Revealed: Pentagon orders states' national guards to form 'quick reaction forces' for 'crowd control'
A top US military official has ordered the national guards of all 50 US states, the District of Columbia and US territories to form “quick reaction forces” trained in “riot control”, including use of batons, body shields, Tasers and pepper spray, according to an internal Pentagon directive reviewed by the Guardian.
The memo, signed 8 October by Maj Gen Ronald Burkett, the director of the Pentagon’s national guard bureau, sets thresholds for the size of the quick reaction force to be trained in each state, with most states required to train 500 national guard members, for a total of 23,500 troops nationwide.
As authority, Burkett cited Donald Trump’s August executive order that deployed the guard to fight crime in Washington DC. The same order required the secretary of defense to create “a standing National Guard quick reaction force … available for rapid nationwide deployment” in “quelling civil disturbances”.
Janessa Goldbeck, a former US Marine Corps captain and chief executive of the Vet Voice Foundation, a non-profit advocacy group, said the order represented “an attempt by the president to normalize a national, militarized police force.”
She predicted that force would be used to send troops to states led by Democratic governors without their permission and could be used to suppress turnout and disrupt the fair operation of elections.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/29/pentagon-memo-quick-reaction-forces
Well, ain't that just peachy!
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