idiots that just showed up and acted like football hooligans once provoked but had no idea what was going on. The epitome of that that was the guy who thought he was in the White House. Regardless of that they are 100% necessary in any forced revolt plan.
There’s a meme on the internet based on the phrase “fuck around and find out” and that’s exactly what an ever-growing number of them did. Over 500 indictments and counting, many of them based on evidence that the alleged parties put out themselves. There is a lot of ranting and raving on the internet about how “light” they are getting off but they really don’t need 5-10 year sentences to “find out.” The real punishment is having to pay their defense lawyers explain to them that are getting off lightly and why, and above all what idiots they are.
Think they are going to show up for another round of 1/6? No they aren’t. They are stupid but not that stupid.
The “hardcore” camo and AR15 (we know how to do a military op) group is not doing any better. They are even bigger clowns than the others. They aren’t showing up again either. And even if they do you won’t even need to call out the NG for them. Their numbers are not that big and they have no cover anymore.
As with the 9/11 hijackers, their main weapon was surprise. Box cutters or concealed guns or zip-ties and bear spray are scary but not actually strategically significant. Much of the security establishment could not comprehend beforehand that a bunch of nice white people (unlike BLM) would actually riot and do bad things. That is not happening again.
The real threat is from the actually elected officials who continue to cynically insist that “there was something wrong” with the election and keep that narrative alive. My best hope is that their influence will wane as more indictments and convictions rack up.
11August is the earlier time they could mount another attempt, not the only.
Remember that other old chestnut: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”?? People need to know it could come soon (as, indeed, WWI could’ve started earlier) or later, and instead of relaxing into ‘Now all we have to worry about is the pandemic” or “school starting” or “Will I have a job in a few months?” remember that a civil war IS being planned and has been started, and once it starts it will consume all other concerns. (If someone’s firebombing your neighborhood, if you’re being shot at, the other considerations don’t exactly disappear, but they do slide down the priority scale a line or two.)
John in Denver. If you limit your analysis to “could TRUMP, himself, pull off a coup?” then no. But the powers behind him, using him as the headliner of the show, certainly could. Behind him–using him–are some extremely smart and capable people who have no respect for the Constitution or most of the population of this country, and who equal Trump in a hunger for power. With an estimated 30% of the population so disaffected that they openly talk about starting a civil war, seceding, destroying “the swamp,” etc. you have a very, very large potential number of recruits for the coup. And some of them are billionaires (not all billionaires, for sure, are this kind, but I would argue that some billionaires are.) War is costly; privately funded wars cost just as much as government-funded ones.
Would a coup become a permanent government? Less certain, given that–so far as is known–the traitors are outnumbered. But in some areas they’re the majority, and in those areas the loyalists are likely to diminish quickly as they’re killed, and neither ready nor eager for combat.
I would have to know Mr. Beorn personally over time to know whether I found him credible. Graduates of West Point (like, um, Lee, Longstreet, Stuart and over a hundred more) joined the Confederate forces, breaking their oaths to the United States to do so. It’s not unknown for West Point grads and combat veterans to turn against their country. And it’s certainly not unknown for them to discount a known danger to pacify the civilians they plan to take down. I have some concerns from his background.
Mr. Beorn is a native Virginian, and after his military service his graduate work was in UNC, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a southern university still steeped in racism. North Carolina has been “southern” all along. They are still resisting “critical race theory” or any other history teaching that doesn’t sugar-coat the uncomfortable facts for whites. Mr. Beorn appears to have served a minimum commitment after graduating from West Point in 2000 (his commitment would end in 2008, though this is not made clear, and I can’t yet find out more about his assignments after Iraq; he should, as a West Point grad, have made O-3 by 2004-2005, and been up for at least one promotion board to O-4 by 2008.)
He finished his PhD at UNC in 2011.
On the other hand, I then went to multiple sites to find out more about him, and dug into his many writings about the military, military ethics, etc. (Just finished his takedown of Trump’s pardons for war criminals, “The War Crimes Presidency” and one of his many articles about Holocaust history. They’re reassuring. So at this point I’m neutral to favorable on him. (He looks astonishingly like my cousin who ended up with multiple stars in the Air Force. They could be brothers…or cousins, or something like that.)
12Excellent – both Moon and Tuchman. I know several people who just cannot see the blazing inherent danger in Trump and what happened on Jan. 6 this year. They still insist that it was not an insurrection. Wonder what they would have done f their own private property had been harmed by approximately 1,000 strangers foaming at the mouth? Would they have called upon the government for help?
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