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Er, the military in question for this hypothetical example speaks the same language as the civilians they would make war upon and knows the terrain and is from

Er, the military in question for this hypothetical example speaks the same language as the civilians they would make war upon and knows the terrain and is from the same culture and therefore understands the civilian social dynamic. I mean, there's lots of obvious difference between an American soldier and Taliban fighter, but between a soldier and American civilian? "Training and a better gun". I'm shocked that you could consider invoking historical references to equate the US military skirmishing with desert tribesmen from another culture with overweight American gun-nuts. If the brown people we currently fight don't really have answers to C-130s or mortars or MARPAT, then I'm not sure that hypothetical North American insurgents would, either.

zepto 10y ago
So your argument is based on the trope that gun owners in America are overweight?
- justratsinacoat 10y ago
  >So your argument is based on the trope that gun owners in America are overweight? Yeah, that must be what my argument is. Don't bother reading any of the rest of my comment; you might become exposed to nuance. As long as you're not exposed to nuance, you will be able to go toe-to-toe with the 101st Airborne. There won't be massive casualties. You are exceptional.
  - zepto 10y ago
    I don't see any nuance. I don't claim to be able to go toe to toe with the 101st airborne. And I certainly don't claim that overthrowing an oppressive government wouldn't involve massive casualties. Are you saying anything that isn't straw men? And considering your question of coming from the same culture - you are assuming that the US military would be willing to go to war against their own people - a very different proposition to the wars they have been fighting. Even the war in Iraq is considered not to be what they signed up for by many service-people.
    - justratsinacoat 10y ago
      >I don't see any nuance Yeah, I can tell! >Are you saying anything that isn't straw men? Hey man, I'm just replying to things. >And considering your question of coming from the same culture - you are assuming that the US military would be willing to go to war against their own people - a very different proposition to the wars they have been fighting Hey man, I'm just replying to things! I am not assuming that the US military would be willing to go to war against their own people -- I'm just responding to that already established hypothetical. I infer that you want to yell at people who claim that, by your alleging that I called Yank citizenry fat. The clownfight you seek is upthread, where people established that we were talking about the US military going to war against their own people. I didn't establish anything.
      - zepto 10y ago
        You infer that I want to yell at people... clownfight... Erm, looks like you are the one who wants to start a fight rather than have a discussion.
        justratsinacoat 10y ago
        So you claim, but anyone who opens up the "discussion" with "So, [misrepresentation of parent opinion], huh?"[0] is clearly not seeking a discussion and is instead seeking a clownfight. You had every opportunity to prove me wrong. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12958354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12958354
        zepto 10y ago
        I have proved you wrong. I didn't misrepresent you. I quoted you, picking out the line which is most emblematic of your prejudice.
        justratsinacoat 10y ago
        You strawmanned me, and then accused me of strawmanning. Enjoy your victory!
unethical_ban 10y ago
I don't have time to put together every thought I hav eon the subject. Suffice it to say I believe an armed populace discourages tyrannical government more than an unarmed populace. The same way I don't want to register my IP address and cell phone to be able to post online, I don't want to hand over all forms of self-defense against mass civil unrest or war. Finally: Whether you believe it or not, the purpose of the US 2nd amendment is self-defense, including from government. If you don't feel that is necessary, be inellectually honest and advocate for its repeal.
- justratsinacoat 10y ago
  >Whether you believe it or not, the purpose of the US 2nd amendment is self-defense, including from government. If you don't feel that is necessary, be inellectually honest and advocate for its repeal If you feel that I'm being "inellectually" dishonest, have the courage to stand up to me and tell me directly, instead of implying that I am (assuming, as you have, that my point is actually another point entirely, of course, which itself seems a bit intellectually dishonest). >The same way I don't want to register my IP address and cell phone to be able to post online I see what you're going for here, but to pretend that this isn't functionally what is required in order to "post online" is unrealistic. I assume that you're posting from behind seven proxies and a few Tor jumps? Otherwise, I don't really see how you haven't created a link between the things you post and the devices you post from, which the government can then exploit. If you feel that commercially available guns would equip the US civillian populace to repel the US military, that's your opinion. But I strongly disagree that this presents any realistic impediment.
  - zepto 10y ago
    Commercially available guns are the same or better as the guns used by US soldiers for the most part. If you are talking about the US military doing aerial bombardment etc, of course these guns will not be a defense. But if troops are going street to street, commercially available guns would enable resistance. And the point here is not that the population would be able to win an all out war against the fully equipped army. That is a nonsensical scenario. It is that an armed population would be able to resist the Army, making all out war the only option. US army won't launch an all out war against the population, so this level of resistance is sufficient.
angersock 10y ago
Sharing the same language and social background would make military occupation more difficult, as it reduces the ability to other the occupied population. It also makes it easier for insurgent elements to infiltrate your own units. For an example of this, consider the infiltration of Iraqi units by insurgents and the ensuing problems they caused. As for training and "better guns", the service weapon of the Army and Marines is the same weapon system family as is the most popular rifle in the United States: the AR15 (with military variants, the M16 and M4 carbine). Additionally, private owners are likely to have optics on par or better than are available to servicemen. And better-maintained weapons--you don't have to look far to get stories of infantry complaining about their gear. During the day, they'd be about equally matched individually. At night, NVGs and thermal sights would give the occupation forces an edge. The infantry "better guns" that are out of reach of civilians in your scenario would be things like anti-material rocket launchers (AT4, SMAW) , grenades, and LMGs (M240s, M249s, etc.). With the exception of the rocket launchers, all of those are things that can be improvised or worked-around with the correct doctrine. Rocket launchers, and more generally the air support and artillery that forms the true bulk of American land warfighting capability, are things that are vertboten when used against civilians. There's no credible armored targets requiring their use (except for perhaps captured law-enforcement surplus MRAPs) and so their deployment against a native insurgency would likely fall outside of the rules of engagement. Additionally, calling in airstrikes on insurgent positions in American cities has severely negative long-term implications for peacekeeping. In short, fighting an urban or even exurban native insurgency the US military would possess only a slight material and technological advantage and even that would likely be severely undercut by having to follow very conservative ROE unless they wanted to rile up resistance further. ~ As for your remark on historical references, if you want something a little more contemporary and probably more reflective of what we'd expect to see in your hypothetical scenario, please consult the history of Ireland in the 20th century. Your remark on "overweight American gun-nuts" is misinformed. I know that's a popular stereotype, but it is neither accurate nor even useful. Again, the sort of engagements we'd expect wouldn't be "Let's hump our gear ten miles to the AO", it's "So, after work tonight, let's do this mission on the local garrison". To be blunt, for that style of warfare, you can use women, children, fatties--anybody that can hold a gun. Also, on your last point--they have developed countermeasures to things like mortars and counterbattery fire and whatnot. ~ Underscoring all of this thought experiment is something you're missing: in a supposed US insurgency, the huge non-combat advantage of the armed forces goes away. Our adventures abroad are backed by a logistics system and lift capability that boggles the mind, only made possible because we can keep all the ruckus of battle away from our airbases and factories and transportation hubs. In an insurgency, that massive advantage--one that's nearly taken for granted in the last two decades of warfare by our populous--disappears.

zepto 10y ago

So your argument is based on the trope that gun owners in America are overweight?

justratsinacoat 10y ago
>So your argument is based on the trope that gun owners in America are overweight? Yeah, that must be what my argument is. Don't bother reading any of the rest of my comment; you might become exposed to nuance. As long as you're not exposed to nuance, you will be able to go toe-to-toe with the 101st Airborne. There won't be massive casualties. You are exceptional.
- zepto 10y ago
  I don't see any nuance. I don't claim to be able to go toe to toe with the 101st airborne. And I certainly don't claim that overthrowing an oppressive government wouldn't involve massive casualties. Are you saying anything that isn't straw men? And considering your question of coming from the same culture - you are assuming that the US military would be willing to go to war against their own people - a very different proposition to the wars they have been fighting. Even the war in Iraq is considered not to be what they signed up for by many service-people.
  - justratsinacoat 10y ago
    >I don't see any nuance Yeah, I can tell! >Are you saying anything that isn't straw men? Hey man, I'm just replying to things. >And considering your question of coming from the same culture - you are assuming that the US military would be willing to go to war against their own people - a very different proposition to the wars they have been fighting Hey man, I'm just replying to things! I am not assuming that the US military would be willing to go to war against their own people -- I'm just responding to that already established hypothetical. I infer that you want to yell at people who claim that, by your alleging that I called Yank citizenry fat. The clownfight you seek is upthread, where people established that we were talking about the US military going to war against their own people. I didn't establish anything.
    - zepto 10y ago
      You infer that I want to yell at people... clownfight... Erm, looks like you are the one who wants to start a fight rather than have a discussion.
      - justratsinacoat 10y ago
        So you claim, but anyone who opens up the "discussion" with "So, [misrepresentation of parent opinion], huh?"[0] is clearly not seeking a discussion and is instead seeking a clownfight. You had every opportunity to prove me wrong. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12958354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12958354
        zepto 10y ago
        I have proved you wrong. I didn't misrepresent you. I quoted you, picking out the line which is most emblematic of your prejudice.
        justratsinacoat 10y ago
        You strawmanned me, and then accused me of strawmanning. Enjoy your victory!

unethical_ban 10y ago

I don't have time to put together every thought I hav eon the subject. Suffice it to say I believe an armed populace discourages tyrannical government more than an unarmed populace. The same way I don't want to register my IP address and cell phone to be able to post online, I don't want to hand over all forms of self-defense against mass civil unrest or war. Finally: Whether you believe it or not, the purpose of the US 2nd amendment is self-defense, including from government. If you don't feel that is necessary, be inellectually honest and advocate for its repeal.

justratsinacoat 10y ago
>Whether you believe it or not, the purpose of the US 2nd amendment is self-defense, including from government. If you don't feel that is necessary, be inellectually honest and advocate for its repeal If you feel that I'm being "inellectually" dishonest, have the courage to stand up to me and tell me directly, instead of implying that I am (assuming, as you have, that my point is actually another point entirely, of course, which itself seems a bit intellectually dishonest). >The same way I don't want to register my IP address and cell phone to be able to post online I see what you're going for here, but to pretend that this isn't functionally what is required in order to "post online" is unrealistic. I assume that you're posting from behind seven proxies and a few Tor jumps? Otherwise, I don't really see how you haven't created a link between the things you post and the devices you post from, which the government can then exploit. If you feel that commercially available guns would equip the US civillian populace to repel the US military, that's your opinion. But I strongly disagree that this presents any realistic impediment.
- zepto 10y ago
  Commercially available guns are the same or better as the guns used by US soldiers for the most part. If you are talking about the US military doing aerial bombardment etc, of course these guns will not be a defense. But if troops are going street to street, commercially available guns would enable resistance. And the point here is not that the population would be able to win an all out war against the fully equipped army. That is a nonsensical scenario. It is that an armed population would be able to resist the Army, making all out war the only option. US army won't launch an all out war against the population, so this level of resistance is sufficient.

angersock 10y ago

Sharing the same language and social background would make military occupation more difficult, as it reduces the ability to other the occupied population. It also makes it easier for insurgent elements to infiltrate your own units. For an example of this, consider the infiltration of Iraqi units by insurgents and the ensuing problems they caused. As for training and "better guns", the service weapon of the Army and Marines is the same weapon system family as is the most popular rifle in the United States: the AR15 (with military variants, the M16 and M4 carbine). Additionally, private owners are likely to have optics on par or better than are available to servicemen. And better-maintained weapons--you don't have to look far to get stories of infantry complaining about their gear. During the day, they'd be about equally matched individually. At night, NVGs and thermal sights would give the occupation forces an edge. The infantry "better guns" that are out of reach of civilians in your scenario would be things like anti-material rocket launchers (AT4, SMAW) , grenades, and LMGs (M240s, M249s, etc.). With the exception of the rocket launchers, all of those are things that can be improvised or worked-around with the correct doctrine. Rocket launchers, and more generally the air support and artillery that forms the true bulk of American land warfighting capability, are things that are vertboten when used against civilians. There's no credible armored targets requiring their use (except for perhaps captured law-enforcement surplus MRAPs) and so their deployment against a native insurgency would likely fall outside of the rules of engagement. Additionally, calling in airstrikes on insurgent positions in American cities has severely negative long-term implications for peacekeeping. In short, fighting an urban or even exurban native insurgency the US military would possess only a slight material and technological advantage and even that would likely be severely undercut by having to follow very conservative ROE unless they wanted to rile up resistance further. ~ As for your remark on historical references, if you want something a little more contemporary and probably more reflective of what we'd expect to see in your hypothetical scenario, please consult the history of Ireland in the 20th century. Your remark on "overweight American gun-nuts" is misinformed. I know that's a popular stereotype, but it is neither accurate nor even useful. Again, the sort of engagements we'd expect wouldn't be "Let's hump our gear ten miles to the AO", it's "So, after work tonight, let's do this mission on the local garrison". To be blunt, for that style of warfare, you can use women, children, fatties--anybody that can hold a gun. Also, on your last point--they have developed countermeasures to things like mortars and counterbattery fire and whatnot. ~ Underscoring all of this thought experiment is something you're missing: in a supposed US insurgency, the huge non-combat advantage of the armed forces goes away. Our adventures abroad are backed by a logistics system and lift capability that boggles the mind, only made possible because we can keep all the ruckus of battle away from our airbases and factories and transportation hubs. In an insurgency, that massive advantage--one that's nearly taken for granted in the last two decades of warfare by our populous--disappears.