[quote]pookie wrote:
If Thunderbolt is reading this, I wonder what his view is on this topic: Could the US citizenry rise against and topple it’s leaders if the Army remained loyal to them?
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I just saw this, and I’ll take a shot at it.
First, assuming the really wild fantasy world of basically all the citizens versus the entire government:
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The government does not produce the weapons. It buys them. The government has piles of weapons of course, but the private sector - the engineers, the defense companies, the materials companies, etc. - are in private hands. So, in one sense, we are in a different position than having a few muskets to storm the Bastille. The technology and mass production is in the citizens’ hands.
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But the government has the advantage of having weapons now along with the logistics and infrastructure to use them. Could the citizens - owners of the economy - survive the onslaught enough to then turn the citizen might against the government? My guess is…probably? In part because…
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I suspect that much of the military has a very strong civic duty to the government, but once the government “turned” on its people (in our very fantastical example), I do believe their would be a breakdown in discipline and loyalty, at least enough to cause serious logistical problems that the military relies on. Then, of course, Team Citizen gets legions of trained soldiers joining up.
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The population is very, very, very large. And pretty smart.
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I guess I would say the citizenry could beat back the government, in large part because every conventional war, there comes a time where it becomes a contest of economic productivity (if you can survive long enough). In that scenario, advantage citizens. And of course, on the non-material side, the contest of wills would go to the citizens. I would never put good money against angry, free Westerners who have made up their mind to beat back tyranny.
Pure conjecture, of course, and there are always other variables, like international help. But that is my take.