The soldiers, firing into the crowds, brought death to tiananmen square. Survivors were simply run down. The tanks never fired a shell, because they didn’t need to. In the decades since then, nothing has emerged to shift that power dynamic in the favor of the people.
We’re not worried about missiles, stealth aircraft, armor penetrating rounds, their stupid microwave cannons, drone strikes or whatever other sci-fi bullshit looks good on television. We’re worried about armored vehicles rolling down mainstreet while there are thousands of people there, and the crowd crush that results. We’re worried about one zealous national guardsman with an M2 firing blindly into a march as it crosses a bridge. We’re worried about any leaders that emerge being quietly disappeared overnight, about our families being singled out by a teen at a fusion center that’s watching Joe Rogan on their phone, or about the simple fact that the military could just turn off critical infrastructure and our cities would grind to a halt. We have no way to stop that.
The Oligarchy can only roll over one protest. After that it is guerilla time.
The US is prime real estate for that. Large thinly populated areas, large remote mountain areas, densely populated urban areas. Population with access to guns at large, access to chemicals for explosives…
Tiananmen worked, because it crushed the resistance. Once the resistance decides not to be crushed, it is usually game over for the Oligarchy. It won’t be pretty though and it can take a while.
The key is that in asymmetric warfare, the regular army needs to defeat every single resistance fighter. The resistance just needs to survive as it pecks away at the regular army.
The US only fights insurgencies it creates - and on terms it dictates. A civil war is invariably the bloodiest kind, and should one break out in the US there would not be a coalition to help reign in the ROI this time. It would not be vietnam, or afghanistan - both wars that were lost in congress, not on the battlefield - it would be palestine.
The wars were lost on the battlefield. It was impossible to achieve any of the goals set out by military means. The military failed in its objectives and there was no reason to believe, that tossing another trillion dollar and another half a million soldiers onto it, would have changed the equation.
The US pulled out because it lost. As we have seen time and time again it is not that the politicians were reluctant to engage in another attempt in another country later. They did it time and time again. So it is not for a lack of political will, but for the ability of the US to achieve any of their stated or real objectives by a prolonged military occupation on the other side of the globe.
I don’t want to trade rhetorical quips with an ally - we both gain nothing from me waxing didactic about doctrinal warfare. I just want to caution that the political landscape shapes all wars, and the metaphorical terrain on which a US civil war would be fought would be abjectly alien to what you’re envisioning.
The soldiers, firing into the crowds, brought death to tiananmen square. Survivors were simply run down. The tanks never fired a shell, because they didn’t need to. In the decades since then, nothing has emerged to shift that power dynamic in the favor of the people.
We’re not worried about missiles, stealth aircraft, armor penetrating rounds, their stupid microwave cannons, drone strikes or whatever other sci-fi bullshit looks good on television. We’re worried about armored vehicles rolling down mainstreet while there are thousands of people there, and the crowd crush that results. We’re worried about one zealous national guardsman with an M2 firing blindly into a march as it crosses a bridge. We’re worried about any leaders that emerge being quietly disappeared overnight, about our families being singled out by a teen at a fusion center that’s watching Joe Rogan on their phone, or about the simple fact that the military could just turn off critical infrastructure and our cities would grind to a halt. We have no way to stop that.
The Oligarchy can only roll over one protest. After that it is guerilla time.
The US is prime real estate for that. Large thinly populated areas, large remote mountain areas, densely populated urban areas. Population with access to guns at large, access to chemicals for explosives…
Tiananmen worked, because it crushed the resistance. Once the resistance decides not to be crushed, it is usually game over for the Oligarchy. It won’t be pretty though and it can take a while.
The key is that in asymmetric warfare, the regular army needs to defeat every single resistance fighter. The resistance just needs to survive as it pecks away at the regular army.
The US only fights insurgencies it creates - and on terms it dictates. A civil war is invariably the bloodiest kind, and should one break out in the US there would not be a coalition to help reign in the ROI this time. It would not be vietnam, or afghanistan - both wars that were lost in congress, not on the battlefield - it would be palestine.
The wars were lost on the battlefield. It was impossible to achieve any of the goals set out by military means. The military failed in its objectives and there was no reason to believe, that tossing another trillion dollar and another half a million soldiers onto it, would have changed the equation.
The US pulled out because it lost. As we have seen time and time again it is not that the politicians were reluctant to engage in another attempt in another country later. They did it time and time again. So it is not for a lack of political will, but for the ability of the US to achieve any of their stated or real objectives by a prolonged military occupation on the other side of the globe.
I don’t want to trade rhetorical quips with an ally - we both gain nothing from me waxing didactic about doctrinal warfare. I just want to caution that the political landscape shapes all wars, and the metaphorical terrain on which a US civil war would be fought would be abjectly alien to what you’re envisioning.