If every State in the US declared war on the Federal government, would the president be removed?

Hypothetical Battles: If every State in the US declared war on the Federal government, would the president be removed?

Two-hundred years ago this week, Washington, D.C., was burned down in the climactic months of the War of 1812. This question supposes that another such burning might be at hand. On this bicentennial of the first burning of our nation’s capital, allow me to offer a vision of what a second burning might look like.

Please note: This answer is crazy long, representing several months of research and writing, and might require a solid 30 to 45 minutes of reading. If you're short on time, then I hope you will add it to your reading list and come back to it, but won't blame you if you want to just scroll to the conclusion at the end.


Original question: If every state in the US declared war on the WHITE HOUSE, could obama be removed?

50 States versus one guy in one building? Yeah, I am thinking it is not outside the realm of possibility that he could be removed.



But that’s not a very fun answer.

Let’s go ahead and modify the question to: If every State in the U.S. declared war on the Federal government (because declaring war on a building is a horrible military objective), *would* the president be removed?

Let us establish a few, initial parameters to this hypothetical en masse insurrection:

No attempt has been nor will be made on the part of the States going into this war to realize that this is Unconstitutional as Balls;

The Armed Forces of the United States are loyal to the Federal Government (for reasons explained in a bit, and because we don’t want this hypothetical to be farcical);

The insurrection has been planned in secret, meaning the U.S. forces are on standard alert levels.

Those deployed overseas have not had a chance to be recalled at the start of the war, nor the Reserves activated, nor Congress yet authorize the President to take any extraordinary measures to quell the insurrection (cit. “Unconstitutional as Balls”);

By the States declaring war, their forces are limited to their respective National Guard units (the Federal side of the Guard made moot) and State Defense Forces, where applicable, and militia groups, as calculated;

U.S. territories do not participate in the insurrection (keeping fingers crossed for Statehood in the aftermath!);

The Washington, D.C., National Guard, being under the direct command of the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of the Air Force, are Federal forces; and,
While the States have had time to mobilize their forces, somehow not arousing suspicion, they have not had a chance to pre-position them for an attack (because that would be too obvious and ruin the surprise).

Also, for this simulation:

The President remains in the White House throughout the war, in keeping with the spirit of the original question, and because any Continuity of Operations/Government (COOP/COG) sites have now been severely compromised.

Let’s get to it!

Militias


We’re starting with militias because, realistically, if the States go all-in on an overthrow of the Federal government, there is no way these groups would sit on the sidelines. Their whole reason for existing in the 21st century is to provide a citizen deterrent to tyrannical government; and in the case of an insurrection, they would want to prove their capabilities. Otherwise, why exist?

The other reason to start with militias is because whereas the dispositions of the National Guard and regular Armed Forces are well understood and can be plugged into this scenario without much fuss, militias require a little more modeling that’s good to get out of the way early on.

Nobody has an accurate number on how many Americans are in unorganized militia groups (probably due in part to their unorganized nature). Previous estimations have put the number as high as 60,000 people, but many such estimates were made prior to the reported surge in militia support and activity under the Obama Administration.

Lacking an accurate count, we will estimate a State’s available “militia” as being a percentage of “very conservative” voters (don’t pretend like there are enough liberals in militias to be worth modeling) which we will develop by combining polling data from the 2008 and 2012 Republican primaries and measuring that against the 2012 exit polling data.

Exit polling was not conducted in every State’s primary in 2008 and 2012, and so not every State has a known number of self-identified “very conservative” Republicans. What we can do is provide a reasonable estimate for these States by charting the relationship between the percentage of self-identified “very conservative” voters in the primary to the margin by which the Republican candidate won (positive value)/lost (negative value) the State in the general election.

For both elections, I have removed Iowa and Nevada as outliers. They reported some of the highest percentages of very conservative voters of all States (IA: 45 (2008) & 47 (2012); NV: 40 & 49), but they went on to support the Democratic candidate (IA: -9.5 & -5.8; NV: -12.5 & -6.7). I attribute this to the fact that they are early caucus states, which attracts higher-than representative numbers of very conservative voters.



Similarly, exit polling was not available in all states for the 2012 general election to get a level of overall conservative voters (of which a subset are "very conservative"). However, it was conducted in a majority of states; and so we can compare the percentage of self-identified conservatives against the outcome of the election in the state, which looks as follows:



The last step required is coming up with a reasonable percentage of these voters who could be militia participants. The 60,000 estimate cited above comes from the year 2000, and which would represent two one-hundredths of a percent of the total US population at the time. If we apply that percentage to the current population, we get an estimate of 68,000 militiamen in the US. To achieve a similar number from our conservative data would represent 0.496 percent of the “very conservative” population. So the equation for each State looks like this:

(Males 18 to 45) X (percent “very conservative” Republican primary voters) X (percent “conservative” general election voters) X 0.00496.

Applying the above extrapolations to all the states, we get the following table:



Rules for this scenario:

Militias will take two days to get their members together and assemble in their State’s capital, having not been invited to the initial party (cit. “unorganized”)

They will be used first as a kind of citizen military police force to provide long-term security for the Federal installations initially overrun by the National Guard.

If there are Federal forces present in the State, the Militia will abandon its security role (voluntarily or under orders) to augment the National Guard units in the State.

The Military Vote


We have to realize the fact that even if soldiers were unable to set aside the illegality of the insurrection (cit. UCMJ and “Unconstitutional as Balls”), there are some who might believe that the president and his government are such a threat to the Republic that the insurrection is warranted. It is likely that it is only a very few soldiers who would do this, but in order to establish a baseline, we have to estimate the partisan leanings of the Guard and State Defense Forces to determine how many of them actually show up to fight. We will do this by assuming that they parallel the partisan leanings of the Armed Forces.

Note: From here on out, for the polling data I cite, I’m equating Republican with conservative, independent with moderate, and Democrat with liberal. I understand fully that these are not otherwise transferrable terms (eg, there are conservative Democrats, moderate Republicans, the liberal but unaffiliated, etc.); however, not all polling data offers breakouts of ideology and/or party identification. I try to account for this as much as possible.

While it is generally assumed that the Armed Forces are more conservative than general population, there are no reliable polls of the military to provide a sense of just how skewed the partisan advantage is, what with there being a general reluctance to encourage politicization of the Armed Forces. Some initial research, however, suggests that the skew is generally overestimated – at least in the enlisted ranks. We have some data to work with that can help us make a reasonable estimation of the difference.

One study on military political leanings from 2004 (which is convenient because it coincides with a presidential election with significant exit polling (flawed, but useable)). The study claims that, among enlisted personnel, the ideological split was 32 percent conservative, 45 percent moderate, and 23 percent liberal. 2004 exit polling tells us that the Bush/Kerry divide was 84/15 for conservatives, 45/54 for moderates, and 13/85 for liberals. If you stitch together all those values, you come up with a result of 50/49 in favor of Bush.

For the officers, we’re only told that “two-thirds” identified as conservatives. Until I can find the raw data from study, we might then assume that the remaining one-third of officers break out in a similar ratio of moderates to liberals as the enlisted ranks (22 percent moderate and 11 percent liberal). Following the same voting patterns as earlier, we get 68/31 in favor of Bush.

What we need to know before making a comparison to the general public is to figure out what the vote of the whole military would have been; and so we need to weight the enlisted and officer votes according to their representation in the ranks. The number of enlisted personnel and the number of officers in the military, as of November 2004, was reported by the Defense Manpower Data Center as 1,179,570 and 226,565, respectively.

So accounting for those values, when we plug in the expected voting patterns calculated earlier, we get a final “military vote” of 53.6/46.4 in favor of Bush. How did the general population vote in 2004? 50.7/48.3.

This would mean that, for our modeling purposes, we’re assuming that the oft-fabled super-conservative military is, in fact, only +2.9 points more conservative than the general population (or, in the case of the National Guard, the population of their States). We’ll skew this partisanship at a cost of -1.9 points to moderates and -1.0 liberals, in keeping with the general 2:1 advantage of those who self-identify as moderates versus liberals.

I recognize that a significant flaw in this model is that it fails to correct for age. While between 65 and 70 percent of the Armed Forces are between 18 and 29, versus approximately 20 to 25 percent of the general population, we know that not 100 percent of personnel in that age bracket are in the enlisted ranks (eg, officers recently graduated from the Service Academies). I haven’t found good data to be able to make the correction.

National Guard



Not all Guardsmen are going to be down with the insurrection. They might have gone along with being mobilized, because orders are orders; however, once the purpose of the mobilization is revealed to be to overthrow the government, I am sure there would be more than a few Guardsmen who would call that the pinnacle of an unlawfulorder (cit. UCMJ and “Unconstitutional as Balls”) and hastily demobilize the crap out of themselves. We will call this the Guard Resistance Quotient (GRQ).

The GRQ is particularly important because we will use it to calculate a critical factor: States that actually participate in the insurrection. The hypothetical scenario only requires all states to declare war on the government, but not that they all pony up and fight.

Rules for the GRQ:

States’ National Guards’ effectiveness and strength will be fixed according to the GRQ at the start of the insurrection;
States with a GRQ below 40 will participate in the insurrection by;
o  Securing Federal installations within their State
o  Assist other States in rebellion with securing Federal installations
o  Securing the contiguous borders of all States in rebellion, and
o  When possible, conducting offensive operations against Federal troops
States with a GRQ between 40 and 50 will be too divided to field an effective fighting force at the outset of the insurrection, and so their initial actions will be limited to:
o  Securing their States’ borders against all forces, and
o  Blockading Federal installations, but not attempting to secure them
States with a GRQ above 50 will flip their allegiance in favor of the Federal government. They will:
o  Secure their borders against States in rebellion and permit the movement of Federal forces, and
o  Combat militia and other insurrectionist forces within their state

Modeling the GRQ is slightly more complicated than calculating a State’s militia.

Soldiers being soldiers, there are going to be more factors at play than their level of conservatism. They are obliged by their oath of service to defend the government and uphold the country’s laws; and to be perfectly blunt, I don’t know any soldier who signed up with the desire to one day point their gun at a fellow American. If you think this is in doubt, a quick scan of Quora questions about this matter reveal many conservative veterans who, while otherwise very critical of the president and his performance to date, go out of their way to argue why rebellion and revolution are both unnecessary and illegal.

However, this being a hypothetical scenario, we’ll take a crack at modeling what portion of the Guard will resist its orders by calculating how much of the Guard will be likely to support a mass insurrection.

We will draw on three recent polls of Americans: Belief in the necessity of armed revolution (May 2013); satisfaction with the system of government (January 2014), and; satisfaction with the way they’re being governed (September 2013). First, I apply the percentage of those who believe that armed revolution is necessary. Anybody in that category won’t need further convincing once the orders come down. Of the remainder, I’ll apply percentages of those who are dissatisfied with the system of government. They might not have thought armed revolution was necessary, but they’re able to convince themselves that a change is necessary. Of the remainder, we’ll apply the percentage of those who are dissatisfied with how they’re being governed. They might have waited for the next election to express this, but will take the opportunity to strike now.
http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2013/guncontrol/

http://www.gallup.com/poll/166985/dissatisfied-gov-system-works.aspx

http://www.gallup.com/poll/165371/americans-satisfaction-gov-drops-new-low.aspx

To the natural reluctance soldiers would have to violating their oath, how the intensity of beliefs might not translate to commitment to revolution, and overlap from respondents, I am going to also apply weights to each of the polling measures, as follows:

I admit that this is a subjective exercise predicated on the idea that liberals would be vastly less enthusiastic about revolting against a Democratic president, even if they are dissatisfied, than conservatives might be.

This gives us a final matrix of:



Before I return us to the state of Jefferson for an example of how all this works, please allow me to say how absolutely terrified I am of the numbers of Americans who believe that armed revolution might be necessary in a few years’ time. The militia thing was just an estimate, but the poll results are legitimately unnerving.

I also want to take this moment to reiterate my earlier statements that, in truth, I would expect zero percent of soldiers to be cool with these orders, but, again, this is a hypothetical scenario.

Moving on.

Jefferson’s National Guard has 3,000 soldiers. From earlier, we know that 45 percent of Jefferson’s voters are conservative; but as we calculated earlier, we are assuming that the Guard is a further 2.9 points more conservative, for a value of 47.9. We also figure that that 34.5 percent are moderate, and the remaining 17.6 percent liberal.

Using the first poll, we find that there are 860 Guardsmen ready to take up arms, oath be damned, by virtue of their belief of the necessity of armed revolution. Applying the second poll to the remaining Guardsmen, we get another 802 willing to join the insurrection due to their belief that the government is no longer functional. Finally, with the last poll, another 304 join the revolution due to their dissatisfaction in the decisions coming from Washington.

This gives us a grand total of 1,966 Guardsmen who will answer the call for revolution, or 65.5 percent; or, a GRQ of 34.5. Jefferson will participate in the insurrection at its outset.

The Armed Forces



Whereas the National Guards, representative of their States, might be torn apart over the question of insurrection, members of the U.S. Armed Forces, having been sworn to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic (eg, States declaring war on the government), should not have reservations about being called to quell an “Unconstitutional as Balls” insurrection and would not likely grapple with en masse defections. As such, once alerted to the insurrection, the priorities of the Armed Forces will be:

Secure key Federal installations

Protect States still loyal to the government from incursion by forces in rebellion

Conduct offensive operations against rebel forces

Occupy rebellious States’ capitals to dissolve the governments and compel their forces to disband

However, despite loyalty to their country and their sworn duties, this is not to say that the Armed Forces would not face a reduction in combat effectiveness due both to individual soldiers’ partisan beliefs and their unease over having to take up arms against fellow Americans. For this, we’ll calculate a Services Effectiveness Factor (SEF).

For the SEF, we will use recruitment data to estimate the proportionate representation of States in the US military, and then weight their respective GRQs reduced to one-third of their value.

Not surprisingly, the representation of soldiers in the Armed Forces closely mirrors States’ populations rather than their ideologies; as such, the mix of traditionally liberal and conservative states in amongst the States most represented in the Armed Forces balances the GRQ values. The final SEF is calculated at 18.98 – in other words, the Armed Forces are operating at about 20 percent reduced effectiveness, the morale penalty for having to fight against their fellow Americans and to protect a government they might not personally support.

Order of Battle

Having come up with estimates of how likely (or unlikely) it is that Americans in uniform will oppose or support the Federal government, let’s look at the number of soldiers about to be engulfed in this conflict:

US Armed Forces: 1,387,493
Army National Guard: 358,200 (Authorized)
Air Force National Guard: 105,700 (Authorized)

Absent of any other consideration, on paper the National Guard and State Defense Forces are screwed, outnumbered 3 to 1 by the most well equipped and well trained fighting force in the world – and that’s before we take any defections into account. But we can’t just take that at face value.

Let’s examine how much of the full force of the U.S. Armed Forces will be available to fight against the rebelling States.

According to the DMDC, approximately 18 percent of the Armed Forces are deployed overseas. By branch, it’s 18 percent of the Army, 16 percent of the Navy, 15 percent of the Marine Corps, and 21 percent of the Air Force. And while that leaves a formidable 1.1 million servicemen and women back to defend the United States, they are not all in combat roles.

The actual breakout of military roles and assignments is a guarded secret – for many good reasons. However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, using Department of Defense data, states that there were 213,000 combat specialty personnel and officers across the Services as of 2013, or about 15 percent of the total Armed Forces. Of those, 68 percent are in the Army and 23 percent in the Marine Corps, representing 28 and 25 percent of the total manpower of each respective Service (or 145,500 Soldiers and 48,400 Marines). We can partially validate this with an Army study from 2008 on the injury rates of selected occupation specialties that listed the 45 most common occupational specialties and their percentage of the total force; and about 25 percent of servicemembers were in combat roles.

Contrast this with the Army National Guard, of whom 54 percent are in designated combat roles, with another 16 percent serving in direct combat support. Now our match-up looks like this:

US Armed Forces (All Combat): 213,000
US Army and Marine Corps Only (All Combat Roles): 194,900
Army National Guard (All Combat): 250,700

Yes, you’re reading that correctly. More than half (54 percent) of the United States’ combat capabilities are vested in citizen soldiers, not the regular forces.

On the distribution of ground forces, units designated for combat are not evenly spread across the US to counter an insurrection. Their main bases and estimated manpower strengths are indicated as follows:



On the one-hand, the combat units of the U.S. Army are able to assemble and deploy quickly; however, they will have to prioritize which Federal sites to defend or liberate, to say nothing of securing their own supplies, as they will quickly find routes of access blocked by secessionist National Guard units.

The Army National Guard, on the other hand, musters out of 3,200 armories in 2,700 communities.

While this gives the Guard unrivaled geographic coverage and, in those states whose commitment to secession is unwavering, rapid ability to converge on and close Federal sites in the first hours of the insurrection, it means it will take longer for its units to organize into larger units capable of resisting concentrated incursions by the Federal forces.

Regarding air power, the Air National Guard comprises 31 percent of the Air Force’s total fighter capability, 38 percent of its airlift capability, and 40 percent of its tanker fleet. It maintains air wings in every State, whereas the Air Force’s capabilities are disparate and, at least domestically, heavily reliant on cooperation with the Air National Guard. Finally, as the Air National Guard is responsible for all air defense in the United States, the entirety of its combat inventory is available within the US, whereas the Air Force’s capabilities, though strong in the US, are scattered across the globe.

The disparity in air power can be demonstrated with this map showing the combat radii (ie, the maximum distance for an aircraft to travel with a full payload and linger without refueling) of the Air National Guard and Air Force’s primary combat aircraft:







Again, these are just combat ranges. If the maps were to include intercept ranges, the Air National Guard would have the vast majority of the continental US covered – because again, its primary mission is to assure the total air defense of the US. The Air Force, by contrast, could reach most of the US, but with significant gaps in the North and Northeast.

The only branch of the US Armed Forces which is unrivaled in any way by the States is the Navy. While a very few states have naval militias, these are not comparable to the vast flotilla that is US maritime power; and so they are not being considered in this hypothetical. The key resource in the U.S. Navy’s arsenal is its 11 aircraft carriers, whose air wings can be used to counterbalance the superiority of the Air National Guard.

Modeling Combat

We have talked a lot about defections, morale, and mission roles, but we need to bring that all together to model the inevitable battles that are to follow.

It is not enough to say, “The professional Armed Forces are better trained – and more regularly – therefore, they’ll win in every case.” The National Guard trains and deploys alongside the regular forces, many if not most of its leaders have experience in the regular forces, and they have built up a great deal of experience on rotations through Iraq and Afghanistan. But nor is this enough to make them equals to the regular forces in all cases.

The other issue is that while the post-WWII history of the world has had its fair share of conflicts, there have not been many examples of nearly equal, modern-equipped forces going head-to-head in combat that we can draw on. Certainly the United States has not gone toe-to-toe with a large, conventional enemy since the Korean War – and its arsenal has changed quite a bit since then. However, there are a few example we can draw on for our model.

The first thing we have to do is establish some kind of a baseline upon which to level these other factors. Exploring wars and battles that present similar conditions to the war being modeled here (ie, similarly equipped and trained military forces fighting over what’s likely to be a short campaign). Additional criteria, beyond the match-up of the forces, were for there to be well documented battles with definitive start and end dates, reliable estimates of troop levels and reported casualties. Given all that, I drew from the following conflicts for my model:

Sino-Indian War (1962)
Yom Kippur War (1973)
Kargil War (1999)
Battle of Grozny (1999/2000)
Russian-Georgian War (2008)
Nafusa Mountain Campaign (2011)

Based on the dispositions of the forces at the start of these campaigns, I attempted to identify which force was superior and inferior absent of the eventual outcome of the campaign. From there, I looked at how many casualties per hour per 1,000 forces were suffered over the duration of combat operations.

What I found was a nearly four-to-one disparity between the casualty rate suffered by the inferior force compared to the superior. This was not entirely surprising, given that the average ratio of superior to inferior forces across the selected campaigns was 4.6 to 1. In fact – and this shouldn’t be much of a surprise, really – the greatest predictor of the rate of casualties suffered by an inferior force was the ratio of superior forces marshaled against it.

With a little bit of tweaking and closer examinations of how these battles unfolded, I built a model to estimate casualty rates per hour based on the force sizes involved in the engagement.

And with all due respect to the professionalism of the men and women in the National Guard, I’ve considered them the inferior force when up against the regular forces. Likewise, the State Defense Forces are inferior to the National Guard, and then militias inferior to SDFs.

Running the Scenario

Having figured out which States commit to the insurrection, the disposition of forces, and distribution of critical installations, I did my best to make the movements of forces realistic and within the parameters I described. In keeping with the question, however, the ultimate goal of all the forces taking arms against the government is the conquest of Washington, D.C., to force the surrender of the president and his administration.

I have not run a simulation of the war to a full conclusion, just long enough to determine whether the insurrection could plausibly be successful in toppling the government.

What follows is a novelized representation of how most scenarios played out.

Day 1: #ACW2

It’s three o’clock on a Sunday morning in Washington, D.C.. The President and his chief advisors have been asleep for a few hours. The president was not on travel this weekend, and his Sunday schedule is light.

Most Cabinet officers are at their homes in Northern Virginia and Maryland, but a few have taken long weekends at vacation homes or traveled on official business to various corners of the country, due to return to the capital later in the day. Critical Federal offices in the capital are manned by a handful of watch officers. Members of Congress are scattered across the country, back in their home states, and aren’t scheduled to return to Washington for business until Monday afternoon.

At the Pentagon, the Office of the Secretary of Defense is empty. Sitting on his desk is a memorandum from the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, sent Friday afternoon, alerting the Secretary to unusual activity of the Army and Air National Guard units across the United States.

“Over the last several months,” he states, “governors in all states have staggered mobilization announcements of their National Guard units for ‘readiness exercises,’ which we have learned will coincide this week. The governors and commanders have been vague or completely non-responsive in detailing either the nature or extent of these exercises. This lack of coordination and communication is startling, unprecedented, and compromises our ability to ensure NG availability for federal mobilization, if needed.”

The memorandum ends with a request for a meeting to discuss the issue later in the week, although the Bureau chief has been pinging the Secretary and his staff for the last several days to elevate his concerns sooner.

At the same time, at thousands of armories, town halls, and other community sites in every State of the Republic, tens of thousands of citizen soldiers have assembled per their mobilization orders. Until now, they’ve been given very little information about the nature of their mobilization. The men and women of the Guard assume that they’ve been activated for training exercises. Nobody is expecting to be deployed to Afghanistan with the war winding down, and there aren’t any major national disasters straining the States’ civilian agencies.

At the top of the hour, unit commanders are given their orders, accompanied by a short message that has been carefully crafted in secret by all fifty governors and their National Guard commandants. It reads:

Our Nation was founded on the principle that ‘Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,’ and ‘that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.’ We no longer give consent to be governed by a government that both threatens liberty and can no longer act in the best interests of its citizens – and we believe that the political remedies have been exhausted.

Over the previous two decades, we have witnessed a disturbing expansion of Federal powers that has undermined the authority of the States and the preservation of our citizens’ liberties. The present administration has taken to governing by order rather than by law. We are resolved to check this power. At the same time, we have witnessed such a collapse in the functionality of Congress that it threatens the stability of our great Nation and its ability to meet the challenges of this century. We are resolved to restore order.

We are united in our belief that the Federal Government of the United States of America has become its greatest domestic enemy; and, per our oaths, we are sworn to defend the Constitution and our citizens against its encroachments.

We have sent a demand for the existing powers of the Federal government to resign, but we are committed to showing our resolve. You are hereby charged with arresting the power of the Federal government to exercise its unlawful control over the States and destruction of our liberties.

As the Founding Fathers did before us, we appeal to God to guide our noblest intentions, and in the name of the American people declare that the States are absolved from all allegiance to the Federal Government, and that all political connection between them and the States is and ought to be dissolved, that a new and free government might take its place with the consent of the people.

May God bless you in this mission, and may God bless the United States of America.”

Minutes pass after the declaration is read before the full weight of what’s been asked of this citizens’ army sinks in to its soldiers, but the reactions are strong. In some places, cheers go up: The long awaited rebellion has begun, and they are quick to execute their orders. In others, soldiers throw down their weapons in disgust and abandon their units without a passing thought. Accusations of treason abound – some against the Federal government, some against the governors who signed the orders, and many between soldiers. Some commanders refuse to issue their given orders, calling them unlawful, while others order the detention of soldiers who attempt to desert or resist.

In Massachusetts and Hawaii, enough soldiers who are repulsed by the orders realize that they significantly outnumber the willing that they are able to take control of the Guard. They affirm their loyalty to the lawfully elected Federal government and move to detain the commanders and political leaders who issued the initial, unlawful orders.

Across the country, Guardsmen break the secrecy of their orders and announce them via social media – some to compel citizens to support them, some to resist. Whereas most of the leading media personalities on the East Coast are asleep – prepared to wake up for what they believe will be an unsurprising run of Sunday morning talk show appearances – and the 24-hour networks are locked to summaries of yesterday’s news, the journalists and producers on the West Coast who an hour earlier had prepared to call it a day are now trying to get on top of the story. Their efforts to reach contacts in Washington, D.C., or anybody of rank in the vast national security apparatus, are slow to bear fruit.

In Hawaii, where the night is still young and most of the military and civilian leadership is awake, commanders of the National Guard whose loyalties have stayed with the Federal government are able to contact the commanders of the 25th Infantry Division, at Schofield Barracks, and US Pacific Command in Honolulu. They detail their orders to seize or blockade Federal installations and disarm military units – peacefully if possible, by force if required.

The 25th Infantry Division, with units in Hawaii and Alaska, goes on maximum alert, and US Pacific Command follows suit. Commanders of both units raise the alarm to other combatant commands about the unfolding insurrection.

During this time, State-level emergency services activate the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System. The first warning many Americans have that the foundations of their Republic have been shattered are alerts from their phones, preempting the alarms set for much later that Sunday morning, with a simple text message:

Emergency Alert

Remain indoors. Do not interfere with military operations. Call 9-1-1 for emergencies only. Emergency Alert in this area until 1159 PM.




It isn’t until after 4 a.m. in Washington, D.C., an hour after disloyal National Guard units began leaving their bases to seize Federal installations, when enough of the senior leadership of government has been awoken and come to terms with the scope of the crisis. The President is roused and given a hurried, fragmented briefing while he is rushed to the Situation Room underneath the West Wing. Reports are pouring into the bunker from across the country of barricades and roadblocks near military installations.

Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, home to America’s B-52 fleet, has been surrounded. The Fourth Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division, normally stationed at Fort Polk to the south, and which might have otherwise been deployed to break the siege, is still in Afghanistan.

Tooele Army Depot in Utah, a key storage site for ammunition and the coordination of logistics for the Army, has been overrun.

A combined force of the Kentucky and Tennessee Army National Guards have demanded the surrender of the famed 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell (“They’ve told ‘em, ‘Nuts.’”). The Third Brigade of the First Infantry Division, normally stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky, has only just begun coming home from Afghanistan. Slated to be inactivated by the end of the year, it is not at strength to provide reinforcements.

The Secretary of the Army and Secretary of the Air Force report that the D.C. National Guard has been ordered to mobilize to defend the capital; and already the 121st Fighter Squadron, always on alert at Joint Base Andrews, has scrambled its F-16s. The President orders the Armed Forces to be brought to its highest state of readiness; to prepare for the security of America’s airspace and the efficient transportation of troops, civilian air traffic is grounded and its airspace is closed to incoming flights.

Two overarching questions guide the conversation of America’s national security leaders: How deep does the insurrection go, and is the Federal government still able to exercise any control across the country? Evacuating the capital is quickly ruled out, not because it would symbolize panic and defeat, but because the security of continuity of operations sites, not to mention the airspace itself, has been too compromised to consider. However, the Continuity of Government Condition is raised to its highest level; and before roadblocks become too restrictive, the senior leaders of government who are able evacuate their homes in the capital area make their way to alternate operational sites.

Although the presidential line of succession has been tenuously secured, Congress is no longer a functioning body.

While many senior leaders and Cabinet officials in the D.C. area were able to be expeditiously evacuated due to rigorous training for national disasters, word about the insurrection was not quick to reach Congressional leader. In his home state, the Speaker of the House, third in line to the presidency, is detained by disloyal National Guard units. Hundreds of Members of Congress are similarly lured to their front doors from state police officials and citizen soldiers and then taken into custody.

While the picture across the country appears to be deteriorating rapidly, there are two States prominent on the minds of America’s leadership: Maryland and Virginia. Are their National Guard units about to storm the capital before the D.C. National Guard can organize its defense? The States present two very different pictures.

In Maryland, roadblocks have been established along critical corridors leading to and from the capital, but Fort Meade, home to the National Security Agency, has not been approached; and Joint Base Andrews, home to both Air Force One and the 121st Fighter Squadron now patrolling the capital’s airspace, has not been overrun.

In Virginia, however, the National Guard has taken Fort Belvoir, minutes to the south of the capital, and has set up roadblocks around the Capital Beltway. Additionally, a column of the Blue and Grey Division has been observed leaving from Stanton, Virginia, and heading north quickly. Security elements at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, near the vital port of Norfolk, were caught unaware and unable to resist the surprise incursion onto the airfield. However, the F-22s of the 1st Fighter Wing, now under the control of the Virginia Air National Guard in augmenting its 149th Fighter Squadron, have not yet gone airborne. They are on an apparent standby status.

Despite having not yet compromised the defenses around the naval base at Norfolk, the threat posed by the actions of the Virginia National Guard to the fleet based there, to include aircraft carriers Harry S. Truman and Theodore Roosevelt, is too much to risk. The order goes out for all ships in ports around the continental U.S. to make for open waters immediately – full crews if possible, but at the discretion of fleet commanders if they are under imminent threat.

Another question makes its way onto the agenda: What are the rules of engagement for the besieged troops? Certainly they have a right to self-defense, but the Constitution invests Congress with the power

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions

But it becomes clear that Congress has effectively been incapacitated, and it’s the Militia that’s waging war against Federal authority. At the same time, so far, the insurrection has been bloodless. There are scattered reports of casualties during the initial seizing and blockading of military installations, but no concerted attacks have yet been launched. Right now, the rebelling forces seem intent on neutering Federal authority, not eradicating it. In some States, too, there appears to have only been the declaration of war, but little or no activity to enforce that declaration.

The president makes a decision: For the besieged forces, lethal force is authorized only in self-defense. His hope is that by not adding to the potential for violence, what authority remains of the Federal government can be used to compel the States to stand down. For now, there will be no aggression on the part of the Federal government.

When 6 a.m. rolls around on the East Coast, major news and cable networks that have not done so already interrupt their regular broadcasts to start round-the-clock coverage dedicated to the unfolding crisis. Anchors repeat what little information they have and freely speculate on information flowing into their newsrooms from affiliates and social media. Military bases have been surrounded; there’s been a coup in Massachusetts; Hawaii is under martial law. Local stations scroll a common instruction from State authorities:

Stay in your homes. Do not approach military units. Call 9-1-1 only in an emergency. Check local media for further information.

The American people swap what information they can, but their incomplete and inaccurate grasp of the situation fuels panic. Images and reports of troop movements and blockades abound. Messages supporting the revolution and condemning the traitors fly amongst the reports of the unfolding insurrection. Before it breaks under the volume of traffic as more Americans wake up and respond to their horrifying new reality, Twitter records #ACW2 as the highest trending tag.

Across the world, the gravity of events in the United States begins to register in foreign capitals. It’s obvious to world leaders that, in a prolonged insurrection, the United States will be compelled to recall most of its soldiers stationed abroad to defend the homeland. Global peace and security may not depended solely on American military might – much to the contrary of popular myth in the US – but it is certainly a lynchpin. Militaries everywhere raise their alert status.

Confidence in the world’s greatest economy also plummets. The trillions of dollars of U.S. Treasury securities held by foreign governments seem to be at risk of turning into junk bonds. There is open, urgent talk among global financial centers for the need to secure America’s financial assets that underpin foreign the global economy before once-unthinkable scenarios and consequences can unfold.

Back in the United States, State legislators are rushing to their capitals for emergency sessions. Most are incensed by their governors’ actions, and in every State, there are calls for impeachment and arrests for treason.

Most are, but not all.

In amongst the anger that war has been thrust upon them, many believe that the opportunity to “reset” the Federal government and the Republic should not be hastily abandoned. For every bill demanding impeachment, to reaffirm loyalty to the Republic and its lawfully elected Federal government, there are bills introduced to support the cause of insurrection.

Shortly after 9 a.m., with most Americans now awake, scared, and glued to every media outlet for any scrap of information – with state capitals fervently debating whether to preserve or sacrifice the Republic, and under whose banner – the Federal government activates the Emergency Alert System to speak directly to a terrified, divided nation and a nervous world. History will record it as the largest audience for an address by an American president.

My fellow Americans,

Today, we wake up in a nation forever changed. Not in one-hundred fifty years have we had to face the prospect of warfare on our own soil, but that is where we find ourselves today.

Last night, the governors of the States made a fateful decision to tear at the very fabric of our long-standing Republic and declare their hostility towards the Federal government. They have ordered the immediate resignation of your duly elected and appointed representatives, many of whom they have already detained, and turned our National Guard, our citizen soldiers, into an arm of an unlawful insurrection.

Make no mistake: This action is not only unconstitutional, but also unconscionable. It betrays every value we hold dear as Americans. It has unnecessarily created fear and driven a deep wedge among us.

As I have said many times before, and as has been said many times before me, the things that unite us as a nation have always been greater than the things which divide us. One of the principles that has united us for over two centuries has been the belief in the rule of law – and that if the law is unjust, that we use the political processes handed down by our forbearers to change it.

This process can be messy. It can be heated. But it is democracy. It is part of being a nation that is of, by, and for the people. For all people. Sending soldiers into our streets to change laws we disagree with, to unseat a government elected by the people, goes against the very core of democracy, the very heart of our nation.

From what we know, many of the citizen soldiers given these illegal orders recognized them as such and, at great risk to themselves, chose to uphold the ideals we entrusted them to protect and refused to participate in this action.

To the others still participating in these operations, let me say this: I know many more of you harbor deep reservations about your orders, but are worried about being viewed as inadequate soldiers. You are worried about the consequences of backing out now. But let me be clear: History does not look kindly on those who follow unlawful orders because they are ordered to, and neither does our code of justice.  If you stand down in the next twenty-four hours – if you return to your armories and your homes – all will be forgiven. No arrests, no court-martials, no penalties. Go home, and let us immediately set about the task of repairing the frayed bonds of our union.

I make the same offer to the governors of the States which have declared war on the Republic. Recall your Guards, renounce your declarations, and let us do what needs to be done to ensure peace and security for Americans everywhere. You will face no retribution from my administration if you act now, and swiftly, to end the crisis you have brought upon your country.

This morning, I ordered the Armed Forces to act only in self-defense. This order will stand for the next twenty-four hours. It is my sincere hope that they will not be compelled to do so, and that you will take this period of time to recall your forces and come to the negotiating table so we can address your grievances. But let there be no question that I am prepared to defend the Constitution of the United States, the laws of which bind all Americans, regardless of ideology, against all enemies, be they foreign or domestic.

There is no need for violence. There is no reason why we cannot settle our differences in the manner which the American people elected us to do: peacefully, by their will, and in their better interests.

In his first inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln, facing the rise of the Confederacy and imminent civil war, said in a plea to the Southern States,

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

His plea failed, and more than six-hundred thousand Americans died to restore those bonds of affection. We do not have to repeat that bloody history. We cannot. Let us work together, with the better angels of our nature, to swell the chorus of the Union, and to ensure the domestic tranquility that our Constitution and laws are meant to guarantee for all Americans.

Thank you, and may God bless the United States of America.

Political commentators trip over themselves to pick apart every nuance of the president’s statement. Why didn’t he mention anything about the continuity of government and Federal services? What happens after twenty-four hours? Was this statement meant to be directed at the American people, or State leaders? Does his offer of amnesty for the conspirators reveal the weakness of the government’s position?

As broadcasters report on the swelling number of roadblocks and calls for order, people begin to panic. If the interstates are closed, and ports blockaded, when will the stores and gas stations be resupplied? What’s going to happen to the value of the dollar when the markets open – if the markets open – on Monday?

People defy the warnings and orders to stay indoors and begin to descend on banks, shopping centers, and gas stations en masse. With the National Guards caught up in the brewing war, local law enforcement agencies – many of whose officers have been called away – are stretched to breaking limit in the attempt to maintain order.

Meanwhile, another mobilization is taking place under the radar of the country’s now-overwhelmed law enforcement agencies. In between temporary outages of the strained telecommunications network, Americans who believe it is their duty to support the insurrection depart for discrete mustering grounds to consider their next steps.

In state capitals, legislators’ divisions over their desired course of action widen. Now with a deadline and panic descending, many feel it is imperative to make their allegiance known quickly. On the side of the argument, it is held that if all fifty States – or forty-eight, minus Massachusetts and Hawaii – remain united against the government, the Federal government will have no choice but to fold. On the side of returning to the status quo, it is argued that no amount of violence, or even the threat of violence, is worth what might be gained politically.

Some States’ legislatures grapple with deep divisions; but within an hour after the president’s address, less divided States make their allegiances known. Rhode Island and Vermont declare themselves firmly on the side of the Republic – their governors to be impeached, removed, and tried, regardless of the president’s offer of amnesty – while South Carolina and Indiana affirm solidarity with the insurrection. Later in the hour, to the relief of many in the capital, Maryland also declares its allegiance to the Republic, and orders its National Guard to remove the blockades around D.C. and Federal installations.

The capital, however, is not beyond threat. Virginia still seems sided with the rebellion; and in Western Maryland, just east of Hagerstown, a tense standoff between the Maryland National Guard and West Virginia National Guard comes close to igniting.

The plan developed by the governors and their military adjutants called for West Virginia’s National Guard, having few major Federal installations to secure, to move rapidly to link up with a detachment of Maryland’s forces and approach D.C. from the northwest. The bulk of Maryland’s troops would advance on the capital from the north and east, leaving Virginia to come up from the South. Reinforcements would come from West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

However, having grossly underestimated the willingness of the Guard to participate in the insurrection, they did not expect to encounter the Maryland National Guard instead blockading the roads to D.C. rather than occupying it. The West Virginia Guard demands passage. The Maryland Guard demands their withdrawal.

The States align themselves over the course of the next twenty-four hours, but fears of more showdowns increase – not just between States’ guards, but between units within the States who at first wanted to defect, but are now ordered to switch allegiances back to the Federal government. Twelve hours from the president’s address, Ohio reaffirms its declaration of war, and the bulk of its National Guard moves towards the National Capital Region and heightening the government’s urgency to act swiftly to stop the insurrection.

As the sun sets on a dividing nation, the Australian Securities Exchange opens for trading in Sydney and immediately plunges. Ten minutes later, the same happens when markets open in Tokyo and Seoul. The panic gripping Americans is spreading across the world. It isn’t just America’s future that depends on a swift resolution to the crisis.

Day 2: Deadline

After a series of midnight and early morning votes, it appears that the States in rebellion will outnumber the States remaining loyal to the government. The divide between so-called “Red States” and “Blue States” seems now like describing different worlds. “Battleground States” takes on ominous meaning.

Overnight, Guard units reinforced their positions outside major Federal installations. Florida’s 164th Air Defense Artillery Brigade took positions near Pensacola and Panama City, effectively denying flight operations out of Eglin and Tyndall Air Force Bases. Combined with the loss of Langley-Eustis at the outset of the insurrection, the US has virtually no combat air power east of the Mississippi River.

West Virginia’s Guard withdrew from western Maryland only to take up new positions near Harpers Ferry, where it was joined overnight by elements of the Ohio National Guard. Other units took positions at crossings near Hagerstown and Cumberland. The F-16s of Ohio Air National Guard’s 180th Fighter Wing also redeployed to nearby Sheppard Field. Though Virginia’s legislature is grappling with making a final decision on rebellion, its Guard proactively positioned itself for crossings into Maryland over the Potomac across the American Legion Bridge and to the north of Leesburg, bypassing the defenses erected by the D.C. National Guard.

Maryland’s 1,700 Guards are faced with invasion by 9,000 soldiers of its neighbors whose objective is the conquest of Washington, D.C.

Realizing its tenuous situation, the Maryland National Guard withdrew most of its force to Frederick, where the Ohio, West Virginia, and Virginia Guards are poised to link-up before moving on the nation’s capital. If they attempted to bypass Frederick on the many country roads along the Potomac, Maryland’s units could move more quickly by the highways to intercept them.

Meanwhile, the Capital’s Guard of 1,400 locked down the city in preparation of facing off against the advance elements from Virginia. Delaware promised to provide reinforcements to the capital as soon as it has secured its own State against insurrection – but at best it could only offer a few hundred.

The New England States have also coalesced around the Federal government, although the New England States have over 30,000 Guardsmen, it’s doubtful that more than 5,000 will be available to go south for the defense of the nation’s capital. In addition to defections, once New Jersey and New York came out in opposition to the declaration of war, the citizen militias that formed at the outbreak of the insurrection began to blockade DC-bound routes. Guard units that might have otherwise participated in the airlift have been redeployed to break the barricades.

Along with the obstruction and risk to logistics that the militias present to land routes, Pennsylvania remains on the fence with its borders closed. As such, the New England units, to be joined by the 10th Mountain Division, are preparing for an airlift operation using the region’s five transport wings. However, the operation’s success will depend on secure airspace near the National Capital Region.

As such, the 131st Fighter Squadron redeploys from Massachusetts to Maryland to join the 121st in defense of the capital’s airspace.

The aircraft carriers Harry S. Truman and Theodore Roosevelt were able to get out of Norfolk with mostly full crews. Virginia National Guard was unable to overrun Oceana Naval Air Station, allowing the carriers’ fighter wings to escape and establish flight operations off the East Coast. However, the president’s orders for Federal forces to maintain a defensive posture means that the fighters are unable to sweep the skies clean in advance of the airlift operation.

Elsewhere across the country, as the president’s 24-hour grace period ticks to an end, States that had rushed into the insurrection in the hopes that a quick show of force would force the Federal government to capitulate now find themselves facing the prospect of combating the much superior US Army and Marine Corps.

At Fort Campbell, the few thousand Kentucky and Tennessee Guardsmen are outnumbered three-to-one, even with units from Indiana and Michigan arriving to reinforce their positions.

In Texas, the Guard quickly abandoned the idea of seizing Forts Bliss and Hood and formed a defensive perimeter around the capital. North Carolina’s reduced-strength Guard faced a similar problem in attempting to surround and secure Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune and retreated to the anticipated defense of Raleigh.

The only major Army base that appears to be at risk of a prolonged siege is Fort Carson, Colorado, if only because the indecisiveness of the State’s legislature allowed units from neighboring States to shore up the Colorado Guard’s thin perimeter. Even so, the 4th Infantry Division is hardly ready to give up its post without a fight.

The president’s deadline for the insurrection to disband passes. Minutes later, the Virginia State Legislature votes narrowly in favor of the insurrection and calls on the president to resign. Soon after, the order goes out for the combined Virginia-West Virginia-Ohio contingent to move against Maryland and into DC.

Second Battle of Washington

As the units of Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, and Ohio jockeyed for position to the west of the capital, it was not lost on observers that they were retracing the opening steps of America’s first Civil War. And as it was in the first war, Harpers Ferry became a critical city.

Shortly after 10 a.m., the West Virginia and Ohio Guard cross the Potomac unopposed and head towards Frederick. Virginia’s forces cross at two points: One north of Leesburg to link up with the force crossing at Harper’s Ferry before pushing on Frederick, the second at the American Legion Memorial Bridge to both cut off forces retreating from Frederick and begin the surrounding of Washington, D.C.

Whereas the force out of Harpers Ferry does not encounter resistance, a detachment of D.C.’s Guard links up with Maryland’s rear guard to stall Virginia’s advance across the American Legion Memorial Bridge.

Despite the initial success in repelling the attack, Maryland’s position in the capital’s suburbs is tenuous. There are simply too many side roads that the attacking forces can use to bypass a static defense. As such, Maryland steadily retreats towards Washington, D.C., where the possible avenues of attack narrow.

But where the battle on the ground unfolds slowly, it rages at high speeds in the skies above Washington.

At the opening of hostilities, Virginia’s 149th and Ohio’s 112th Fighter Squadrons engaged D.C.’s 121st and Massachusetts’ 131st Fighter Squadrons in the skies over the nation’s capital. The pilots defending the capital had the initial advantage of being able to anticipate the attack, but the 131st’s F-15s are outclassed by the F-16s and F-22s arrayed against them, leaving the 121st on its own against the two opposing squadrons.

The 131st is forced to withdraw with significant losses, and the 121st is overwhelmed in its airspace. As a consequence, not only is the 10th Mountain Division and New England National Guard unable to airlift to the National Capital Region, Maryland’s 104th Fighter Squadron of A-10s is unable to provide close air support to the steadily retreating Maryland Guard.

The second advantage the 121st has is that it is operating near its home base. While the 112th goes safely back to West Virginia for refit, on its way back to refuel and rearm in Langley, the 149th is attacked by the carrier wings from the Truman and Roosevelt. Lacking weapons and low on fuel, they are brought down.

Later in the day, the remnants of the 121st and 112th Fighter Squadrons meet again in combat. Both squadrons fly the F-16, and so the battle’s deciding factor is pilot experience. The 121st, having the mission of year-round, 24-hour alertness to defend the capital against airborne threats, has the experience advantage, and bests the 112th in the confrontation.

Late in the morning, the Second Marine Expeditionary Force left Camp Lejeune in North Carolina – leaving the task of quelling the State’s National Guard to the 82nd Airborne Division – in order to secure the airbases around Norfolk. Before the survivors of the 149th Fighter Squadron are able to rearm with the remaining F-22s of the 1st Fighter Wing, the Marines secure Langley-Eustis. They also secure Oceana, bringing the combat wings from the Truman and Roosevelt back on land to provide additional defense of the capital’s airspace.

By the end of the first day of combat, the Federal and supporting States’ forces are able to secure the airspace over Washington, D.C., opening up the airlift corridor from the Northeast. And although troops on the ground call for close air support, commanders determine that they are operating in too densely populated civilian areas to risk such operations.

Complicating the defense of Washington, however, is that late in the afternoon, Pennsylvania, seeing a rising threat in the number of citizen militias organizing in its western counties, declared its allegiance for the insurrection, putting additional pressure on the Maryland Guard. As Pennsylvania’s forces press south, Maryland’s forces abandon Frederick for Rockville, closer to the capital; but when the defense of the American Legion Memorial Bridge begins to break, Maryland troops are forced to pull back into Washington, D.C., itself.

Overnight, North Carolina surrenders after brief but heavy fighting overwhelms the defenses at Raleigh. Elements of the 82nd Airborne Division follow the Second Marine Expeditionary Force into Virginia. They link up and press north, bypassing Richmond for the greater strategic goal of securing the capital. But in the same way that the 10th Mountain Division and it allied Guards are hampered from moving through New York and New Jersey, the 82nd and II MEF are frustrated by small, hit-and-run engagements by militias operating along Virginia’s major highways who are quick to share the force’s position with other militias via Internet and social media.

Although these battles are small and categorically result in the militias retreating (when not annihilated), the delaying attacks allow the insurrectionist forces to hammer away at Maryland and D.C.’s outnumbered Guards – that is at least until they encounter the city’s prepared defenses.

The D.C. Guard, anticipating an attack from all sides, quickly abandoned the outermost areas of the city in order to focus on defending the capital’s core, where there are fewer avenues of attack and where most of the Federal government’s headquarters are located. It was due in part to these defenses that Virginia did not attempt to force a crossing over the main bridges leading into the city – although it maintained the garrison in Fort Belvoir should the operation allow such a strike.

As the insurrectionists are drawn farther into the city, their advance slows to a halt. Disabled equipment and roadblocks have shut down the major avenues, forcing infantry through side streets and into building-by-building clearing operations. By the time the heart of D.C. comes under threat of falling under the weight of the advance, the New England airlift has delivered several hundred fresh troops to the city via Joint Base Andrews (an insurrectionist attempt to block their linking up with the city’s defenders was a costly failure).

Eventually, the 82nd Airborne and II MEF enter the National Capital Region, relieve the beleaguered Guardsmen, and force the insurrectionists to pull back from the capital.

The scene is repeated across the country. Depleted National Guard units found themselves unable to maintain control over every Federal installation without support, nor were they able to withstand sustained, concentrated attacks by the Armed Forces once they were able to coordinate a response to the insurrection. Rebellious States with large garrisons of Armed Forces fell rapidly, emboldening the Federal government to press its advantage and move against those states which remained defiant.

The speed with which the insurrection and the Armed Forces’ counterattack unfolded prevented the tens of thousands of militiamen from integrating into their States’ regular units, and they were relegated to hit-and-run tactics. Even after most of the States which initially declared war against the Federal government capitulate, these fighters refuse to give up so easily and become a dedicated, long-term insurgency.

Conclusion

In order for the revolution to have guaranteed success, it needs to have unwavering support from all the States and launch a massive, coordinated strike against key Federal installations to minimize the time the Armed Forces might have to organize a counterattack. So in that sense, the answer to the original question is as I said at the outset:

50 States versus one guy? Yeah, I am thinking it is not outside the realm of possibility that he could be removed.

I’d go further and say that in the case of 50 States united against the president, then the answer to the question as I rephrased it to whether he would be removed is also, “Not outside the realm of possibility.”

However, given the likelihood that the States would fragment over whether to support such a rebellion, and given that the Armed Forces, if not quickly suppressed with overwhelming force, absolutely have the capacity to fight back against such an insurrection, it is not a guarantee that the president would be removed – or at least that he would be compelled to capitulate so quickly.

What seems to be the most likely outcome of such an insurrection is that the first elements are defeated in a matter of weeks, at which point survivors and militiamen form an insurgency against the Federal government, setting the stage for a very long and destructive conflict. It appears, then, that what would remove the president would not be a military campaign, but a revolt by voters at the ballot box against a government that failed to provide for their security.