[jonstokes]

Yeah, you're right. See, for instance, the way that the West totally put down the Taliban in Afghanistan and pacified the entire country, which is now peaceful to this day. The Taliban were just a bunch of illiterate goat herders with AKs, so there's no way they could stand up to the America's more technologically advanced army, plus the drones.

And then look at Iraq, and Syria, and all of the other insurgencies involving irregular combatants armed with nothing but improvised explosives and small arms, that have now been totally put down by the drones...

Except that none of the above is true :p

[pjc50]

Surely the big lesson from the middle East is that guns can deliver violent chaos or despotic centralism but not peaceful stability?

[mindcrime]

Surely the big lesson from the middle East is that guns can deliver violent chaos or despotic centralism but not peaceful stability?

Guns, in and of themselves, don't deliver anything. They're tools, that's it. Whether or not the people of the Middle Eastern countries like Afghanistan find peaceful stability or not depends on a whole laundry list of variables.

[angersock]

I'm not sure that there are any good lessons to be learned from that region at this point. It brings to mind the ending of Burn After Reading.

[ethbro]

First and last lesson: never partition countries out of disparate ethnic/religious/sectarian groups who don't have some sort of larger overriding loyalty holding them together.

Of course, that boat sailed a while ago.

[kiba]

In case of unbearable government tyranny, the civilians are going to have an insurgency against their own fathers, sons, and brothers?

[maxerickson]

It happened in the civil war:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_against_brother

And that was with the sides largely being split geographically.

[dragonwriter]

The idea that the sides were split geographically has some truth, but is overstated and a result of looking at the decisions of state governments -- there were supporters of the Union cause in states that seceded (and, in fact, there were union regiments raised from every state in the Confederacy except South Carolina), and supporters of the rebel cause in states that remained in the Union. The illusion of a clean geographic split is the result of the fact that a state government's choice to secede and join the confederacy or not was starkly binary.

[maxerickson]

According to [1] and [2] about 5% of Union soldiers were from southern states. "Largely" works for a split like that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Unionist

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Army

[kauffj]

In case of unbearable government tyranny, the soldiers are going to kill insurgents that are their own fathers, sons, and brothers?

[daxorid]

Absolutely. Given the full power of the UCMJ, Oathkeepers are little more than a fun Constitutionalist fantasy.

[jonstokes]

Dunno why you got downvoted, but that's actually a much more legit objection to the "guns are a last defense against tyranny" argument than "ZOMG DRONEZ". My answer is, I have no idea, and I hope I never find out.

[rhizome]

You may be interested in the Korean movie, "Tae Guk Gi," which illustrates exactly what you're talking about and occurred during your parents' or grandparents' lives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taegukgi_(film)

[yongjik]

Err... the movie shows what happens when the government forces people to shoot the bad guys. When there are two governments (The Korean War), brothers end up shooting at each other.

[rhizome]

To be sure, there were two governments in the US Civil War as well. I'd say it's a pretty rare situation where a unified government turns citizens against each other with guns. Maybe The Great Leap Forward and the like, but even that was maybe more prosecutorial.

[adventured]

You mean like the Revolutionary and Civil wars in the US? Yes, that exact thing does sometimes occur. Historically it occurs frequently all around the world. At any given time, there is a civil war going on somewhere in the world that involves just such conflict.

[TheLarch]

My belief is that you have apples and oranges. Nomadic goat herders are not reliant on the internet. In the US the starvation clock starts running without it. Guns are more effective in the Middle East, but control of the internet is more effective in the US.

[inthewoods]

Just my opinion, but they do "well" against Americans (Russian, whoever else is foolish enough to weigh in) because the war is asymmetric. They have no issue killing civilians or causing any collateral damage. The US must instead try and precisely get them and only them - and while drone mistakes happen (and they might or might not be mistakes), the US largely has to operate under a completely different and restricted rules of engagement compared with their enemy. The enemy instead folds into the civilian population, making the war extremely challenging.

[yongjik]

In other words, "American civilians with guns" makes perfect sense if you predict (1) America will become like Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria in the near future, or (2) civilians with guns can somehow stop America from becoming like Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria.

Considering that all those armed insurgents in those countries didn't stop governments (domestic or foreign) from killing them, I'm skeptical on (2). Regarding (1), well, if you want to believe that... (shrug)

[anoonmoose]

I don't think there's enough evidence to say that we necessarily couldn't crush those insurgencies with drones. As far as I can tell, the US has (reasonably, humanely)[1] pulled its punches considerably over the last fifteen years.

[1] to the extent that any war can have these descriptors slapped on them. War is hell, The US has done inhumane stuff, I don't think they did as much as for example I think they did in Vietnam.

[jonstokes]

Then you're left to argue that the US military has pulled its punches on the Taliban, but they're really gonna take the gloves off if they get turned against their fellow citizens. Good luck with that.

[mikeash]

The whole scenario is predicated on some horrible tyrant taking control of the US. Why wouldn't the gloves come off in that case?

[pkinsky]

Because said tyrant wishes to avoid a coup by the armed forces/defections to the rebels/etc?

[ethbro]

That doesn't seem too unreasonable. The former is a conflict half a world away for (at best) geopolitical goals, the later would be an existential threat.