COMMENTARY by Col. John Mills — USMC (Ret.)
Many assert there is a “coming” civil war. News flash—we’re in it. Pure and simple, we are in a modern, information-age civil war for the future of the United States.
War and societal conflict come in many forms. It doesn’t have to be lines of Blue and Gray soldiers with bayonets lined up against each other, and it doesn’t have to be rifle or cannon fire.
Right now, the primary fields of conflict in the modern American civil war are political histrionics, social media perversions of truth, litigation, street mobbery, and financial warfare to interdict revenue streams. Plus, we have foreign players, primarily the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), that are actively stoking our chaos for their own desired outcomes.
We must understand the panorama of the chaos unfolding in front of us so we can decisively take action in the right direction for the good of our republic. Our classically liberal, democratic republic based on a written constitution is the most incredible thing ever created by man (and woman).
Never before has a governance system done so much good for so many people. It’s not perfect, but that’s the beauty of our system, we have processes and methods to address injustices and our warts. This system has never existed before, and never will again if we allow the street chaos to intellectually shut us down, intimidate us, and force us to sit idly by while our incredible Constitution is placed by radical elements in the dustbin of history.
The modern information-age American Civil War is in progress. It’s fundamentally a struggle between a Constitutionalist view of America and globalist elites who despise individual countries, who desire to control societies and populations on a worldwide scale, and prefer to dismiss our Constitution as an asterisk in history to be expediently used or ignored as needed. The domestic branch of the globalist elites has no problem aligning itself with the CCP if it means taking the American White House. Very disturbing indeed.
‘Somewheres’ Versus ‘Anywheres’
Taking a cue from Prager U’s incredible video presented by former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, there are the “Somewheres”—those whose lives are tied to a particular place—and there are the “Anywheres”—those who can live comfortably in any of several of the world’s great cities.
While there are many “Anywheres” in the globalist camp, there are more of us who are in the “Somewheres” camp, anchored by family, faith, job, community, or other factors. Globalists seem to have control over much of the media, our institutions, academia, and even some local and state governments, and parts of our federal government. Somewheres, though, represent most of the population.
Anywheres seek to replace family, faith, job, and community with a never ending stream of new ideas of how the utopian society should live or look. They’re never satisfied, never ceasing, never ending in driving how society should evolve or be recreated. Whether it’s immediate release with no bond from arrest for street crime, open borders, never ending depictions of new alternative lifestyles, expanding government, criminalization of any questioning of their agenda, or controlling the size of your soft drink—they will never rest.
What does their ceaseless change create? Chaos—exactly what we’re seeing now. A very important caveat on this construct of “Somewheres” and “Anywheres”—this is a very important point—in almost all conflicts, most of the population are “fence-sitters.” They’re just trying to survive and waiting to see which way the conflict trends.
It’s our job to pull enough of the fence-sitters onto our side to secure the victory.
Antifa, the Vanguard
Antifa didn’t come out of thin air. It traces to Baader-Meinhof and Soviet money from the 1980s. Now they’re the brownshirts of the globalists, doing their dirty work for them. Taking perverted and twisted advantage of the injustice of George Floyd’s killing, they’ve seized the momentum.
And a huge accelerant to their momentum is CCP “walking around money” used to incite street mobs. “Walking around money” is an old-school term of tradecraft from the Intelligence community. Admittedly, it’s a page out of our own playbook from the 1950s, when the Dulles brothers strategically refined the organizing street counter-protest art form toward taking off the gloves when necessary against Soviet- and Marxist-inspired instability around the globe.
We’ve lost this art form and need to resurrect it to an extent. Unfortunately, all the little Charlies running around the hallways of the headquarters building at CIA are too busy doing other things—perhaps CNN and MSNBC have openings on either side of the Lisa Page time-slots for Charlie in his post-CIA career.
But the CCP has a limited amount of seed money for street violence in the United States. I would suggest they’ve already blown a lot of their cash reserves in this initial round of chaos. For every additional dollar they steer to Antifa to hand out on the street, that’s one less dollar to restart their economy, fund the Belt and Road Initiative, steal our intellectual property, or build their military. Their resources aren’t endless.
Antifa is simply the next round in the game of the globalists to unseat President Donald Trump. They tried Russiagate, Impeachmentgate, exploited the CCP virus, and now mobs are tearing down statues.
What’s next? We see the adjunct of the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) run by Antifa, and we also see the haughty retired generals and admirals harrumphing over the president.
Two quick observations on both (I do have some firsthand knowledge of both). I grew up just north of Capitol Hill—this place was “lost” 50 years ago. Nothing is new or surprising to me about what’s going on there.
And about the generals and admirals, if there’s one thing retired general and flag officers do, they pander, jockey, and compete for board positions and think tank seats. And the way they do it in this town—they do their own version of “virtue-signaling.” Victor Davis Hanson’s piece on this topic is a must-read. There is a craven, self-serving motive behind their choreographed cadence. It’s no coincidence.
Now or Nothing for the CCP
“Statue tearing down” shows good for the cameras and plays well back in Beijing, but don’t be distracted. Focus on imploding the CCP. This “tearing down” is contrived and scripted out of the Maoist playbook—mainly to make them feel good about themselves.
I have never been a fan of Confederate symbology—but street “mobbery” is not the way our democratic society takes care of things. Ultimately, this radical behavior will turn most of the fence-sitters toward our side. The chaos in the Democrat cities is also driving an exodus of lawful citizens.
The tipping point may have been reached already in the Antifa street party. The feckless mayor of Seattle, Jenny Durkan, is now asserting that Seattle will retake control of the Capitol Hill Zone. I would suggest the litigation liability of the mayor and the city has now reached a point where they have no choice.
But the climax is beginning—the CCP is under immense pressure as dedicated forces relentlessly pursue it out of the world capital markets. Although not well understood, this is the true battle and increases the panic of the CCP and its globalist allies who know they have six months of oxygen left (oxygen being the capital the CCP needs to fund their collapsed economy).
They know they must do two things: outmaneuver the strategy to cut their access to capital, and beat Trump in November. The CCP knows its economy has flatlined, and the globalists see their Democrat-run urban areas collapsing and creating a flood of departures that is depopulating their centers of power. All they will have left are Antifa members and those who are in the country unlawfully. Not a good combination.
A Battle of Wills
Despite the vivid images of chaos, don’t be deterred, this is a battle of wills. All conflicts are ultimately a battle of wills. Countermoves are being conducted, watch these closely.
Get the groups to turn on each other. There is much evidence that Antifa is in great friction with others—this is the ultimate counter-insurgency strategy. The stage is not big enough for the CCP, the globalists, and their brownshirts, Antifa—they will turn on each other.
Focus on pushing the CCP out of the U.S., London, and Tokyo exchanges.
Break up the power of social media. Turning Google and the others into baby Googles by application of antitrust and RICO statutes and remove Section 230 protection so they can be sued.
Ensure the integrity of the U.S. election process by removing those intent on fraud.
Hold governors and mayors accountable for the rational and constitutional behavior of their areas. Make them own their chaos.
Assert Federal intervention only when there is a compelling case for federal action and clear statute supporting the action.
Deter the CCP from military adventurism, such as on the border with India.
Keep calm and carry on—stay focused on the real goal and outcome—imploding the CCP.
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Col. John Mills (USMC-Ret.) is a national security professional with service in five eras: Cold War, Peace Dividend, War on Terror, World in Chaos, and now—Great Power Competition. He is the former director of cybersecurity policy, strategy, and international affairs at the U.S. Department of Defense.
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