After Each Category Describe Extent Of Experience In Each Activity If Applicable: Fill & Download for Free

Okay! So I cannot talk about other introverts at IIMs.But, I can surely talk about myself and I will try to generalize my own experiences so that you can choose to decide whether IIMs are suitable for introverts or not.So, as long as talking ‘about’ introverts seems easier than talking ‘to’ introverts, I think, we shouldn’t mind taking some time to know them better.Yes, I am an introvert and even the term ‘deep blue introvert’ wouldn’t be just blue enough to describe meMy silence would be the first and last thing observed about me by any random observer.And, I think I am so silent that I can even make Dr. Manmohan Singh look talkative.Saying simple little things like ‘Hey what’s up’ can me way more difficult for me than analyzing the balance sheet of a company.And, ‘Small Talk’ is the biggest talk I ever had.Sometimes, two people can get lost in a chit-chat for hours in a row, before realizing that there is a third person called ‘Khalid’ sitting in the room, who hasn’t spoken a word yet.That may sound a bit eerie to you, but, usually I am more lost into my own thoughts rather than taking notes of other people conversations.As an ever-quiet person, I am also an easy target for people who just couldn’t stop talking about themselves.For some reason, such people will always have something or the other to talk about.Like an event in their life, which they think I have never witnessed before. Or a cliché joke, which they think that they invented on the spot.Or an opinion on politics and society, which according to them, will change the face of earth.I try hard to listen to all of them. And, sometimes I try so hard that I end up giving long silent stares to them, as they freak out and look for cover.When not making things weird for other people by my silent staring eyes, I sometimes do take part in their intellectual talks starting like ‘ Aaj Weather kitna mast hai na’,to which I am able to somehow respond with supportive facts like ‘Haan temperature 22 degree centigrade aur humidity 53% dikha rha hai’Well, as you can imagine, such attempts hardly make things easier for me.The only tool which I have in my defence is a bright smile which I keep handy all the time, running on a default mode so that people won’t seek any other response from me.But, that smile which appeared to be innocent at one point of time has started to look a bit devious as I seem to creep out my friends all the time.I know you wanted to know about the life of introverts at IIMs, but, before that I will like to share a bit of background about me.Growing up in a large family, I was always surrounded with people talking ‘at’ me rather than talking ‘to’ me.And, my all-boys school life didn’t have much of respite either.All around me, I will find boys jumping, pushing and kicking around each other for reasons beyond my understanding. Obviously, as they grew up, they attained some kind of sophistication, and then they only punched and kicked each other for reasons within my understanding.I almost never talked to anybody at school. Except squeaking ‘Present Teacher’ in the early morning attendance, my lips would be sealed all the time.Then, in between periods, my desk partner will always be excited to tell me stories of ‘How he had so much fun last evening’.Sometimes, I will drift off and get lost into details of his stories as I would imagine myself having the same fun time which he was talking about.Like a double edge sword, such visualizations not only gave me the power to see and feel things which I never had but, also a sense of false hope for things which I will never have.For most part of my early school life, I wasn’t really good at academics.Part of the reason was that I always felt threatened by my teachers. And like some universal law of nature, these teachers expected some kind of discipline and regularity from me which I never had.Getting on the school bus, copying things from the blackboard onto my notebook, waiting for the recess bell and jumping back on the school bus were the only few tasks that I was automated for.Anything apart from the daily tasks was something which made me feel ill-designed for.The worst part was that even though the shocks were lot more common than I expected, I never knew how to face them.Like, I will only come to know that the exams has started when early morning I will see everyone in the class feverishly reading their notebooksSince, even homework was only like a weekly event in our school, I never did that either.Tests, exams, home-works, poetry recitals were all like natural disasters to me. They were a disaster every time they happened and it all appeared natural to me.After, a point of time my teachers also stopped expecting any good coming from me.But, one day, all of a sudden, my elder sister decided to do my homework because she had finished hers’ early and had nothing better to do in life.My teacher was surprisingly pleased seeing my home-work.She was so happy that she gave me a Cadbury 5-Star, only after struggling to take it out from the smallest zip of her big black purse.I ate the chocolate and gave the wrapper to my sister.I thought she liked to collect shiny toffee wrappers.But, for some reason she didn’t liked it and started acting weird. Even weirder than me.And from that day onwards, she never did my home-work again. Bad sister.In school, Games period would be a bit of relief.Football, and not cricket, was the most popular game in our school.Even though I never knew which side I was playing for, I seemed to be quite enthusiastic about it.When not being pushed and pulled by the other kids, I was trying to run after the ball.Sometimes, the highest point of the day would be me kicking the ball at least once. Or the ball managing to kick my legs. Whichever.At home, I remember my longest conversations would be with my mom. She used to ask, ‘Khana Khayega’, and with an appropriate shake of my head, I would say, ‘Haan’ or a ‘Na’.Sometimes she use to prolong the conversations with questions like, ‘Sabzi lega ki chutney lega’. And my monologue responses to similar questions will be enough for my mom to design my future food preferences.The people at my school didn’t know the reality at my home.The people at my home didn’t know the reality at my school.And, as the introvert I am, I struggled to understand the reality of either.The whole world seemed to be a very strange place to me. In a way, it still is.In much ways, my life mimicked that of Darsheel Safary in Taare Zameen par.Lost in the imaginary world of my own thoughts, I will only be rescued by the reality of my daily ritual.I was always told by others that there is a genuine problem in the way I am and I wouldn’t survive this harsh world out there.And, somehow, I started believing that they are always right and I am wrong.My silence was taken as a sign for my dumbness and other ‘intelligent’ people seemed to have all kinds of solutions to my problems.But, that was then.And things might have slightly changed as they appear to me now.So, let’s fast forward a decade and few years and take you to my life at IIM.I joined IIM Lucknow in the year 2015 after a couple of years of experience in a R&D company.I had decided that I won’t join IIMs A/B/C.You know Why? Because they never called me. That’s why.Bad A/B/C.At Lucknow, there used to be these 2 guys who just sat behind me in the class. One was a Mechanical Engineer from IIT Madras and the other was an Electronics engineer from BIT Mesra.In the 15min. breaks, we will often talk to each other about the new kind of life at IIM L. What was common to all 3 of us was that we were deep introverts who hadn’t expected life at IIM to be this crazy.It all seemed meaningless to us, running after classes, presentations, applications, quizzes with no sense of direction.What seemed stranger was the fact that the majority of people were not only enjoying the same life, but, also found time for parties and celebrations.At least it appeared to be so.We concluded, that probably, we were not made for this kind of place and any life outside this place would be a much better life.And, after a month or so, the Mesra guy suddenly left the college.As I broke this news to the other guy, we both had a long heart to heart conversation.And, I don’t know what insights this guy gathered from the conversation, but soon after the mid-sems, he also took off.I had my own long list of personal issues to deal with, apart from the life at IIM, and as I sat alone in the room staring at my own reflection in the unpowered laptop screen, I wondered what all this meant for me.Well, the problems obviously never stopped there.And, I can go on telling you my story to show how I faced different challenges, but, before that I wanted you to be clear on what do I mean by introversion.For most part of the century, Introversion was seen as a disease, a disorder which needs to be treated as a medical condition.It is like giving a man pills to act like a woman or the other way round.Nobody wanted to believe that introversion is a natural state.Still, companies like Pfizer makes pills to cure introversion.And as long as doctors are making money on the deal, they have no problem prescribing you such medicines.So, is introversion really a natural state?Yes, introversion is very much a natural state, but nobody is 100% introvert or 100% extrovert and most people show degrees of introversion/extroversion depending on the situation.Preliminary research says that roughly 70% of people in this world are extroverts.In a place like IIM, this number could be as high as 90% depending upon the kind of input process chosen by them.However, research also says that there is a good number of self-proclaimed extroverts who are actually introverts, but claim the opposite because of the greater social acceptance shown towards the other.So, who exactly is an introvert?Biologically speaking, introverts are over-stimulated individuals whose sensitivity to events, people and surroundings are very high and hence they always need some alone time to recharge their minds and bodies.Similarly, extroverts are under-stimulated individuals who constantly need presence of other individuals to recharge themselves.Both introverts and extroverts are born wired like that and the early years of their growing up could be elemental in determining how good they become in managing their natural state.You will often hear people complaining, ‘I am getting bored’. Well, these people are actually extroverts who are not getting the required amount of neural stimulation to feel normal.Left alone to themselves, these extroverts will develop similar levels of stress as an introvert might get in a huge group of friends.The concept of boredom does not typically apply to introverts because their minds are already running on a high and the need of an external action is not felt.It is easy for an extrovert to assume that introverts are slow thinkers, because they are reluctant to give immediate response to any normal question.However, this assumption does not even come close to the actual truth.An introverts mind might be running with so many multiple thoughts at the same time that it would be difficult to make sense of them.An introvert might have already finished answering a question in his/her mind, while in reality he/she might have hardly spoken a word.It is this huge discrepancy between rates of processed thoughts and actual words spoken, which is so difficult for an introvert to manage.No wonder, a written communication always seems easier for an introvert as the extra time to process thoughts gives better results for them.And you was also hear extroverts complaining that introverts are shy.So are Introverts really shy?Often confused to one and the same, shyness and introversion may not necessarily mean the same thing.Simply put, introverts are people who prefer alone time and will mostly try to stay away from any group activity in which they are expected to behave like extroverts.Whereas, ‘Shy’ people are those who fear negative reactions from other people in anticipation for their future actions.To the outside world, both of them might appear the same, but, if you try to analyze the reason behind a ‘no’ coming from an introvert, you will understand them better.As a person, I am not necessarily ‘Shy’ because I do seek out many opportunities even though I know that there is a high chance of negation.Also, I have been blunt a lot of times where I have directly hit the insecurity of the other person which he/she is hiding from.Obviously, people don’t appreciate such responses coming from my end.But, there is a good chance that an ‘introvert’ who is always told that he/she is wrong, might develop some level of shyness.So, as long as your career is concerned, it’s perfectly alright to be an introvert, but, it’s definitely not okay to be shy.If you think you are an introvert and feeling uncomfortable to do something which you have always wanted to do, then this is your ‘shyness’ and not your ‘introversion’ which is holding you back.More on this later, but let us get back to the case of introversion at IIMs.As we are discussing the issues faced by introverts at IIMs, I believe it would be better if we can club these issues under various sub-headings.And discussing them thereon would be more relatable for any introvert.So, let us start with the most basic one,Academics - At IIM Lucknow, I didn’t have a great CGPA. Actually I am just bragging. I didn’t even have a good CGPA.The easiest way to locate my marks in any excel sheet was to use a ‘MIN’ function and find my name somewhere around the top.But, trying to maintain a great CGPA at a postgraduate course is one of the most meaningless achievements in anybody’s life.It is like trying to hit 6 runs in the last ball of the match when you need more 125 runs to win.No matter how many marks you score, there is always someone scoring more than you. The key is to not make it a competition of sorts and just let be.As an introvert you can fall into two categories of people.The first, who are much disciplined and structured and who always seemed to be in control of most things, including their academic scores.Or, the other, who is so lost in his/her imaginary world that everything seems to be running on the emergency mode.Silence of the first one reeks of control and composure, and that of the second, is of confusion and disorder.I definitely did not belong to the former group as I was unwillingly running high with ‘carpe diem’ (Living in the Now). No matter whatever submissions I knew about, it had to be submitted ‘now’.So, as an introvert, you might feel that you are putting twice the effort as compared to other students and still not achieving half their results.Also you might be stuck, trying to understand the ‘why’ of everything when others are showing great results with just ‘how’ and ‘what’ of things.As PGP courses are designed, you don’t get enough time to learn any subject deeply, but you are expected to know a lot of different things.For an introvert who needs to spend good amount of time with books to understand the core concepts, this shortage of time may prove debilitating.Extroverts fare better because they tend to spend a lot of time with other people and will find something or the other useful to learn from their friends.Also, you might be aware that true learning and having a good CGPA are two totally different things.You need to spend a good amount of time learning concepts and applying them to get the real learning behind any subject.Whereas you can just manage a good CGPA by picking bits and pieces of information from other people and hope that the same is asked in the examinations.So you will always have to decide for yourself as in what your expectations are.If only a good CGPA matters to you, probably you need to use your listening skills to quickly learn from others.But, probably you should also remember that numbers on your grade-sheet/mark sheet is perhaps one of the poorest ways to measure your true knowledge and learning.Though, terrible as it is, numbers serve the major purpose of giving you the much needed confidence to act on new things.When you think you know something, you are much more likely to take an action than when you think you don’t.And then based on the failure/success of those actions, your confidence gets recalibrated every time.So, the point is that you have to fake confidence before doing something new and whether you chose to fake it with numbers or without numbers, the choice is yours.Donald Trump is faking himself for the last 7 decades into believing that he is the smartest person in the world. And today he is the President of America.I am sure you can do better than Donald Trump.Placements – Placements at IIMs are a lot like Indian marriages. For some reason or another, everybody needs to have at least one.Why? Because ‘Sharmaji ka Ladka’ and ‘Guptaji ki Beti’ also got one.The societal thought process behind ‘You ought to get married before 30’ is hardly any different from the thought process which says ‘You need to have a minimum placement of 20 LPA from an IIM’So, I am not saying that you should not bring objectivity to your goals by attaching numbers to them.But, what I am saying is that it is definitely wrong to let other people dictate those numbers to you.Obviously, the comparisons don’t stop there either.The madness of summers and final placements can only be replicated in the engagement and the actual marriage ceremonies.And just like an Indian marriage, you will find a host of pandits (placecom) who will find a dosh( poor academic past) in your kundali (CV)And, to remove that ‘dosh’, some seniors will give you automated solutions like,‘Join X number of committees and win Y number of case competitions and you have a shot at Mckinsey’Obviously, then you will realize that Mckinsey had some other plans.Simply put, all such advices are only traps which our minds are so likely to believe because we think shortcuts can give us everything.The problem with introverts is not that they fall for all such traps. In fact, extroverts show greater tendency in believing and falling for such traps.But, the problem with introverts is that they will suck at following such advices and when they don’t get what they were looking for, they will have a tendency to regret over the same.To be honest, any job placement is not worth the hype which is created before the placements and regretting thereafter, for not being able to get the same is something even worse.It is like you not only dated Harman Baweja thinking that he is Hrithik Roshan, but, then you also choose to cry afterwards, when he has dumped you.By the way, if you really ever dated Harman Baweja, then even crying won’t help.So am I asking you to run away from jobs and placements?No. In fact, quite the contrary. I want to you to really go for placements, but only for the right reasons.Running after only ‘Finance/Consult’ jobs just because everyone else is doing so is definitely not the right reason.And many people will just take Finance and Strategy as specializations because they sound cool.Honestly, to a marketer, Finance can be one of the most boring things ever taught in a B-School.Okay, don’t get angry. That’s just a perspective.Point is what is ‘Cool’ and what is ‘Uncool’ to you can only be found out when you actually test them for yourself.And that is exactly where IIM Placements come into picture.The 2 month summers opportunity is a perfect way to judge for yourself as in how much you are suited for any particular kind of job function.Not just that, take the immediate job placement also in the same way.Keep testing yourselves against other companies. You don’t have to be stuck in a job for long.It might take a few years, but then you will end up taking something as a career, which you might have always wanted to do and not just what ‘Sharmaji ka ladka’ and ‘Guptaji ki beti’ is doing.CV Preparation – As the smallest unit of currency in the transaction called ‘Placement’, CV points will never be enough for you.CV points are like ‘chillar coins’ you collect from the ‘dukanwalla’. You will have them even if you don’t need them.So, you will be running around the campus fetching the same, hoping that you will bring some uniqueness to your CV.But, then you will be surprised to find that the Placement committee has churned 400+ unique, but identical CVs.Out of 400 student CVs, more than 300 CVs will say ‘Single Handedlly organized the cultural and technical fest’.Another odd 250 CVs will felicitate themselves with the Émployee of the year award’.And at least a dozen or so would be talking about ‘Serial Innovation’ and ‘Entrepreneurship’.No wonder IIMs have such talented people.Obviously, not all those facts will be true.Exaggerating on your CVs and HR answers is something which almost every one of us is guilty of.And somehow introverts find it a lot more difficult to talk about their achievements than extroverts do.Especially, if they are not true.Extroverts can lie to your face and then can simultaneously believe that it is the actual truth.Most Introverts can’t. At least not without preparation.And this is because of the overthinking of the correctness of facts as mentioned, which may create some kind of dilemma for an introvert.As humans, our minds are designed to believe in our own exaggerations. And this is true for both introverts and extroverts.The only difference being that, for an introvert it is much tougher to take that first step towards any particular kind of factual exaggeration, whereas for an extrovert it directly comes out as an automated response.No wonder Sales teams are full of extroverts.When you are comfortable bragging in front of an interviewer, you raise much lesser suspicion about whatever you are talking about.Any skepticism you show towards your own achievements will hamper your confidence to such levels that it may have a devastating effects on the overall interview performances.So is there anything wrong with exaggerating facts on CV and Resumes?Well, this seems like an ethical question.But, in the kind of world we live in, we can always pick and choose ethics as per our convenience.So right now, I choose a ‘straight NO!’ for an answer.You may also choose yours.Anyways, Governments, firms and institutions exaggerate data all the time.Even a small baby might be unconsciously exaggerating its yelp to catch its’ mother’s attention.Exaggeration is not evil. Exaggeration is not innocence. Exaggeration is just another human tool for survival.In a world where Originality is a sin and Mediocrity a skill, you need to maintain tools like exaggeration for your self-defense.Everyone exaggerates to some extent or another and the people who actually claim that they never exaggerate are either very low on self-awareness or their self-defense itself is an exaggeration.And, exaggeration on your CVs should not be even called exaggeration at all. Nicely put, it can be termed, ‘Personal Marketing’.You should not look at your CV as a collection of facts and figures.Think of it as one ‘whole’ message, a kind of big picture.Look at your CV as your ‘Personal Marketing Story’.It is that ‘Story’ which you wanted to share with your recruiters in where you are trying to say that ‘Why you are perfect for that company’And since the competition is so high and you cannot be perfect for all the companies, you have to tweak the story to suit your purpose.Never let the presence/absence of some facts or figures compromise the overall message behind your story.Or as once Harsha Bhogle said, ‘Never let the truth come in the way of a good story’As a recent example, the Supreme Court acquitted A. Raja from the 2G Scam.It took 7 years for the Judiciary to declare that 1.76 lakh crore 2G Scam wasn’t a scam at all.Now whether that number was 0, Rs. 100 or 100 crores, is all just a perception.I am sure, Á . Raja’ is no more a saint in your eyes after the verdict, than he was before.The point is that the change in number from ‘1.76 lakh crores’ to ‘0’ has hardly changed your opinion about him.A number may be very useful to build up a credible story. And once the expected audience has perceived the story as intended, the number may not be important at all.So am I asking to lie on your CV?Haha! No, the Placement committee won’t let you, even if you want to.The recruiter spends very little time judging your CV and they need objective facts to select/reject you in the first round.So, your board marks, Graduation CGPA, undergard stream and College, professional certifications, No. of years of work-ex etc. are the main facts which build the story and the Placecom would be very thorough with those proofs.Other supporting facts like ‘Employee of the year Award’ etc. have minimal effect in your CV selection/rejection.You might have been the ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ or you might have been ‘Little Green Riding Hood’. How does that matter?These facts may be important to you, but they are surely not important to the recruiters or the placecom.And because Raja Harish Chandra never sat for job placements, recruiters already assume that every CV has some bit of fictional imagination behind it.And these recruiters will be smart enough to pick and choose what part of the story to believe in.So I am not asking to lie on your CV, but do ensure to create a great ‘Personal Marketing Story’But, if you cannot lie on your CV, how to create a great ‘Personal Marketing Story’?Okay, for everything that I choose to ‘say to you’, there will be always something which I choose ‘not to say to you’. And if you have already cracked CAT, probably you can crack this one too.Parties – It is not that introverts hate crowded places. In fact I am very comfortable in crowded places like airports, stations, local trains etc.But, as an introvert, I do sure feel some bit of discomfort in front of a crowd full of known people. And that is exactly what most parties are all about.I never boozed, smoked or smoked up all my 2 years in IIM, as a personal rule.As essential they are to any B-School party, I felt like some social criminal, breaking the normal accepted rules of the community.I remember people giving me side stares and wondering ‘What exactly is wrong with this guy, why can’t he act normal?’And this is not specific to a B-School or MBA, it is part of life everywhere.So, if you are an introvert who is okay with the above habits, then don’t restrict yourselves.Parties will be the easiest way to network and bond.And as others will tell you, getting high is the easiest way to move from introversion to extroversion.But, if you are not comfortable, then please don’t force yourselves to do the same.Do not suffer from FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).Parties don’t have expiration dates. If one goes, there comes another.Instead, try JOMO (Joy of Missing Out).I am sure as an introvert, you would have tons of interesting things to do than just attend a party.Most extroverts won’t understand this. And you don’t have to explain to them.Remember, people will always want you to act and behave in a way just like they do. Again, you don’t have to.The point is not making a big deal of such parties. If you want to go, just go.Don’t starve your natural self to feed your ideal self. At least not in parties.And, don’t be surprised if after 2 shots of martini your ‘ideal self’ is rolling on the floor, dancing to ‘Saat Samundar paar mein tere…”Group Projects/Case Competitions- As an introvert, you might have a real issue working with groups, especially with those people who take group projects as just another opportunity to chit-chat.Sometimes these group activities will look like a scene from ‘Big Boss’ – Few people trying to work while others trying to do everything but that.And because everybody in the group gets the same marks, there is no incentive to work harder than the other person.This also gives rise to free-riders.Free riders in your group are just like God. You know they exist, but you haven’t seen them.And you won’t see them until the day of actual presentation when they quietly come and stand behind you.Again, just like Gods, they will only show their presence and support when you were least expecting.Usually the first person who comes to you saying, ‘Chal Bhai group banate hai’ is the one who you should be running away from.Obviously this person has carried out his responsibility of forming the group. Rest off-course is your responsibility.I myself have freeloaded in few projects where a specialized skills of CAs/CFAs in my group came in handy to save us from a short deadline.But most free-riders/ free-loaders will do it as a habit.As an introvert, you will have a hard time managing other people’s participation in the group efforts.Unlike a group project, participation in case competitions is purely voluntary in nature where your only objective should be to win the case competition.Hence, it is imperative that each and every member of the group is contributing in some way or another.I felt that the maximum of amount of learning came to me through these group projects and case competitions only.Majorly because I felt like that I was working with some really smart people and also because that it was one of only few means to find practical applications for theoretical concepts.The best way for an introvert to make use of a group project is1) Ignore free riders- Well you cannot force anyone to work. Recognize free-riders early and save your time and efforts by not running after them.2) Delegate your job to others as far as possible. If somebody is not able to contribute through the main group tasks, give them easier tasks like editing and printing etc.Not that you can’t do the same, but you improve your own people skills by showing them that you value them for what they can do.3) There is a good chance that others in the group are smarter than you, and you being an introvert are not able to properly voice your opinions and share your ideas.Never let that happen. Let your ideas get tested at least once.Whether you are at IIM or any other corporate professional place, you will always feel that the world is not designed for introverts.And as true as this maybe, you can always train yourself to survive in an extrovert driven world.For an introvert, living an extrovert’s life may be very stressful and this might even kill them slowly.However, the same stress, if properly managed, can be utilized to grow and succeed as an individual.The most successful introverts are people who can pretend to be an extrovert when needed and then find sufficient personal time to recharge themselves as an introvert.It is this constant process of stressing and destressing yourself is what gives you true mental growth.Just like to get a great body, you push yourselves hard in the gym, lifting weights and then taking adequate rest to heal and grow your muscles, bigger and stronger.Similarly, you can put your mental muscles under strain by slowly adding difficult tasks in your daily rituals and then finding personal time to recover and grow.Most people in this world will see their natural conditions as obstacles to their successful lives.You create mental boundaries in your mind just like physical boundaries, thinking you cannot outgrow them.But, only when you rise up to challenges by slowly taking up tasks which needs you to grow out of your comfort zone, is actually when you expand those mental boundaries and grow so that your definition of ýou’ gets so big that you will be comfortable doing things which you have never done before.Statistically speaking, the most successful people in this world like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Lionel Messi, Christopher Nolan, Amir Khan etc. are deep introverts who constantly take new challenges and create something new which you have never seen before.The point is to not to run away from an extrovert dominated world, but to see these problems as opportunities to grow out of your normal comfort zone.As humans we have great capability to adapt ourselves to changing environments.Being an introvert it would take more time for you, but, in the end it will be all worth it.You don’t need confidence to do difficult things. Confidence is always an indirect outcome of any action and not the cause behind it.So, you first take the plunge, join a B- School, and start accepting the culture of the place as it is.Soon enough, you will be nailing things as they come to you.Complaining that life has not been fair to you won’t make things any easier.Reality for you will only change after you first change your own approach and mentality.Take proactive control of your life and not let just things happen to you.Finally, it’s either ‘you’ who runs your life or the life runs ‘you’. I hope you choose the former.As I come to end this one for you, I could remember a couplet from ‘Bandey’ song by ‘Local Train’,‘Sikandar hai wo jo jeeta hain yehan, phir bhi akela wo rehta hai yahin,Sab kuch hai tere paas, phir bhi tu kyun roye’

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!MilitiasWe’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 VoteWe 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 GuardNot 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 Stateo Assist other States in rebellion with securing Federal installationso Securing the contiguous borders of all States in rebellion, ando When possible, conducting offensive operations against Federal troopsStates 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, ando Blockading Federal installations, but not attempting to secure themStates 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, ando Combat militia and other insurrectionist forces within their stateModeling 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.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 ForcesWhereas 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 installationsProtect States still loyal to the government from incursion by forces in rebellionConduct offensive operations against rebel forcesOccupy rebellious States’ capitals to dissolve the governments and compel their forces to disbandHowever, 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 BattleHaving 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: 1,387,493Army 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): 213,000US Army and Marine Corps Only (All Combat Roles): 194,900Army National Guard (All Combat): 250,700Yes, 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 CombatWe 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 ScenarioHaving 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: #ACW2It’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 AlertRemain 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 powerTo provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel InvasionsBut 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: DeadlineAfter 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 WashingtonAs 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.ConclusionIn 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.

There is a lot to say about this big topic. I read a great article few days ago that I think is one of the best articles/researches I red about machine learning in Cyber Security.I will quote from the article. The article by “Eliezer Kanal - Technical Manager - Cyber Security Foundations”The year 2016 witnessed advancements in artificial intelligence in self-driving cars, language translation, and big data. That same time period, however, also witnessed the rise of ransomware, botnets, and attack vectors as popular forms of malware attack, with cybercriminals continually expanding their methods of attack (e.g., attached scripts to phishing emails and randomization), according to Malware Byte's State of Malware report. To complement the skills and capacities of human analysts, organizations are turning to machine learning (ML) in hopes of providing a more forceful deterrent. ABI Research forecasts that "machine learning in cybersecurity will boost big data, intelligence, and analytics spending to $96 billion by 2021." At the SEI, machine learning has played a critical role across several technologies and practices that we have developed to reduce the opportunity for and limit the damage of cyber attacks. In this post--the first in a series highlighting the application of machine learning across several research projects--I introduce the concept of machine learning, explain how machine learning is applied in practice, and touch on its application to cybersecurity throughout the article.Machine learning refers to systems that are able to automatically improve with experience. Traditionally, no matter how many times you use software to perform the same exact task, the software won't get any smarter. Always launch your browser and visit the same exact website? A traditional browser won't "learn" that it should probably just bring you there by itself when first launched. With ML, software can gain the ability to learn from previous observations to make inferences about both future behavior, as well as guess what you want to do in new scenarios. From thermostats that optimize heating to your daily schedule, autonomous vehicles that customize your ride to your location, and advertising agencies seeking to keep ads relevant to individual users, ML has found a niche in all aspects of our daily life.To understand how ML works we first need to understand the fuel that makes ML possible: data. Consider an email spam detection algorithm. Original spam filters would simply blacklist certain addresses and allow other mail through. ML enhanced this considerably by comparing verified spam emails with verified legitimate email and seeing which "features" were present more frequently in one or the other. For example, intentionally misspelled words ("V!AGR4"), the presence of hyperlinks to known malicious websites, and virus-laden attachments are likely features indicative of spam rather than legitimate email. (More discussion on "features" below.) This process of automatically inferring a label (i.e., "spam" vs "legitimate") is called classification, and is one of the major applications of ML techniques. It is worth mentioning that one other very common technique is forecasting, the use of historical data to predict future behavior. While considerable research and technology has been developed to perform forecasting, the remainder of this post will focus on classification.There are two major types of ML classification techniques: supervised learning and unsupervised learning, which are differentiated by the data (i.e., input) that they accept. Supervised learningrefers to algorithms that are provided with a set of labeled training data, with the task of learning what differentiates the labels. While in our previous example there were only two labels--"spam" and "legitimate"--other scenarios may contain many, many more. For example, modern image recognition algorithms, such as Google Image search, can accurately distinguish tens of thousands of objects, and modern facial recognition algorithms exceed the performance of human beings. By learning what makes each category unique, the algorithm can then be presented with new, unlabeled data and apply a correct label. Note the criticality in choosing a representative training dataset; if the training data contains only dogs and cats, but the new photo is a fish, the algorithm will have no way of knowing the proper label.Unsupervised learning refers to algorithms provided with unlabeled training data, with the task of inferring the categories all by itself. Sometimes labeled data is very rare, or the task of labeling is itself very hard, or we may not even know if labels exist. For example, consider the case of network flow data. While we have enormous amounts of data to examine, attempting to label data would be extremely time-intensive, and it would be very hard for a human to determine what label to assign. Given how good machines are at finding patterns in large datasets, it is often much easier to simply have the machine separate data into groups for us.Note that separating data into groups assumes that the relevant data is present. Determining the color of someone's skin is fairly trivial for a sighted person, but a blind person will find that task much harder since they are lacking the most important sensor. They will have to rely on other information, such as the person's voice, to correctly "label" the individual. Machines are no different in this regard.We mentioned earlier the concept of a feature. This concept can be understood fairly straightforwardly: if our data is stored in a spreadsheet where a single row represents one data point, then the features are the columns. For our email example, some features may be the sender, recipient, date, and content of the email. From our network flow example, features include packet size, remote IP address, network port, packet content, or any of the hundreds of different attributes that network traffic can have. Having useful features is a critical prerequisite for being able to successfully apply machine learning techniques. Simultaneously, having too many non-informative features may degrade algorithm performance, as the overabundance of noise can hide more useful information.To that extent, there is an entire branch within machine learning referred to as feature engineering. The goal of this practice is to extract the maximum information from the available features so as to maximize our ability to predict or categorize unknown data. Frequently these techniques will take multiple features and combine or transform them in complex ways to obtain new, more informative features. While a full treatment of these approaches is outside the scope of this article, interested readers are encouraged to read up on Principle Component Analysis (PCA), a fairly straightforward yet highly useful technique for both creating new data from existing features, as well reducing the number of total features required for the algorithm to function.One last topic to address is that of big data. From the above cases we can understand that more data is almost always a good thing; it allows algorithms to be aware of many more varieties of categories. Continuing our email example, while one person may get a lot of spam, many people get a tremendous amount of spam, providing that many more examples for the ML algorithm to train against. Within the past ten years, as the value of data has been realized, enormous databases for all types of imaginable data have sprung up containing sometimes billions of rows of data, with hundreds of thousands of features. Such enormous datasets are technically hard to work with, and an entire field of research and tooling has developed with the specific intent of simplifying the process of working with data of this size. This is the field of big data.The steps required to create a ML tool are varied, but typically proceed as follows:Data collection. While it's possible to run and even create ML algorithms based on streaming, real-time data (e.g., trading decision based on stock market data), the majority of techniques involve collecting data ahead of time and creating a model using stored data.Data cleaning. Raw data is often unusable for ML purposes. There may be missing data, inconsistent data use (e.g., a cardinality feature may contain "North", "north", and "N", all identical in meaning), and numeric data with non-numeric characters, among many other possible problems. This step also involves combining multiple data sources to a single usable source. Cleaning is often a time-consuming and iterative process, as fixing one issue often uncovers another.Feature engineering. After all the data is ready for use it's time to ensure that maximum information is extracted from the data itself, as described above. This process usually takes place prior to creating the ML algorithm.Model building/model validation. This set of steps involves building the model and testing to ensure it works properly on unlabeled data. There are many statistical considerations to consider when testing the model. When working with supervised ML, a chief concern is whether the model is overfit to the training data, i.e., whether the model that was produced takes into account properties that are unique to the training data. There are many statistical techniques used to minimize this risk, which are often employed during model validation.Deployment/Monitoring. Deployment of an ML model is rarely a "once-and-done" event. Generally, and especially in the case of network traffic, historical observations does not necessarily match future activity. For that reason, even after deployment, models are monitored and periodically rerun through the build/validate step to ensure top performance.Source: https://insights.sei.cmu.edu/sei_blog/2017/06/machine-learning-in-cybersecurity.htmlThank you Eliezer : )For anyone that is interested in cyber security. I suggest instead of reading and studding randomly, study systematically (Get courses and certificates). If you are new in the field, start by getting network courses. If you have no experience in networks start with the CompTIA Network+ then get the Security+. If you are interested in online training I suggest AlphaPrep.netRelated Questions:CompTIA A+: What entry level job or internship could I get with a CompTIA A+, Security+ and Network+ certification?Network+: Is it true that CompTIA's Security+ curriculum covers the A+ and Network+ curriculums as well?Security+: How do I learn or gather sources related to cyber security and pursue a career in cyber security?CCNA: I'm not a graduate, but I am certified in CCNA and CCNP. Can I still get a job?CCNP: What are the best sources to study CCNP?.Study Groups Answers:CompTIA A+: You are a repair technician and you are replacing the CPU in a client's laptop. You have removed the CPU/heat sink/fan assembly and have installed the new CPU. You have also determined that you can reuse the original heat sink and fan. Which of the following should you do next?Network+: In a wireless LAN (WLAN), what might cause a “multipath” problem?Security+: Greg needs to centralize the authentication of multiple networking systems against a single user database. What is he trying to implement?CCNA: With what IPv6 destination prefix does a DHCPv6 Solicit address begin?CCNP: Based on the figure, which of the following IP addresses will the server respond to?