The inability of military style forces to successfully deal with seemingly minor infringements of social order do suggest a major breakdown in such echelons instilling the needed degree of discipline and good practices required to deal with a society that is becoming progressively more confrontational and less inclined to follow orders unconditionally. Such was always the problem with using regular military forces in such situations, quite correctly assuming their reliance on brute force and superior weaponry was not a positive asset against unarmed of at maximum lightly weaponized civilians.
Twas a time a single file line of regular troops could stand quite passively against an angry mob armed with sticks and stones; without the slightest chance they would react or be phased by any provocation. Unit integrity and control was of paramount import in marshal training, individual self-defense or retaliation were shunned and punished unilaterally.
The great divide between military and security branches of uniformed forces is their mindset, one being impelled to physically overcome and prevail at all costs till told by an adequate superior to cease, the other to create a continuing pattern of control, holding citizenry to socially acceptable manner of behavior. The two considerations do not easily merge, as is proven my military being employed against rioters, and security forced against heavily armed opposition.
Cross seeding between the two does not succeed. Ex-military tend to make poor security personnel, being too reliant on structure, prone to become confrontational and overly heavy handed when obliged to act alone or out of a rehearsed situation. Security personal, or equally civilians, make bad part time soldiers, lacking adequate training to effectively erase individualism, being overconfident in their suppressive skills because of the availability of superior armament, having psychological concerns beyond a singular professional function. Laymen and women make for poor automatons, which is exactly what the soldier ideally should be. A nationalistic gloved fist.
Daily Abstract Thoughts 