Well let's talk about this. As far as conflict, nowaypablo probably has hella better knowledge about doctrine at this point considering he's at West Point learning how to win wars and influence geopolitics'n'shit. Here's a useful link, and a lengthy discussion, we had years ago: As far as water, nobody read this for some dumb reason and it's poignant as hell: Because here's the thing: it's not like the Ogalala makes a giant slurping sound and six weeks later we're settling scores in Thunderdome. What happens is food gets more expensive, land in the Southwest gets cheaper, quality of life goes down and people of means leave. People without means mostly die. The Syrian Civil War was precipitated by a drought. By extension, the Syrian refugee crisis was precipitated by climate change. And while there are definitely far-right populist parties arguing about the horrors of "(CUT TO: scene of Walking Dead zombies shambling towards the camera)", the fact of the matter is Europe absorbed a million refugees without major shocks to the system. I met maybe a dozen people from New Orleans in 2006. They had nowhere to go back to so they packed up and left. One day they had a home, the next day they didn't. And really, that was orderly. The Mojavification of the Southwest is going to be more stark than New Orleans being destroyed but it's also going to be slower. It's going to be gradual. And it's going to be a case of straws and camels and people shedding northward in dribs and drabs until what's left in Castaic will be a lot like what's left in the Salton Sea. You're not gonna have strangers in your yard. You're gonna have motor homes on your street. But shit, you might already. ___________ There are two books about this future you might enjoy. The better one is Paolo Bacigalupi's The Water Knife. It is not a great book, but it could have been. The worse one is Clare Vaye Watkin's Gold Fame Citrus. It is a terrible book and would never have been any other. Bacigalupi builds up a world where water ceases to be available. It is a rich universe. Watkin builds up a world where water is suddenly gone. It is fucking stupid.
I resent getting pinged for this thread, but since the journalists have already molested the data and told their readers that it's ok to start predicting which generation is going to send us into Mad Max mode: Yyyyes they can. State and Federal agencies can 100% keep as many people as they want out of any town they want. We just don't like to imagine the United States govt taking that kind of action against its own citizens. But if you're talking apocalyptic migration scenarios, it wouldn't even require anything near apocalyptic weapons systems. I hate that I wrote this.The migrant caravans will move north, ignoring borders and laws. Because when millions of people come walking into your town, the police are going to be entirely powerless against them. (CUT TO: scene of Walking Dead zombies shambling towards the camera)
I'm an undergrad in my 20's but I also need to take it easy. Today a close friend of mine asked about the Army getting deployed to separate more families on the Mexican border and I had to respond while maintaining a lighthearted tone over a crushing disappointment/rage.
It wouldn’t be a terrible deployment to go on. You are state side, and you won’t be killing civilians or aiding terrible dictators. Probably just marking targets and building out fencing. No worse than training. The only thing that would really suck is that rules of engagement would most likely not allow you to shoot back at any cartels that might be shooting at you, but that’s not new there are a lot of shitholes in Africa where that happens. Doubt you would have anything to do with actual migrants at worst you might have to escort an agent in to do the arrests and paperwork
The units assigned to the border are sustainment/logistics, engineers (construction), and military police replicating the 2010 National Guard deployment of ~2000 or so. They are not shooting at anybody.
I’m having a hard time connecting UN peacekeeping missions with American border patrol, how did you get here ? The only thing that would really suck is that rules of engagement would most likely not allow you to shoot back at any cartels that might be shooting at you, but that’s not new there are a lot of shitholes in Africa where that happens.
There are a lot of missions where US troops are training up local militias and friendly forces. We’re not really officially deployed there so if someone gets shot and shoots back it creates an incident. I’ve heard some stories from people ive casually had beers with of those going bad and not being able to shoot back at the hostile. The border patrol mission would likely be too political to allow for an incident to occur.
jesus. Yeah I spent much of my early '20s fighting the urge to enlist and then as soon as they started stop-lossing people for the Iraq War I found myself going there but for the grace of God go I. The United States has an unhealthy relationship with its armed forces. Between the out-of-sight/out-of-mind nature of Empire and the unquestioning hero worship of anyone who has ever worn a uniform we as a nation do not know what to do with the military.
The Dust Bowl took two years of "hey this is a drought", before people started dying and were forced to migrate - penniless - to simply survive. They were not welcomed by their neighboring states, and there were only 250,000 of them. (Phoenix alone has 1.6m.) Weather events are already completely off the scale, and becoming ever harder to predict. Knock-on effects of increased bad weather - like the disappearing beaches in the southeast - take us by surprise. (How many city blocks deep of South Carolina's coast have to vanish in a storm, before people start abandoning the coastal area, and moving somewhere inland?) Something is going to snap. An edge will be reached. It won't be gradual, is my bet.
That's not accurate. What happened is that the Great American Desert got rebranded as the "Great Plains" and a whole bunch of people were encouraged to come out, tear up the buffalo grass and plant wheat. Then the bottom fell out of wheat, Hoover refused to prop it up, and all the people who came out and carved up 640 acres of free land left, thereby leaving a bunch of denuded dirt that did nothing to forestall further desertification. The '20s were abnormally wet; the '30s were abnormally dry and a bunch of rootless pioneers with less than 5 years working the land had no impetus to stick around as their farmsteads literally took to the air. What we're taught of the Dust Bowl is that "zomg it was a terrible drought" when in fact it's "zomg the land husbandry of the American West has been appalling." The effects had even been predicted. And while I recognize that in some ways this supports your argument, it's important to note that the Dust Bowl was the result of a decade or two of rapacious agriculture while the current problems we're facing are the end-stage for a century of farming practices. It's not going to be good. It's not going to be pretty. But it's also not going to be fast.The Dust Bowl took two years of "hey this is a drought", before people started dying and were forced to migrate - penniless - to simply survive.