Anatomy of the Presidential Motorcade (2016)
thedrive.com
thedrive.com
https://www.ad.nl/den-haag/alleen-rutte-fietst-nog-naar-zijn...
Unfortunately even he had to have personal protection during the last couple of years for a period because of threats against him with respect to an attack or an attempt to kidnap him.
>The fact the US President goes on a big motorcade is what allows the Dutch prime minister to promenade himself on a bike ;-)
I compare it to how certain cities in the US and elsewhere declare themselves to be "nuclear-free zones". They have the luxury of performing such virtue signaling because other places aren't nuclear-free.
If it were a show of force, it would look like this: https://cdn1.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/landscape...
The current US motorcade’s security features are no doubt a result of previous security incidents that actually happened.
If it was super secure we wouldn't know all this stuff about it.
Elements of it are a show of importance. Like the fact that the cars are shiny Cadillacs and not dull vehicles made by Grumman or the like.
But the security features listed here are mostly intentionally muted and not showy. Like the fact that the vehicle is made to look like a normal Cadillac despite being more custom than not.
One time during the Bush administration I made it into Waco flying fast and took the loop out onto HWY6 which would take me south most of the way to Houston. At the time HWY6 was two lanes for most of the drive with part of it under construction for widening. It traveled through several small towns, speed traps all of them, and eventually merged with HWY 290 out of Austin near Hempstead, Texas.
Anyway I was about to merge from the loop onto HWY6 and was coming up to speed, roughly 80-85 would've been normal cruising speed for me back then though the speed limit varied from 55-65 mph. I know, what an asshole. This was me.
As I merged I could see a couple of SUVs coming up hard behind me so I made sure to get up to speed quickly and stay in the right hand lane (4 lanes thru this part of the drive). I was cruising pretty fast but was still passed by two black SUVs with US Gov't plates moving a bit faster than I was. I figured they had to be Secret Service or similar since they were coming from the Crawford direction where Bush had his ranch. They were cruising pretty fast and so I decided to glide in behind them and get a rolling speed check. I had to do 98-100 mph to stick with them.
Doing some quick mental calculations I decided to just lay back behind them and match their speed as far as that would take me since they would obviously be able to fly thru all those speed traps with no issues. Onward we all went, two black SUVs and a blue VW flying along about a half mile behind at near 100 mph. We cruised thru those little towns without seeing a single cop and I followed those SUVs all the way until I let them go in traffic in NW Houston since I was near my destination. That drive cut enough time from my normal commute that I was able to sit and eat breakfast before showing up at my work site.
If any of you are former Secret Service and remember being tailed by a blue VW across Texas one morning, thanks for the escort!
Some of which may be part of those local police forces.
More recently, in 1995 an attempt was made against Jean Chrétien. Even more recently, in march of last year a deranged former soldier drove a pickup truck into the prime minister's residence. Canada has its own fare share of crazy people looking to attack politicians.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/military-reservist-who-rammed-...
>>OTTAWA -- A Manitoba man who rammed a gate at Rideau Hall before arming himself and heading on foot toward Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's home last July was sentenced Wednesday to six years in prison.
Nobody is gonna successfully shoot at a presidential motorcade for the same reason nobody is gonna pull off another 9/11. The loophole could only be used once.
No offense to Australia, but the Aussie PM isn’t a continual worldwide target from every terrorism group and some nation states.
If you note, even when the US President is in a gun-free country, the motorcade and security processes are still at extreme levels. The motorcade is designed to withstand rocket propelled grenades, chemical weapons, and even EMP attacks. Weapons that nobody except terror groups or nation states have access to. While a lone gunman with a rifle is a legitimate threat, the motorcade is designed around a much more complicated threat model. Protecting against a guy with a gun is relatively easy.
The assassination of any US president would send world markets into immediate chaos as well as create a dire world security situation as “bad” countries and organizations would seek to exploit the situation.
Just as the World Trade Center attack was a symbolic action, taking out the US president would have a similar effect. While an assassination of the Australian PM would be tragic, it isn’t even close to having the same impact.
And prior to Australia having their gun ban, the Aussie PM still didn’t have the enormously protective motorcade of the US president.
In case of murder of a PM, the government will quickly select a new one in the matter of weeks. It is a silly political move to kill a PM.
In case of a President, there is a mandate from the population, because he/she was elected directly. And replacing the President is a matter of several months at least, or, in the case of the USA, not at all. And that sends a bigger message to kill a President.
I personally see both system (Prime Minister and President) have pros & cons that doesn't make one better than the other.
We have a fairly well defined line of succession.
And even if you're talking just about mandate, if the president dies the VP often takes up the dead president's mandates. Like LBJ passing major civil rights legislation the year after JFK died, or Truman following FDR pretty closely. Although Andrew Johnson did the opposite of that and Gerald Ford (not following a death, fair) didn't do anything at all.
I haven't found any information about the obligation to hold new elections in such event, but I could be wrong
Just in the 20th century, Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson directly contradict your statement.
Your statement does describe the most recent case, afore, but it’s such an oddball case it’s not surprising it’s an outlier.
I know of a few examples that it's required to have new elections months after a president step down, which is the case of India, but even then the acting president has the full power of a president.
I know this is tongue-in-cheek, but it's worth noting that the Parliament has almost nothing to do with appointing a Prime Minister. In practice (in Australia) the majority party meets, picks a new leader, and then sends them to be appointed as PM by the Governor General. That's all that's needed.
This is the type of individual small arm I'd assume is the most likely threat to someone in a presidential motorcade.
The guns thing is one of the go-to stereotypes about the U.S., but it isn't generally true or helpful.
This seems a peculiarly American way to go about things ... specifically, it's not actually about protection or transport at all: it's about signalling imperial primacy through conspicuous misuse of resources.
I live in Edinburgh, capital of Scotland, about a mile away from a royal palace that is sometimes occupied by actual royals. (Typically Princess Anne; sometimes Charles, William, or the Queen when she's in town to open a session of the Scottish Parliament.)
And as I live on a main road they sometimes drive past my front door.
A royal motorcade scaled for the heir to the throne and his wife, or the queen's sister, or a similar level of VIP, consists of: two SUVs (typically Range Rovers) and 2-4 motorcycles. One SUV for the VIPs (presumably armoured), one for additional security/backup, and the bikes leap-frog the SUVs to stop traffic at intersections so the SUVs don't need to slow down.
The SUVs are notable for not having number plates (that's normally illegal in the UK). And for special appearances the VIP carrier is sometimes replaced with a classic limousine -- I've seen Daimlers and Rolls-Royces used (older, pre-BMW-ownership ones).
The queen isn't a common visitor these days (she's 95, doesn't travel much during the pandemic) but used to rate something not much larger: add another couple of Range Rovers to the convoy and that's about it.
What they don't do is shut down an entire city and have military helicopters and transports flying around the place, signaling what's going on. The emphasis seems to be on being discreet and agile, and able to avoid any possible threats notified by intelligence. If you've got a convoy involving a hundred people you can't simply pick another route.
Now, obviously the rules are a bit different for the leader of the global imperial hegemon: projecting an image of invulnerability and overwhelming might goes with the territory. And a formal parade like a Presidential Inauguration or a state visit calls for laying on the pomp, ceremony, and escort size (a UK example might be the Trooping of the Colours, or the state opening of Parliament and the monarch's speech).
But if the objective of the presidential motorcade is to safely deliver POTUS to a speaking engagement then safely extract him afterwards, with elbow-room for close protection duty, then 95% of this motorcade arrangement is a very expensive waste of people and equipment: it's signalling that the subject of the motorcade is important, not actually accomplishing anything tangible.
Possibly because the default reaction to a flashy and obnoxiously visible convoy in the UK might be an eye roll and "fuck's sake, get over yourself".
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Escort_Group_(Metropol...
Also, pretty wild to see your comment downvoted, someone must feel upset that you aren't giving 'proper respect' or something to that effect. Have an upvote.
I hadn't heard of this before. Video for the curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo5zH0Il8B0.
Yes, its like that old joke ... The Americans spent millions of dollars making a pen that could be used in space. The Russians gave their astronauts a pencil.
I think its much the same with the President and his motorcade.
When the President is visiting peaceful Western countries, then most of the motorcade (and associated aircraft) is largely security theatre.
To visit Europe (or Canada) for example, why does the President need to bring along enough manpower to start a small war ?
https://www.sydney.edu.au/science/news-and-events/2021/01/22...
Edit: whoops I should have clicked your link before replying
As part of deterring a first-strike, the Secret Service has to show that the President cannot be killed even by a substantial and sophisticated ambush. It has to be ready for weapons like these Javelin missiles that killing tanks in Russia.
I'm genuinely curious about your take on that.
I've had the assumption that the U.S. control over so much of the world's economics and security amounts to running an empire - stuff like exporting inflation via the worlds reserve currency and selling treasury bonds (modern tribute), worldwide control over trade using a navy with more tonnage than all of our enemies combined, military bases in 80 countries, things like the Monroe Doctrine enforcing our interests over an entire continent, decades of using the CIA and other means to replace governments in other countries that we don't like, wars in the past to secure our supply of oil, funding proxy wars to destabilize up and coming regional powers, exporting our drug and copyright laws to the rest of the world, running the worlds financial networks, restricting trade in territories we control like Puerto Rico, exported our culture to the rest of the world, etc. For decades we seem to have dominated a large swath of the world in ways that other western countries, like Canada for example, do not. There's even a long Wikipedia article on American Imperialism [0].
Does the definition of empire preclude the idea of modern empires not following the same methods of past empires? Or am I missing something else?
Yes, basically. There's a long wikipedia article on American imperialism because it's a popular trope among blue-team coastal elites. Here's A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry on empires: https://acoup.blog/2019/11/22/collections-why-are-there-no-e...
"...an empire is a state where the core ruling population exercises control and extracts resources from a periphery which is composed of people other than the core group (linguistically/culturally/ethnically/religiously distinct). So an empire is a state where one set of people (the core) extract resources (typically by force) from another set of people (the periphery)."
You could argue that descriptive linguistics blah blah basically the word just means "really powerful state" now. And maybe it does to a lot of people, or maybe that's where we're headed, but it makes me sad and I don't think we're there yet.
My respect for SS capabilities declined greatly earlier this month after it was revealed 4 highly trained agents including one on the First Lady’s detail were accepting bribes from bogus DHS agents with high powered weaponry who are likely foreign agents. A postal inspector figured it out, not the SS.
If SS can’t discern an obvious threat and ethical violation, how good are they at the other tasks they are supposedly masters of?
Another question: why do they have anything to do with investigating counterfeit currency? That particular responsibility should be reassigned to another agency at Treasury or FBI so Secret Service can concentrate on their core mission of protecting the president.
The Secret Service is under the Treasury. Its original core task was counterfeit currency. Only after McKinley was assassinated (20 years after Garfield was assassinated (15 years after Lincoln was assassinated)) I think was it expanded to also include protecting the president.
Despite occasional missteps (any large org will have problems from time to time,) the SS is one of the best federal law enforcement agencies ever created.
To your point of creating another agency so the SS can focus on the president, we could ask the same question why the FBI investigates kidnappings and bank robberies while also doing domestic counter intelligence. It’s possible for agencies to do more than one thing.
Not that I disagree but I've never heard anyone say this. I'm curious why you think so.
They really do not like being called "The SS". That has severe historical connotations.
Most people are just OK at their jobs. They do enough to get by but they make mistakes — sometimes big mistakes. They’re not superstars, they’re average.
Because they were founded long before today's cadre of federal police agencies (FBI/ATF etc). At that time the federal government's mandate was rather slim. If there was going to be a federal police force it had to be in relation to an federal matter such as currency. Understand the "secret" in the name to be the old use, meaning more private than clandestine, as used in secretary. They worked for the president and federal government rather than the states and could not enforce state laws.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secret_Service#E...
>> With a reported one third of the currency in circulation being counterfeit at the time,[14] Abraham Lincoln established a commission to make recommendations to remedy the problem. The Secret Service was later established on July 5, 1865 in Washington, D.C., to suppress counterfeit currency. Chief William P. Wood was sworn in by Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch. It was commissioned in Washington, D.C. as the "Secret Service Division" of the Department of the Treasury with the mission of suppressing counterfeiting.
This suggests that if someone pointed a powerful laser at the vehicle, it would deploy countermeasures. I don't suggest anyone do that, but wouldn't we have seen something like this by now?
Though I do think they should roll out with the minigun out just for funsies.
https://www.military.com/video/specialties-and-personnel/pre...
Another time, there were two black SUVs parked in the "expectant mothers" spaces, and a guy in a suit with an earpiece standing nearby doing nothing. I walked in between the SUVs, just to see what would happen (nothing). I don't know who was visiting, and I'm they wouldn't tell me.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/long-list-breaches-scan...