We’ve only briefly touched on Operation Jade Helm and what it really means.  There are far better analyses (via Mike Vanderboegh) than any I have provided, and the reader is recommended to study those articles.  Mike Vanderboegh also has an analysis that’s worth studying in detail.

Of the claims I have seen, it is obvious that every ridiculous piece of disinformation from the 90s has been resurrected for this one, including the old hoary “rail cars with shackles” canard. Personally, were I a militia unit commander in the Jade Helm Area of Operations, I would take the advice above and have my folks — in civilian clothes — follow, watch and learn. Monitor, to the extent that it is possible, their movements. Observe their tactics. Document them. After-action analyze what you learn. I doubt very seriously if you will be able to monitor their communications, but much can be learned — especially by your friendly sources within local law enforcement in the AO — about what is happening.

Try to remember that all this disinformation-driven hysteria does is discredit your position. IT IS DESIGNED TO DO THAT. If the PTB can use things like this to convince serious people who might otherwise be our allies that we are all just a bunch of Alex Jones loons, then they have shaped the future battlefield in unseen ways that are to their advantage. Keep calm, watch and learn. Vocally (and loudly) object in local political venues about troops training amongst the population. It is dangerous. It is unnecessary. And training accidents certainly happen. One day, somebody is going to screw up and fly a Blackhawk into a crowded elementary school. Raise these very real objections with your local authorities, especially your county sheriff. BUT DON’T BUY INTO THE HYSTERIA. IT IS DESIGNED TO DIVIDE YOU FROM YOUR NATURAL ALLIES, THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO TOOK AN OATH BEFORE GOD TO DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION. Indeed, for the purposes of Leviathan, if Alex Jones didn’t exist already, they would have to invent him.

Well, perhaps.  But I take a slightly different view of things.  I think this is indicative of an evolution in military strategy.  In order to understand the way I see this operation one has to go back to Dr. David Kilcullen, the heralded “Jedi Master” of counterinsurgency who advised the now defamed General David Petraeus on COIN and stability operations in Operation Iraqi Freedom (regarding which I have some pictures of the news coverage outside the federal courthouse taken in Charlotte during a lunch time walk when Petraeus’s lawyers were plea bargaining his case – and I will share some thoughts in the future about manly discipline).

One also must remember that the tilt towards collectivist thinking isn’t just being driven from the civilian rule of the military.  The officer corps – especially that of the Air Force, Navy and Army, with the Marine Corps lagging far behind in post-modern thought – has become increasingly liberal.  Witness the teaching at the Army War College by professor Steve Metz if you doubt me.  So the officer corps has been looking for a new mission since China, Russia and other possible near-peer states are such friends and allies with us now!  David Kilcullen provides that new mission for them, even in the absence of his champion Petraeus.

Kilcullen supplies his vision for the future to us in redacted form from several years ago.

This era’s unprecedented urbanization is concentrated in the least developed areas of Asia, Latin America and Africa.  The data shows that coastal cities are about to be swamped by a human tide that will force them to absorb—in less than 40 years—almost the entire increase in population absorbed by the whole planet, in all of recorded human history up to 1960. And virtually all this urbanization will happen in the world’s least developed areas, by definition the poorest equipped to handle it—a recipe for conflict, crises in health, education and governance, and food, energy and water scarcity.

Rapid urbanization creates economic, social and governance challenges while simultaneously straining city infrastructure, making the most vulnerable cities less able to meet these challenges. The implications for future conflict are profound, with more people fighting over scarcer resources in crowded, under-serviced and under-governed urban areas.

[ … ]

The food security effects are equally severe, as pollution from coastal urbanization imperils fish stocks, and peri-urban areas surround city cores whose infrastructure is scaled for populations far smaller than they now support. This newly settled peri-urban land was once used for farms, market gardens and orchards, but as cities expand into this space, the distance between the city core and its food sources increases significantly. Food must now be produced further away and transported over ever-greater distances, increasing transportation and refrigeration costs, raising fuel usage and carbon emissions, exacerbating traffic problems, and creating “food deserts” in urban areas.

[ … ]

The three megatrends of urbanization, littoralization and connectedness suggest that conflict is increasingly likely to occur in coastal cities …

[ … ]

The implications for civilian agencies of government are equally obvious—the ability to expand social services, city administration, and rule of law into peri-urban areas are clearly important …

Right now I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking, “Kilcullen has recommended a focus on littoral and urban stability operations, and Operation Jade Helm is anything but littoral and urban.”  Yes, but you have to see the bigger picture.  Kilcullen also recommends a strong emphasis on meeting community needs, community engagement, and coupled operations between the armed forces and constabulary forces – wherever might be the area of operation.

And that last part is important.  Kilcullen doesn’t recommend for or against any particular engagement, he is merely pointing to trends.  Those trends and recommendations involve not regular warfare and large unit operations on the field of battle, but a focus on stability operations using all means at your disposal, including civilian assets and police.

So does Operation Jade Helm include preparations for constabulary operations on American soil by the U.S. armed forces?  Of course not, at least as far as you and I know.  You will never hear anything about such a notion, and even the leaders of the operation will not have been told that.  It’s more subtle and insidious than that.  It involves an evolution in thought to that of irregular, urban, constabulary operations rather than conventional war-making.

While it might be popular to suppose that the U.S. learned the right lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan and will never be involved in such military (mis)adventures again, that’s simple childish thinking.  We will, somewhere and somehow, and it just might be on American soil.  The evolution in thought Kilcullen has pressed doesn’t need Iraq or Afghanistan.  It merely needs a willing listener, and the U.S. armed forces are willing indeed.

And so are U.S. LEOs.  The SWAT teams just love to be coupled with the CQB experts with the Army and Marines in mock exercises.  And the experts in the so-called “social sciences” love to be called upon by the military to lend a hand in community stability (witness the participation of civilian anthropologists in operations in Iraq, more frequent than most readers know).

Finally, take note that the DHS is interested in biometrics.

April 28, 2015 – The Office of Biometric Identity Management (OBIM) of the Department of Homeland Security has posted a request for information (RFI) to get industry information regarding current and near future technologies to store, match, and analyze biometric data.

OBIM will use this information to provide customers with important data regarding immigration violators, criminals, and known or suspected terrorists and supports immigration management and border security decision makers.

Supporting national security and public safety as well as enabling operational missions across DHS mission areas, OBIM’s biometric identification and analysis services help government and law enforcement decision makers determine whether individuals pose a risk to the United States and whether those individuals meet the requirements for a specific government benefit or credential.

Folks, listen to me.  This is right out of the Marine Corps play book for Fallujah in 2007.  Unadulterated and unmodified, straight out of the Marine Corps play book.  Biometrics.  When the U.S. government is interested in biometrics and they begin discussing “terrorists,” watch out.  That means you.

So I don’t look to the “disinformation of the 90’s” for what’s happening with the DHS.  I am looking to more recent history and trends for politics and warfare I am seeing in the military thinkers I watch.  Alex Jones is a clown who wants to make money.  But Operation Jade Helm concerns me for reasons completely unrelated to him.

McClatchy:

The Pentagon has a message for Texas: chill.

Defense officials Monday dismissed as “wild speculation” an Internet-fueled claim that a massive summertime exercise called Jade Helm 15 for special operations commandos is a covert operation by President Barack Obama to take over Texas.

That claim was given legitimacy by Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott’s order last week for the Texas State Guard to monitor the exercises.

“Operation Jade Helm poses no threat to any American’s civil liberties,” Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday. “Operation Jade Helm is being conducted by Americans – by, specifically, American special forces personnel.”

Jade Helm 15 will be one of the biggest peacetime military exercises in six decades. Starting July 15 and lasting two months, thousands of Army Rangers, Green Berets, Navy SEALS and other special operations forces will simulate war missions in mainly remote areas of Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Texas and Utah.

Jade Helm 15 will take place on tracts of both public and private land in the seven states.

“In every case, extensive coordination has been completed with whoever’s responsible for that land,” Warren said. “In the case of private land, we’ve spoken and made detailed coordination with the patriotic Americans who have volunteered their land for the use of this important training.”

The Texas State Guard said Monday it would follow Abbot’s order. Asked by McClatchy whether it felt compelled to mobilize troops in order to monitor the exercises, Lt. Col. Joanne MacGregor, the unit’s public affairs officer, responded: “The Texas State Guard stands ready to support the governor of Texas when called upon to serve.”

Leaders of the Texas State Guard “are in the process of examining the best way to meet the governor’s intent,” MacGregor said. She said they are working with the U.S. Special Operations Command “in order to alleviate any possible public concerns.”

At the Pentagon, Warren said: “This is training that we’ve coordinated in great detail with both state and local officials in the various states that we’ll be conducting it.”

Abbott’s order infuriated some fellow Republicans. Former state Rep. Todd Smith, a GOP lawyer from Euless who served in the Texas legislature for 16 years, posted online Saturday what he termed an “open letter” to Abbott.

“As one of the remaining Republicans who actually believes in making decisions based on facts and evidence – you used to be a judge? – I am appalled that you would give credence to the nonsense mouthed by those who instead make decisions based on Internet or radio- or shock-jock-driven hysteria,” Smith wrote. “Is there ANYBODY who is going to stand up to this radical nonsense that is a cancer on our State and Party?”

Democrats, too, expressed dismay.

“The first thing the governor should have done when he heard about concerns with U.S. military training is to support our troops and reassure the public that our U.S. military poses absolutely no threat to Texans,” said Manny Garcia, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party. “Instead, he gave credence to conspiracy theorists by ordering the Texas State Guard to monitor U.S. military operations.”