THE COMING WARLORDS by Kurt Saxon

 THE COMING WARLORDS by Kurt Saxon   copyright 1978

     When governments fail, or are too weak to control the outlying 

provinces, warlords arise and take over those regions where there 

is no order. Throughout the Middle Ages in Europe and England, men 

little better than bandit chieftains established their rule over 

populations too weak to protect themselves.

     Lest the king bring together his troops and wipe out these 

bandits, they often pledged a kind of loose loyalty to the Crown 

and were given sanction to keep their territory. The king often 

granted such titles because the region wasn't worth his effort to 

conquer it. This was Feudalism and the warlords became titled lords 

and servants of the king and had the power of life and death over 

their subjects.

     The warlord part came in because neighboring bandits, or even 

other sanctioned lords were a constant threat to the territory. So 

the warlord had to be fighting off competitors on a pretty constant 

basis.

     In China, for quite awhile before Sun Yat Sen took over in 

1911, that large country, too, was controlled by bandit warlords, 

often with no sanction from the weak central government.

     Nearly every American Indian chief was a warlord.

     With the formation of a strong central government, governors 

are appointed or elected. Since they can be recalled by the central 

government or voted out of office, they cannot be considered 

warlords.

     Heads of regional National Guard units are the nearest thing 

we have to warlords. They are held in readiness to put down civil 

disturbances, help out in cases of earthquakes, floods, or to bear 

the brunt of an enemy attack. Even so, their leaders are not 

warlords in the actual sense, because they have no authority over 

the general populace, except by order of the governor.

     Following the collapse of every civilization, warlords have 

sprung up to consolidate the territory they inhabited and to fend 

off neighboring warlords who wanted more. When our world system 

dies, Feudalism will again rise to replace the destroyed or 

critically weakened central governments.

     Upon the collapse of our civilization, due to war, economic 

blowout, an overload of degenerate dependents, or a combination of 

several factors, each region will be on its own. Aside from the big 

cities, which will perish in a burst of rioting, burning and 

plague, only the towns will be worth defending and so what I call 

warlords will not only be inevitable, but necessary.

     It might be commonly supposed that a modern warlord would be 

the district military commander. But military people are not 

qualified to administer local governments serving their national 

populaces. They might be used to head the local National Guard and 

serve in a purely defensive capacity.

     Their main function would be to fend off bands of refugees 

from the cities. Such refugees would be plentiful, desperate and 

useless to the local economy. Purely military units would be 

necessary to reroute them around the town and escort them out of 

the country, or slaughter them if such had to be done. After the 

initial fighting off of outsiders, the military types could be 

assimilated into the population, since they are used to discipline 

and could pitch into any community endeavor.

     You might consider the County Sheriff as the likeliest 

candidate for warlord, but he would not qualify. First, he is an 

elected official. As such, he is usually corrupt and in any case 

would not be adequate to administer to the needs of the towns under 

his jurisdiction. His staff might be excellent, but they are mainly 

involved in policing the outlying districts and are not familiar 

enough with the workings of the towns to administer.

     Forget the mayor. Another politician, he is a dingbat by 

nature, usually senile, and so crooked he needs his own accountant 

to keep him from cheating himself.

     In fact, any elected official should be automatically written 

off as a choice for warlord. Politicians have no other goals in 

life but to get and keep a place at the public trough. Therefore, 

they are natural parasites and are incapable of any gainful or 

useful employment. This is partly because their training consists 

mainly in appealing to the lowest common denominators in their 

constituency. In other words, they make their appeals to the 

average. As you well know, the average voter is a grasping 

ignoramous who believes the world owes him a living. So successful 

politicians are skillful only in telling the voters what most of 

them want to hear. Consequently, the most incompetent and 

unscrupulous get elected.

     I'm sure you've listened to President Carter. As aimless and 

moronic as is his political performance, he can give an 

off-the-cuff speech which projects hope to the hopeless and 

intelligence to the pseudo-intellectuals. This shows political 

refinement but such is the opposite of true qualifications for 

effective leadership.

     A local politician is so clumsy and obvious that he sounds 

like Captain Kangaroo addressing the residents of Sesame Street. 

The congressman representing my district is a dumbbell but has 

turned political degeneracy into an art form.

     I know these things because I live in Eureka. Eurekans are 

barely conscious, a fourth of them on welfare and many of the rest 

working on Federally subsidized projects. You can easily imagine 

the level of ethics and competency of our mayor, D.A., sheriff and 

city council. So politicians are out as warlords.

     In the more extreme category, are militant political groups 

and outlaw bikers. The political militants would be the first to be 

wiped out by the local militia. Many political militants fantasize 

that when the government collapses, the people will clamor for 

their bizarre solutions.

     As an ex-right wing fanatic, I realize my old comrades and 

their counterparts on the left would be lucky to be left alive in 

any community they tried to take over.

     Several readers have expressed concern that I am advocating 

rule by people like those in WHEELS OF RAGE. Actually, WHEELS was a 

satire on bikers in general. Its characters were composites of 

cronies I used to run around with. Even the best of bikers would be 

incompetent to be warlords. It's true that their kind became 

warlords during the Middle Ages. But then, as now, they were thugs. 

The thugs of the Middle Ages simply enslaved the populace. There 

was little or no progress under their rule and only when power was 

wrested from them was civilization allowed to mature.

     Bands of bikers might effectively protect communal groups from 

similar bandits. But to allow them any official authority over such 

a group would be disastrous.

     The best choice for warlord would be your local chief of 

police. In most cases, he is well trained, efficient, 

conscientious, courageous and honest. He generally knows more about 

the community than any other man in town. He is also mature enough 

to establish martial law in the best interests of the majority of 

the population.

     He could be trusted to appoint the people best able to bring 

the townsfolk through the crisis. Furthermore, he would be the most 

likely to step down when order was established and delegate 

authority to those professional people of merit who could run the 

town without coercion.

     Only the police chief could justly implement the harsh 

measures a warlord would have to impose on the populace. Not caring 

to remain warlord, as would a politician or military officer, the 

police chief could establish internal and external security, 

regardless of criticism.

     Like a surgeon cutting out cancer, a police chief could 

objectively eliminate the local parasites. A politician could 

never  kill a degenerate whom he would later depend upon for votes. 

     Since austerity would be a fact of life for some time, the 

local parasites would have to be destroyed. This would entail 

rounding up all habitual criminals, pimps and their whores, sex 

offenders, long-term able-bodied welfare recipients, winos and drug 

addicts, taking them out to the edge of town and killing them.

     There would be no practical reason for letting them survive. 

To enslave them would mean appointing guards with better uses to 

the community. To turn them loose would only be to inflict the 

vermin on decent people in other towns.

     If this seems harsh, consider; the collapse of world 

civilization will bring about such death and suffering that 

eliminating a town's criminals and assorted parasitical trash will 

be easy. Especially when you consider that the survival of the good 

people of the town will be accomplished only through great 

hardship and austerity enough without the town's predators and 

social refuse.

     The next task of the warlord would be a touchy one indeed. 

This would be the elimination of the town's hopelessly retarded, 

mentally incompetent, terminally ill and dependent aged. They will 

not survive anyway, and prolonging their lives would be not only a 

waste of precious resources, but would be an actual cruelty. Such 

an unwelcome task would have to be delegated to the town's most 

respected physicians, who would give injections to their hopeless 

cases.

     Lest parents and relatives protest on behalf of their loved 

ones, they would have the final decision. In such cases, those 

closest to the useless would be given sleepy-by pills by the 

doctors to be administered when their misplaced altruism was 

overcome by the reality of the situation.

     The warlord's only responsibility in the elimination of the 

physically and mentally hopeless, aside from authorizing the 

program, would be to see that no food or medicines out of the 

common store would be given to the hopeless. If relatives insisted 

on preserving such blighted dependents, they must do so out of 

their own rations.

     In the event of a war or upon the general recognition of the 

permanent collapse of civilization, the populace would panic. The 

warlord's first duty would be to station armed personnel in stores 

holding food, medicines, tools, weapons, and anything the community 

would need to survive.

     This does not mean the contents of the stores would be 

confiscated. Personal property is more than a right. It's a 

necessity. The store owner knows his inventory and how best to 

distribute it. Since he had the initiative to accumulate the 

supplies, he would most likely be able to get more, if possible. 

For these reasons, he must be left in proprietorship. If he is 

alienated by having his stock confiscated, he will be unlikely to 

cooperate in making or securing more supplies.

     Rather than confiscating the stock, it might prove practical 

to remove it to a common building more easily defended but with the 

inventory under the owner's continued proprietorship. In this way, 

for instance, all the contents of all the pharmacies could be 

removed to a common building and the respective owners could then 

cooperate in rationing the drugs and medicines, taking in exchange 

barter goods or whatever served as currency during the emergency. 

     Without such a system, stores would be looted of their most 

attractive contents. The less attractive wares, and possibly the 

most useful, would be trampled and destroyed.

     After the worthless and hopeless members of the town were 

disposed of and the stores, utilities and other town necessities 

were secured, an individual census should be taken. Every 

householder should declare all his belongings. Again, private 

property rights must be respected, especially among those who have 

stocked up in anticipation of the collapse.

     The Survivalists will be the most important people in the 

region and consequently, the most supportive of the warlord. Their 

surplus might also be stored in common warehouses. But they must 

not be confiscated and distributed for the "public good".

     The only commodities which should be distributed to the 

general populace should be food from the supermarkets. The 

perishables will have to be distributed immediately, but with 

I.O.U.'s given to the proprietor by the warlord. The warlord will, 

in turn, collect I.O.U.'s from the recipients, to be paid for with 

work on public projects, especially agriculture.

     Since the majority of the town's food supply is brought in 

from outlying areas, food will be critical. The current supply must 

be strictly rationed as no new stock will be brought in. The 

warlord must appoint agriculturists to supervise the cultivation of 

all arable land in the area. Even so, the survivalist with a year's 

supply of food must be allowed to keep it. In turn, he will not 

draw on the communal food supply except by trading his surplus for 

food items he lacks.

     Every citizen should be required to submit a list of his 

possessions; food, tools, weapons, etc. Again, nothing must be 

confiscated, but aside from food, surplus tools, weapons, etc., 

should be freely loaned for the common good.

     There is an interesting incident on page 481 of LUCIFER'S 

HAMMER, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. It tells of a farmer 

who had far more than he could use and didn't report it. He also 

took the help of those around him without meaning to help them in 

return. They took everything he had and drove him out. He took his 

wife and kids out and was probably eaten by the roving cannibals. 

He deserved it.

     So a warlord must be an administrator, judge, fighter, 

tactician and a sincere protector of his charges. The idea of a 

warlord being a tyrant is absurd in America. There will be enough 

killing to last everyone a lifetime without the warlord turning on 

his own. That's why only the most responsible and able should 

become warlords.

     The new warlords will save the culture, if anyone can. Only 

the local police chiefs qualify in all areas of such a 

responsibility. Only the police chief can properly choose townsmen 

to be deputized to help defend the region. And he can well realize 

that his deputies will eliminate him if he turns on the people.

     Supporting your local police is not simply a slogan. There 

will come a time, and soon, when your local police chief might save 

you and everything you hold dear.