Authored by Nick Turse via The Intercept,
In the face of protests composed largely of young people, the presence of America’s military on the streets of major cities has been a controversial development. But this isn’t the first time that Generation Z — those born after 1996 — has popped up on the Pentagon’s radar.
Documents obtained by The Intercept via the Freedom of Information Act reveal that a Pentagon war game, called the 2018 Joint Land, Air and Sea Strategic Special Program, or JLASS, offered a scenario in which members of Generation Z, driven by malaise and discontent, launch a “Zbellion” in America in the mid-2020s.
The Zbellion plot was a small part of JLASS 2018, which also featured scenarios involving Islamist militants in Africa, anti-capitalist extremists, and ISIS successors. The war game was conducted by students and faculty from the U.S. military’s war colleges, the training grounds for prospective generals and admirals. While it is explicitly not a national intelligence estimate, the war game, which covers the future through early 2028, is “intended to reflect a plausible depiction of major trends and influences in the world regions,” according to the more than 200 pages of documents.
According to the scenario, many members of Gen Z — psychologically scarred in their youth by 9/11 and the Great Recession, crushed by college debt, and disenchanted with their employment options — have given up on their hopes for a good life and believe the system is rigged against them. Here’s how the origins of the uprising are described:
Both the September 11 terrorist attacks and the Great Recession greatly influenced the attitudes of this generation in the United states, and resulted in a feeling of unsettlement and insecurity among Gen Z. Although Millennials experienced these events during their coming of age, Gen Z lived through them as part of their childhood, affecting their realism and world view … many found themselves stuck with excessive college debt when they discovered employment options did not meet their expectations. Gen Z are often described as seeking independence and opportunity but are also among the least likely to believe there is such a thing as the “American Dream,” and that the “system is rigged” against them. Frequently seeing themselves as agents for social change, they crave fulfillment and excitement in their job to help “move the world forward.” Despite the technological proficiency they possess, Gen Z actually prefer person-to-person contact as opposed to online interaction. They describe themselves as being involved in their virtual and physical communities, and as having rejected excessive consumerism.
In early 2025, a cadre of these disaffected Zoomers launch a protest movement. Beginning in “parks, rallies, protests, and coffee shops” — first in Seattle; then New York City; Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles; Las Vegas; and Austin — a group known as Zbellion begins a “global cyber campaign to expose injustice and corruption and to support causes it deem[s] beneficial.”
During face-to-face recruitment, would-be members of Zbellion are given instructions for going to sites on the dark web that allow them to access sophisticated malware to siphon funds from corporations, financial institutions, and nonprofits that support “the establishment.” The gains are then converted to Bitcoin and distributed to “worthy recipients” including fellow Zbellion members who claim financial need. Zbellion leadership, says the scenario, assures its members that their Robin Hood-esque wealth redistribution is not only untraceable by law enforcement but “ultimately justifiable,” as targets are selected based on “secure polling” of “network delegates.” Although its origins are American, by the latter 2020s, Zbellion activities are also occurring across Europe and cities throughout Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, including Nairobi, Kenya; Hanoi, Vietnam; and Amman, Jordan.
In the world of JLASS 2018, Gen Z’s most militant members have essentially taken to privately taxing large corporations and other institutions to combat income inequality or, as the war gamers put it, using the “cyber world to spread a call for anarchy.”
The JLASS war game emerges in the context of the Pentagon playing a controversial and visible role in the unfolding domestic protests against racism and police brutality in the U.S. National Guard units have been deployed in various locations already, and some active-duty military forces were sent by the Trump administration to the Washington D.C. area.
“I think the sooner that you mass and dominate the battlespace, the quicker this dissipates and we can get back to the right normal,” said Secretary of Defense Mark Esper earlier this week during a teleconference call that also saw President Donald Trump deride U.S. governors for their “weak” response to protests over the killing of George Floyd. Trump even declared that he had put Gen. Mark Milley, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “in charge.” Later that day, after security forces drove protesters and clergy from Washington, D.C.’s Lafayette Square with tear gas, Milley, dressed in combat fatigues, followed Trump, Attorney General William Barr, Esper, and others to a roundly condemned photo op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church.
This came amid the backdrop of threats being issued to employ active-duty military to forcefully suppress protests, and the deployment of rapid-reaction units from the 82nd Airborne Division to bases just outside Washington, D.C. With retired admirals and generals, among others, excoriating Trump — and to a lesser extent Esper and Milley — for breeches of long-standing norms in civilian-military relations, it’s worth considering how the Pentagon’s war gamers chose to focus the military’s attention on a generation now demonstrating peacefully in America’s streets.
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“it’s worth considering how the Pentagon’s war gamers chose to focus the military’s attention on a generation now demonstrating peacefully in America’s streets.”
https://sports.yahoo.com/target-store-wynnefield-heights-section-225633073.html
I am quite sure that all the former business owners that have been burned out of there past, present, and future might take umbrage with that statement about all those PEACEFUL protestors in the streets.
. . . as opposed to what, the WRONG normal? What does that even mean? The “right” normal, that is, I presume, the status quo, where vampire corporations and government ROB everybody who is not an executive in their “elite” ivy-league hierarchy – via de facto monopolies and price-rigging through “consolidation” and “trade agreements”, the brainwashed trust and submission to the corporate narrative that floods the airwaves with “agenda narrative” after the fascist owners/sponsors instruct the media on when to jump, where to jump, who to jump with, how high and how often, and what color of clothes to wear while doing so, colors which vary faction to faction across the spectrum, from the all-black antifa goth kids to the rainbow- adorned unicorn transvestites to the all-white Mohammedan saints, any/all of whom are viable “woke” voices AND represent the bestest, brightiest futurisha for all true “green-energy” vegan super-humans because they are “so special, unique, and perfect snowflakes”.
The “right” normal, the status-quo normal NEEDS to be fucking demolished and stomped into paste. The warmongers who killed Kennedy tainted the entire world with their “policing” foreign policy. The neocons continue to carry that flag like the LGBTQ -proud crowd; THEY actually think that forced subjugation of people is “spreading democracy” but when “democracy” is THEFT OF RESOURCES, the mindset makes perfect sense. To THEM, voting is just the SLAVES CHOOSING THEIR SLAVEMASTERS, and they WANT slaves everywhere to VOTE/SUBMIT to slavehood, to argue all the while about WHO makes the better slavemaster, the GREEN guy or the YELLOW guy, while the puppeteers empty the vaults and the mines and oil-wells, while they privatize the water-supplies and tax the air we breathe . The people who have benefited from this system since we “de-pegged” . . . do NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT HUMANITY, but they WILL patronize “participation trophy” champions and the X/Y chromosome- confused in order to STAY IN CONTROL until EVERYBODY is impoverished, demoralized, dehumanized, and weak.
Generation Z is the least of these MF’ers problems, and THEY know it. THEY ALREADY OWN THE DIGITAL BATTESPACE, so any electronic uprising LITERALLY takes place on THEIR terms. Most of GEN Z is controlled/lorded over by their whymon/wemin-/whumu-/bitches because the men are videogame retards who lack the testosterone to grow hair on their ‘sacks . . . EXACTLY ACCORDING TO PLAN. Generations of mass-poisoning/vaccination/biocide brings us here, so WE are HERE because THIS is where THEY want us; this IS NORMAL, NOW, a logical consequence of decisions made GENERATIONS AGO, and, damn right, the sooner the cognitive dissonance/slavehood is “dominated”/dissipated/destroyed . . . the sooner we can create a normal that does not rely on servitude and slavemasters to exist.
Gen Z a rebellion problem ? I know of several young people who were born in 1996 ! A nurse working with Covid patients and other critically ill patients , an engineer working on projects for government and industry one developing joint and organ replacements using 3D printing technology , another teaching special needs children in early stages with the hope to jump start their learning abilities for a better future , another is profiling psychological data on federal prison inmates to see if they can be resurrected and re-enter society and another joined the military and has survived multiple deployments and still another drives and operates the extreme tow trucks for the big rigs in mechanical trouble and clearing bad accidents 24/7 he is on call and keeps the rig with him when it is his on call night !
These are kids I coached and have made something of themselves . Most are gathering at my house this weekend for a reunion of sorts !
Remember this generation grew up witnessing the BIG CLUB bankrupt their parents and grandparents pensions and benefits ! They grew up witnessing the largest transfer of wealth from the majority of working Americans to the 1% that own everything including government . They understand the college debt scam and the 401 K retirement plan and who really benefits and who loses the most from it . So the smart ones show up to a job but also an attitude that the pay and benefits are directly related to how much effort they will give . Then still others have a well deserved FUCK YOU attitude that if this is the game they chose not to play !
That approach although counterproductive it is well deserved and understood . Why burn thru your most productive years and in the end be left worn out or sick and left hanging by a thread to life as others benefit more than you from your productive input . These kids know in the end they will be tossed away like a used Dixie cup by the circle jerk big club of Wall Street to K-Street to Capital Street . They know this because a huge segment watched it happen to their family members .
So are the powers that be in fear of a violent uprising , your dam right they are because it will end their advantageous parasitic life retiring with life left to live and the means to enjoy it because there are not enough sheeple left to financially slaughter for the BIG CLUB to feast upon like the vultures on road kill they are !
Those kids are lucky to have had a coach who had the persistence to keep molding their character. Yours is not all that an unusual-kids from all walks of life often respond well if given enough encouragement, guidance, and positive feedback. Problem is, there are not enough coaches to go around, especially on the lower rungs of the ladder.
Sad thing is, it probably is going to get worse before it gets better.
Dear Nick, the only people who “roundly condemned President Trumps photo op at the Chirch”was his enemies who hate him personally and would condemn him NO MATTER WHAT HE DOES!!! Conservatives and Christians roundly praised President Trump for doing that plus I believe President Trump was sincere when he went to that Church and did not look at it as a “photo op”.