Quote Originally Posted by Steve the Planner View Post
Very good, Adam:

June is when all the state and local budgets (ex stimulus money) start to hit the wall. That's when we are really going to see domestic issues come to the fore.

Bond payment delays, program curtailments, and layoffs (trickling from public to private).

As a kid, my Dad raced us out of Baltimore in his big Chrysler Wagon. From the back seat, I saw NGs streaming in, while bottle throwers chased us.

Domestic stability is job one.

Steve
Domestic stability is indeed job one. And it is COIN. Kind of like oxygen, in that you don't really think about it much when it's there, but when it's gone one notices in a hurry.

The problem in 67 occurred long before the civil authorities had to call in the additional capacity of the Guard. This is the dynamic that I attempted to capture in my insurgency model. That said, not all civil disturbances are insurgency, some are much more personal, like riots outside a factory by workers being mistreated. But when government policies contribute to those conditions, and it spreads from being one factory in one city to multiples factories in many cities one can quickly find themselves in what more closely resembles what we classically think of as "insurgency."

It's kind of like a butterfly, with distinct stages of eggs, Caterpillar, cocoon, butterfly. They are all the same thing, just different stages. Most books on insurgency focus on butterflies and those who catch them.