If the entire might of the US miltary turned against the population....

You gonna side with them to save your ass?

 

The National Guard are state militias under the command of the governors. How many hundreds of tanks and F-16s are in the National Guard arsenals? Texas has a couple of dozen in the 149th in San Antonio. I used to work on them. How many millions of veterans have arms? How many of those are experienced combat veterans?

 

I don't know, what is causing it. Are people tearing up the country and property and sending us down to a Syria/Libya/Iraq level, I will probably side with the army. As someone who served this country and with fellow servicemen under fire, I believe the military would only usurp civilian authority if the situation demanded it. The people in the military love what this country stands for a lot more than the patriots on this site do. Who just seem to love that this country allows them to accumulate wealth.

 

And how many of them would take up arms against the government?

 

From fall of Western Roman Empire..........
"Official cruelty, supporting extortion and corruption, may also have become more commonplace.[28] While the scale, complexity, and violence of government were unmatched,[29] the emperors lost control over their whole realm insofar as that control came increasingly to be wielded by anyone who paid for it.[30] Meanwhile, the richest senatorial families, immune from most taxation, engrossed more and more of the available wealth and income,[31][32] while also becoming divorced from any tradition of military excellence. One scholar identifies a great increase in the purchasing power of gold, two and a half fold from 274 to the later fourth century, which may be an index of growing economic inequality between a gold-rich elite and a cash-poor peasantry.[33]"

 

On the other hand, the military bases will be well supplied with strippers and used cars for sale at 40% interest rates.

 

Actually that is attributed to Yamamoto and he said every blade of grass although the entire thing is a myth because he never said that.

But the point still stands.

 

I used to love driving through town when I was at Lejeune.

I'd drive by and say "stripper joint, tattoo parlor, liquor store, used cars", then start repeating it.

 

China and Russia would win.

 

Exactly right, their supply chains no longer exist, they can't replenish their ammunition nor their people injured.

Sure they could take out massive amounts in the beginning but could they take out 300 million?

Eventually they would have to retreat to their strongholds and from there they would just be worn down.

Their only chance would be a massive push at the beginning to subdue America but given the vastness of this nation I don't see how they could occupy it all at the same time.

They lock down NY and Iowa breaks loose, go to Iowa and Nevada breaks loose.

 

Maybe but I have a feeling the entire world would sit this one out just to see who comes out on top.

Nothing like watching an empire eat itself.

 

In Kent State, the NG soldiers were being attacked by a mob throwing rocks. They were defending themselves. They were not ordered to shoot the crowd.

 

If I'm not mistaken wasn't that a controlled shoot for that reason?

Not under orders but they determined a threat and dropped a few "risks" to prevent escalation against them.

Had they wanted to they could have gunned down the entire crowd.

 

When that happened, the nation was in one hell of an uproar. Students being shot by our military, what happened to Posse Comitatus?? It dominated the news for days.

 

Of course, it was a bad shoot, I am not saying it was good.

My point was that they weren't under orders to gun down the crowd, they followed their training and limited a situation from getting out of control.

Granted they took the wrong approach but it did work.

People make it sound like 30 guardsman opened fire on an entire crowd and that is not what happened.

 

This is refreshing. Great OP and follow up.

 

Love you to Robert but it's off topic and I don't want to derail a good thread with pointless stuff.

 

The government had declared the protest illegal, and ordered the NG to disband it by force. According to eye witness accounts, there was no violence from the protesters until the NG began using tear gas and other things on them. Any violence from the protestors was self defense. But once some of the protestors began defending themselves, the NG began to simply shoot anyone who wasn't in uniform. Many of the people killed were not even part of the protest.

 

I don't think so. If someone were preparing to take over, they'd probably purge the military first of all those who were not absolutely loyal or who might turn against them.

Probably several other departments would be militarized as well, and law enforcement officers or mercenary forces would be recruited for supporting roles, so the numbers could rapidly swell in a very short time.

They wouldn't be able to take over door to door, but likely communication centers and court buildings would be the first targets. Once that happened it would be pretty difficult for state governments to independently function. There would be checkpoints instituted along major interstate highways, airports and sea ports, very likely.

 

Save these

 

If ****ing lunatics start a thread on this board who will fight against it? Will those in charge of the board stop it?

 

If their lives and careers (and don't forget about retirement benefits and pension) were threatened, most of them would do it. They are trained to obey orders from higher up. The military forces are a top-down command structure. You obey orders or get arrested or court martialled, no right to a jury trial.

 

They shot 4, and these were fairly untrained reservists with a rather large crowd of very hostile demonstrators running down on them. No weapons were in evidence among these students but rumors of demonstrators being armed were all over the country for weeks before. Up until then, a lot of reliance was placed on the idea that not even college students would be stupid enough to seriously threaten the lives of a group of heavily armed soldiers unless they had the wherewithal to follow through on the threat, and reservists everywhere knew this and were very nervous, since the demonstrations had been growing in both size and hostility. After this the reservists were better trained and the demonstrators less hostile but the damage was done and many people never trusted the government again.

 

The military by itself could not subdue the nation. They would be limited to the most strategically valuable population and distribution centers. In a very short time, they would hold all the oil and gasoline, and we would hold all the food as it rotted unrefrigerated and unprocessed. The urban centers would erupt in uncontrollable, hunger fueled revolt within a week and civilization within our borders would crumble.

No one would 'win.'

 

Doubtful it would happen even then. Modern archaeology has fairly well proven that the vast majority of Pickett´s charge stopped some distance from the Wall at Gettysburg (though some did get all the way up) and the Battle of the Somme had to be pretty well called off because mass mutinies were going to break the British down; and these are trained soldiers with comparable weaponry and artillery support.

But the main reason they won´t be doing so is because the main population wouldn´t be charging. When the Soviet Union fell in 1989 the Army was quite willing to defend themselves if the people had attacked. They did not. They came out but in fairly peaceful crowds that just did not do anything. It´s called a General Strike and I´ve never yet heard of one that did not get the government to accede to most of the Strikers demands. If nobody, nowhere will do nothing nohow just what can even an Army do against them?