Interesting

OMG really?

OK, let's set some shit straight.

1. This is not any new idea. As Soloman wrote a couple thousand years ago, "there is nothing new under the sun."

This concept was first seen in "OUT OF THE ASHES", a crappy survival fiction story that was big in the 1980's and 1990's. Typical male fantasy survivalist BS- old guy kills every bad person, never gets a scratch, gets with dozens of young hotties that fawn over him constantly. Keep this in mind that THIS STORY is where this idea came from...

So in the crappy book, Ben Raines (the old guy that kills everyone with a snap of the finger that all the young hotties want), who later becomes GENERAL Ben Raines, advises all the post nuclear war survivors that are just "milling around, waiting for someone to tell them what to do" to forage (steal) everything that isn't nailed down and head to...... WAIT FOR IT..... wait for it.... Yep you guessed it-

Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, etc.

The "Tri States", which becomes GENERAL Ben Raines little quasi kingdom where he is idolized by all men and boys and worshipped by all the chicks. Invariably, his freedom loving enclave gets in a major battle with the evil now put back together US gubmint and 28 or 29'ish shitty paperbacks later, Ben Raines is 1,027 years old, has cleared America and Europe of evil types and "creepies" 2 or 3X over.

There was a very loose, very haphazard never really took off in more than spirit/idea survivalist network that the real author of the book (William Johnstone IIRC) tried to get going. You would see listings in the old American Survival Guide (not to be confused with the new yuppie we aren't really made for survivalist's magazine) where people would try to network and you would see mentions of the "Tri State Philosophy."  The author seemed to enjoy people fawning over him, and it ran from there.

Continuing on the "Ben Raines, contact us!" Theme-

So yeah, this is where that idea was originally seen in the 1980's and early 90's survivalist movement.

Now truth be told, in some 1950's maybe 60's era survivalist literature ("Get thee into the high mountain" book), you can see tinges of this same idea as well.

The "Tri States" concept was Recycled not that long ago and renamed. But like I said, "there is nothing new under the sun."

So yeah, to newer "preppers" that weren't around 20-30 years ago, this idea is largely credited to Rawles now, but he wasn't the first.

I knew and interacted with more than a few people back in the day that were a part of for a time "Tri States" groups. Most were total and utter BS.

Met Johnstone one time at an expo we were exhibiting at back in the 90's. I want to say it was SOF Convention mid 90's. He was the typification of his character- late 50's or early 60's, smoking (all male fantasy bad ass characters from the 80's smoked LOL), glasses. But what was interesting was he had this mid 20's absolute hottie there with him, she was dressed in BDU pants and a tight top. If you know Vegas you know this isn't uncommon- just like at SHOT Show when you see crazy hot chicks at companies booths- it brings the customers over to their booths.

Talking with him a bit, he seemed to really BELIEVE his books. Some years later I was training with an old friend that I used to train with in the mid 80's in Florida. We were BS'ing about bad survival fiction and he mentioned having spent some time with Johnstone and his opinion of him believing his own books matched with mine.

Sometimes people believe their own fiction stories....

Might not be the motivation but that's definitely where the idea came from, no doubts there whatsoever.

I highly doubt Rawles would agree with some of the crazy "Tri States" theories Johnson/General Ben Raines pushed/believed in/wrote about.

Yeah I understand that. Was simply setting straight the fact that Rawles was not the first with this idea. A LOT of history of the survivalist movement has been lost or rewritten in the last 20 and even 10 years.

Understand that. Keep in mind that things chance and the last part can/probably will change a lot.

I remember Mel Tappan et al from the late 70's touting Oregon as the survivalist mecca. Then all the a-holes moved there from CA and ruined Oregon evidently.

The northern climate can/will be a detriment long term. I remember doing some training for a group in Vermont over a decade ago. Was at there large group retreat and was talking firewood and heat with them at one point. It was AUGUST and some of them had fires going in the morning. I asked how much wood did they use per structure. Answer was "about 15 cords." And keep in mind none of them lived there full time with that figure!

15 cords of wood is a helluva lot for a part time residence. I can't imagine when it's time to fully relay on wood heat how much would be needed per year.

That alone has pluses and minuses-

Minuses being that the 15+ cords of wood needed every year equals a helluva lot of logistics in the way of chainsawS (probably X5 at least), chains, parts, gas and oil, etc. splitter let alone the MANPOWER and time in labor to cut, split, transport and stack. That's PER structure keep in mind as well.

Pluses would be that for probably several months a year, they probably would have close to zero potential of security problems. This was a combo of low population density as well as the fact that with several feet of snow on the ground and 50 or so miles of it to trek through from the nearest town, they had little chance of people flooding them as refugees or raiders.

Shorter growing seasons in northern climates mean you have to be really, really good NOW in growing enough food for your family in the really short growing season or you will be starving in short order. Longer growing seasons means a little more margin of error.

Here in S. GA, we have low population density and long growing seasons. If you stay a couple hours away from Atl, Savannah, Macon, the population density is relatively low. 3 counties in our area sport less than 10K total residents. However we have a ton of nuclear targets- Moody AFB, Ft. Stewart, Kings Bay, Warner Robins in Macon area, etc. and that's all just south of I16.

But truth be told, there are plenty of nuclear targets out West as well.

There is advantages and disadvantages to ALL locations.

For me personally, the area I chose was 3 hours from my previous location. That was close enough to leave Friday night, come up and work on my place for the weekend and be home late Sunday night so I could work M-F. This allowed me to build and develop our place slowly without incurring any debt. Almost 4 years after buying the property, we moved. If I had chosen a spot even 8 hours away, there is no way we could have done that via the little at a time, debt free way. OR it would have taken 3X as long.

Found this crap last night at the house after going through this post.

Here is the crappy book which first brought about the "American Redoubt" idea. Once again, it is now new and Rawles was not the originator of it.

Every area has it's specific weather related issues.

Even 100+ miles from the coast down here, we have received some effects from the last few hurricanes to come through our area.

The dryness with the short growing season in the "Tri States" region would be a big detriment long term.

If people aren't growing 90% of their own food now, they will have no idea how important these two factors are. Growing enough to truly make it on your own is much different than having two 4x4 raised beds in your backyard.

No matter the situation, long term famine type conditions are a potential effect. We have to have adequate food storage in place and be growing/raising as much of our own as possible. Being in a climate that facilitates that a little better than a dry, short growing season will be more helpful long term.

I find it disturbing that the "Redoubt" is land-locked.  IMHO, a fatal flaw.

The elderly population of Florida would die in droves if A/C was unavailable.  So would many others, particularly the obese, who tend to over-heat due to body fat, not to mention other problems caused by obesity.

OK, but talk about the classic choke-point....