“CRIPPLED AT THE STARTING GATE” – AMERICA’S ACHILLES HEEL IN FUTURE CONFLICT
Articles
Tue, 02/27/2024 - 8:41am
“Crippled At The Starting Gate”
America’s Achilles Heel In Future Conflict
By Martin Stanton
INTRODUCTION
I recently finished Kurt Schlicter’s excellent book THE ATTACK which is written as a retrospective on a massed October 7th style terrorist attack on the United States that occurs in the late summer of 2024. Schlicter’s book is a page turner, both easy to read and compelling. The premise of THE ATTACK is simple: Large numbers of terrorists’ infiltrate across our open southern border (past our distracted, improperly focused, and politically hamstrung law enforcement and intelligence agencies) amidst the current flood of illegal aliens. They assume hiding positions within the US and wait for the “GO” order. Their attacks happen over several days and cause mass casualties and crippling economic damage. THE ATTACK captures the savagery of Oct 7, 2023, and transfers it to an American setting on a far broader scale. Schlicter’s descriptions of the atrocities committed by the attackers are not for the faint of heart but are basically taken directly from both testimony of Israelis who survived the Hamas attack on October 7 and the captured Hamas footage of what happened to those who did not. The balance of the book is about the various reactions to the attack across America.
Schlicter makes no secret of his political leanings, but no one can deny the plausibility of his scenario. THE ATTACK is a well written and thought-provoking book. It certainly caused me to freshly consider my own community and how it would react to such an event. It also got me thinking about how vulnerable the US is; not just to non-state actor “terrorist” attacks, but to attacks by conventional and special operations forces of enemy nations in the event of hostilities with the US.
IT NOT WW2 ANYMORE – THE OCEANS NO LONGER PROTECT US
The United States has almost no living memory of an attack by the forces of an enemy nation on our mainland. The closest we have left are the few 90–100-year-olds, who can recall the handful of Japanese submarine gun attacks on the Pacific coast and the ferocious U-boat campaign off our Atlantic shores in early 1942. The last time we faced an enemy capable of stopping our maritime traffic and projecting power into the continental United States was in the war of 1812. None of our modern enemies in the 20th century had the capability to conventionally attack military targets on the US mainland in any meaningful way. America was too far and their ability to project power too limited.
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/crippled-starting-gate-americas-achilles-heel-future-conflict
