The military brass are likely to try at some point; but they will be completely out of their depth in the West, and fail harder and sooner than the party machine politicians.
I daresay the winners will be closeknit communities with a strong shared culture, ability to form horizontal links to get things done, and willingness to ignore rules from above without being obvious.
Bitcoiners aren't too badly placed there, but others will do even better.
It's hard to imagine any American military leaders who are charismatic enough that their troops would defect for them. We haven't had anyone like that for a while, the military has gone from a culture to just a job and not really a good one.
State power (in strong, well managed states) may be a stopgap also
I basically think it unwinds from the top down towards tribes
A managable collapse would indeed resemble a gradual unwinding, and it probably will at the geographical and political margins; but State power will be deployed at the centre to attempt to (further) destroy intermediating institutions like the family and civic society to increase dependence on the State.
Those benefitting from rents extracted from fiat governance are not going to go gently into the night, i fear...
I was thinking top down as in federal, then individual states, then localities. In the US anyways
The US is by far the most politically decentralised Western government, and stronger for it.
My concern is that state and municipal power will be among the first things destroyed in a crisis. Even if only effectively in "core" regions (as perceived by the federally dominant elite faction.)
It could be the intent of a federal government to make sure this is the case so that any residual power or military resides with them only
