1/ THREAD on Oath Keepers and an Insurrection of Total War. Stewart Rhodes is head of Oath Keepers, an anti-government organization that makes direct appeals for membership among active-duty military and law enforcement, as well as veterans. The organization serves as the spine

2/ of the larger paramilitary militia movement, a nation-wide recruiter of local people to form their own local militias, a vector to radicalize and recruit the then Tea Party movement members into the larger “Patriot” worldview, as well as a link to the Ron Paul libertarian

3/ network. However, the main purpose of Oath Keepers is to subvert the military and law enforcement from within. Rhodes wants national, state, and local decision-makers to harbor doubts that their orders will be obeyed. Similarly, the recruitment of active-duty military and law

4/ enforcement would facilitate the leaking of operational and intelligence—thus undermining the ability of the military and law enforcement to carry out their missions.

5/ On January 5, 2021, Rhodes conducted a telephone interview with Sam Bushman for the Liberty Roundtable show [ https://www.libertyroundtable.com/2021/01/05/radio-show-hour-1-1-5-2021/ ] I thank @brucewilson for bringing the interview to my attention. While Rhodes’ talk is filled with conspiracy theories and misinformation,

6/ my purpose here is to highlight how Rhodes’ talk is an example of Fourth Generation Warfare or 4GW. 4GW is a conflict between a state and a non-state actor in which the central objective is to undermine the legitimacy of the state, that is, our federal government.

7/ Operationally, it wants citizens to transfer their allegiance from the federal government to the non-state entity—which could be a religious, political, ethnic, or racial movement. This is the required foundational understanding of 4GW.

8/ In a 4GW conflict, war would be “non-linear,” without fronts and rears, and the distinction between civilian and military “may disappear.” Indeed, “the distinction between war and peace will be blurred to the vanishing point.” Lind wrote that “strategic and tactical levels

9/ will blend.” Civilian targets will include “seats of government” and “knowledge” industries. Offensively, the effort is to use psychological operations to facilitate the transfer of primary allegiance, use media manipulation and psychological operations to blunt the use of

10/ overwhelming physical force by the state, as well as to shift local and global public opinion. 4GW is total war within a society. It is in that context of total war that one can appreciate Rhodes’ interview of on January 5, 2021, and the Trump-incited insurrection that

11/ occurred the following day, as well widespread calls by paramilitary militias, Boogaloo boys, and neo-Nazi accelerationists for more conflicts at 50 state capitols and President-elect Biden’s inauguration.
The entirety of Rhodes’ interview is a long discussion of why the

12/ federal government and the Democratic Party are illegitimate. Rhodes enters the Bushman show at the 30-minute mark. Between 31:32 and 32:44, Rhodes argues that the Biden election is fraudulent, and the Republicans are traitors. Essentially, the government has been bought by

13/ a foreign power, a point he makes again more explicitly later in the interview. RHODES: “I have a bad feeling that the bad guys don’t care what they have to do to violate their own rules of the House or McConnell the traitor will violate their own rules in the Senate and they

14/ do whatever they have to do to rubberstamp Biden…. So, the system from top to bottom and all the branches have been taken over by enemies foreign and domestic. And that is just the reality. It’s way worse than Lincoln’s days and the Civil War. This is far far worse. So,

15/ you’ve got people who are in the back pocket of China, who are bribed like the Bidens or blackmailed by Biden’s son, so that’s all over. And all the agencies and all the branches, the Chinese have sent money to buy these soulless politicians who only care about political

16/ power and money. That’s where we are at.” Between 34:22—35:10 Rhodes claims that it is the Chinese government that is the puppet master of the Democrats and the Republicans. Ignore when he mentions 4GW or 5GW because those are American terms that are in no way applicable to

17/ Chinese doctrine. RHODES: “This is unrestricted warfare of communist Chinese style. They call it Fourth Generation or Fifth Generation warfare. It is warfare through every other means except conflict. They knew they couldn’t defeat the United States in open combat so they

18/ switched gears and for the last couple of decades undermining and subverting us from inside out. And then you have domestic enemies who are communists who are marching and are happy to help. And then you have the deep state elite who want to rule over us and they have no

19/ problem aligning with the communist Chinese.” And between 37:41 and 38:33, Rhodes again claims that both the Republicans and the Democrats are owned by the Chinese government.
RHODES: “Exactly. They didn’t want to vote. But, here’s the thing. It’s been rigged already.

20/ I think the Democrats are going to steal it. And these Republicans really don’t care, McConnell and the rest of them, because they’re in the club. Look at Loeffler, right. Her husband is the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. That’s exactly the entity that the Chinese

21/ professor was bragging about controlling. Right? They control Wall Street. They control the people that run the inner circles….” Having established that the entire election was fraudulent and that the US government is owned by the Chinese government, Rhodes then makes the

22/ case that the “Patriot” movement is in a state of total war with the US government.
RHODES: RHODES (44:00+): “We have no choice. We’re in a war. We need to see the reality. We’re in a war and it’s better to wage it while he’s the commander-in-chief than to let it be stolen

23/ and put a ChiCom puppet in the White House and then we’re under Biden [??] then it’s even worse.” Indeed, between 48:00 to 49:00, it is clear that Rhodes sees this as a total war.
“We are dealing with a total war by a foreign power that is using domestic puppets that are

24/ trampling on the people’s rights. And that should sound familiar. That’s exactly what the Founders dealt with. They had King George, a [unintelligible] from overseas using his puppets and back then the major international corporation was the East India Company that had

25/ special powers and privilege and an artificial monopoly that was being enforced by the government that was terrorizing the people and violating their rights. Today we have Facebook and Twitter and Amazon etcetera and Covid-19, of course, is one big massive transmission of

26/ wealth from Middle America to the big corporations. So, that’s what we’re facing now, very much like the Founding Fathers. We have no representation in this government because it is stolen, just as they had no representation in Parliament. So, we are being terrorized, our

27/ rights are being violated, without the consent of the governed.” Now, Rhodes may be speaking solely for himself. He may be speaking on behalf of Oath Keepers. I think Rhodes is expressing the general range of belief--perhaps not in all its particulars regarding the Chinese

28/ government--from Oath Keepers to the militias to the Boogaloo boys to the neo-Nazi accelerationists, that there now exists a state of total war within the United States. Rhodes' view is that the US government is illegitimate. This is, indeed, Fourth Generation Warfare. It

29/ also means that the strategic-moral level is of primary importance, even if there is widespread physical-tactical conflicts. What we all need to survive a 4GW, as John Boyd articulated, is moral strength and moral courage, and to not let the moral bonds that hold us together

30/ as a society to fray and snap. We need to trust the people fighting to preserve a secular democracy--progressive, centrist, or conservative. What we have witnessed since January 6th is a Republican Party that has largely abandoned democracy and the rule of law. The Christian

31/ Right, seeing Trump as their defender against "persecution," is now standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the neo-Nazi accelerationists. With them appears to be Oath Keepers, paramilitary militias, and almost certainly the Proud Boys and Boogaloo boys. @MalcolmNance was probably

32/ the first to assess back in November 2020 that we stood at the edge of a full-blown insurrection. If Rhodes' talk is any indication, I think that is the case. If this is indeed the case, we had all better be prepared.