Yes, I do think that a gap in weapons technology is meaningful. I love numbers so let's talk about those using the Iraq war as an example. Here's an estimate

Yes, I do think that a gap in weapons technology is meaningful. I love numbers so let's talk about those using the Iraq war as an example. Here's an estimate of the number of casualties in the Iraq war: https://www.iraqbodycount.org/ https://www.iraqbodycount.org/ Roughly 200k civilians, 90k combatants. According to wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-National_Force_%E2%80%93_Iraq#Deaths https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-National_Force_%E2%80%93... 5k western coalition forces died. Even if these numbers are wildly inaccurate, I don't like those odds. Yes, it is difficult for the army to actually completely squash the insurgency, but there is a very messy grey zone between "winning" and "losing" where those in power relentlessly oppress the rest at relatively little cost to themselves. I'm not saying, by the way, not to resist oppression, I am simply saying that the weapons that civilians cannot buy are very very scary, and it is probably wise to pick one's battles.