The initial amount called in for the "riots" on the 6th were about 500. They quickly bumped those numbers up to 6,200, then 15,000 and now 20,000. Big deal right?
To put this into perspective, when units deploy overseas, they generally deploy on the battalion or regimental level. You have your individual person, multiple people make up a squad generally around 10-15, multiple squads make a platoon, multiple platoons make a company, multiple companies make up a battalion, multiple battalions make up the regiment or brigade, multiple regiments or brigades make up a division. The battalions generally range from a few hundred to a 1,000 troops and the regiments are 3-5k troops. A division makes up 10-15k troops.
We officially have enough to make up at least 1 very large division or 2 smaller ones currently in, or being sent to, our nations capital.
This is the same amount of troops we had in Afghanistan back in 2004.
20,000 troops in DC is a staggering amount. So the next question is...why? They will not be the ones doing the arrests when they go down. Which means they are there to stop the unrest that comes afterwards....or if the arrests don't come at all. This means they are either there for us, or them...Since President Trump is the one with the sole authority to order them into DC...I like our odds of who they are there to stop from rioting.
Why wouldn't they be the ones doing the arresting?
National Guard is reserve units that are not very well trained. You have some that left active duty and joined the guard, yes, but most are just weekend warriors. These mass arrests would be carried out by the special forces as they are actually trained on infiltration tactics like this. Or, by FEMA representatives, as they also have the authorization to arrest during a state of emergency...which is exactly what Trump declared DC is in a day or 2 ago.
So where are the special forces then? Why did Trump bring in the weekend warriors?
The special forces would not broadcast being there. Especially if they are their for an undercover operation, that would make zero sense. With that being said, all the special forces answer directly to Chris Miller, the acting Secretary of Defense. Chris Miller did this the very first week he took over...he took over AFTER the election. That was a HUGE chain of command move that flew right under the radar. I'm really surprised the media wasn't freaking out about this.
The SoF are getting to do all that secret squirrel stuff. They like direct action too but the getting to be all James Bond and stuff is also fun.