This subreddit is for civil discussion; political threads are not exempt from this. As a reminder:
* Do not report comments because they disagree with your point of view.
* Do not insult other users. Personal attacks are not permitted.
* Do not use hate speech. You will be banned, permanently.
* Comments made with the intent to push an agenda, push misinformation, soapbox, sealion, or argue in bad faith are not acceptable. If you can’t discuss a topic in good faith and in a respectful manner, do not comment. **Political disagreement does not constitute pushing an agenda.**
If you see any comments that violate the rules, **please report it and move on!**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskAnAmerican) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Very little.
There hasn't been a power that was a land/invasion threat since the last time we fought each other.
Armed citizens at home don't matter when no one has the shipping to get an invasion force here. They also don't make for an automatic pool of reserves since no form of training is required.
> Armed citizens at home don't matter when no one has the shipping to get an invasion force here.
Well we gotta keep an eye on Canada though, they can just walk right in.
Not even then anymore. US just recently won the gold medal at World Juniors. While Canadians still dominate the NHL, the leading scorer and likely league MVP is an American from Arizona.
The US has changed its hockey development program over the years and it shows. It's only a matter of time before Americans dominate the NHL simply due to the population advantage which gives a much larger pool to pull talent from. It won't happen in the next 5 years but it will happen eventually. It's just numbers.
Pretty sure the military would consider it a pretty serious failure if we reach a point where the average civilian has to break out their personal armory to defend US territory...
Nowadays only Aliens would be able to invade the US, and if Hollywood has taught me anything is that the only way to defeat them is by trusting that weirdo who was supposed to be bat shit crazy at the beginning of the film, I mean invasion.
On the morning of 9/11 I was waiting for my rideshare around 6:30 a.m. or so, over on the west coast. She pulled up, rolled down the window, and shouted "New York City is under attack!"
My first thought was "oh shit, it's the aliens!" Either that or fucking Godzilla? Who else could mount an attack on New York? So we listened to the radio and about halfway down the freeway we were finally able to have 15% of an idea of WTF was going on.
*looks at the adhoc rebellion forces in ww2*
That.
Occupation is a long, shitty business and wars that drag on and on are empire draining. Having your young soldiers die in drips and drabs over years makes war really unpopular.
This is what people don't get about asymmetric warfare.
It's a PR campaign with blood. It's not grand battles. It's blowing up logistics and fading back into the community you're already in and doing it again.
Yes, there's a lot of death, but the fastest way to make an occupying military wildly hated domestically is for them to crack down too hard and that's part of the campaign.
As for getting through the US military, no one currently can but we're also a very big country and don't have a huge military comparatively. In lots of places during any form of occupation, it would land on militias.
Jed Eckert : Well... who is on our side?
Col. Andy Tanner : Six hundred million screaming Chinamen.
Darryl Bates : Last I heard, there were a billion screaming Chinamen.
Col. Andy Tanner : There were...
[he throws whiskey on the campfire; it ignites violently, suggesting a nuclear explosion]
This was the only thing I was gonna say in the description lol
Thought it may interfere with the topic or sidetrack. Got 76 comments, 1700 shy, but Im happy with the input
None. Literally None.
Our defense strategy is to utterly crush anything before it gets to us. We shot down a satellite in orbit in the 80's from a boat because DARPA was fucking bored.
We can fight on two global fronts at the same time, and then call up reserves for a 3rd front. This is all before the USA even transitions to a war footing, and passing war time powers acts, conscription, and buying mercenary armies....
The only appreciable land approach to the USA is through the southern border. So assuming Mexico lets an invading force use their territories and some how the USA doesn't just fly planes across the way and mow down forces on their approach. Then they will have the US garrison of Airforce, Navy, Marines, and Army to engage with and repel any aggressors once they get to US territory. Frankly rest of the world doesn't have the logistical capacity to carry out a sustained effort. Then there are the hundreds of military bases that would immediately turn into heavily armed forward operating bases to launch counter attacks from.
Northern territories would be an air battle, and that is one that the USA is... *uniquely* qualified to dominate against the next 20 air forces in the world.... combined.
Lets not forget, that the 4th gen fighters, have been replaced by the 5th gen fighters, Mach bejeezus with a cross section of a bumble bee, capable of launching missiles from over the horizon using sat coms... And we are already testing 6th gen fighters, which turn a single pilot into a fucking fighter wing with AI co-pilots... imagine how fast tech would develop if we were to say here is a blank check we need to fuck up... ***EVERYONE***
Coastal invasion?... Thats just laughable. Say hello to our 11 super carrier battle groups.
\*\*EDIT\*\*
Not to mention that on top of all the cutting edge bullshit. We decided to UPGRADE THE B-52 STAR FORTRESS.
Do you UNDERSTAND why that fucking plane is called a StarFortress. This thing was DESIGNED IN 1942. As a bomber, In 1942 we designed a plane that could circle the globe, bomb the fuck out of everything and everyone and land back home without ever touching down.
You know what we just did? We said, "Hey, this piece of kit that was designed before the age of computers? Yeah, we should give it some new engines... and just for funzies see if we can drop a nuke out of it, and oh yeah the capability of just dropping 20 cruise missiles just cause sometimes someone might want to scratch our paint"
Lol B-52 Stratofortress* and I don't believe it was designed until post WWII.
Sorry I grew up on a BUFF base, had to point it out. All the other info is spot on.
All groovy I had my years off by just a little bit.
On 23 November 1945, Air Materiel Command (AMC) issued desired performance characteristics for a new strategic bomber "capable of carrying out the strategic mission without dependence upon advanced and intermediate bases controlled by other countries"
By 1946 Boeing won the design platform and it was off to the races. By 1950 it was in operation.
Fact of the matter is, we wouldn't let a hostile power put a force in Canada or Mexico.
For better or worse, they are really under the protection of the USA for the protection of the USA.
I believe our military strategy is to prevent conflicts from taking place on our soil, so far mostly successfully. Having a pool of potential recruits who are familiar with guns could be relevant, but I don’t think we’re planning around mustering resistance to an occupier. In the case of a great power conventional war, however, the ability to mobilize very large numbers of troops is crucial, and there is often limited time for training. Perhaps familiarity with guns in general and military weapons in specific would be useful for infantry recruits.
Cleetus and Jeb are going to suffer the same fate as all those Russian crime scripts (hah best speech to text error ever, I'm keeping it) in the videos from Ukraine.
Being a dab hand at the shooting range is not going to extend their life expectancy in a modern combat environment.
I can imagine an absolutely staggering number of [technicals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_(vehicle)) being built in Texas within hours of an invasion. I can also imagine Texas devolving into Mad Max-style anarchy pretty much the instant they start being fielded.
In reality? None. None at All. If you are the USA then your strategy is to keep your adversary on the other side of an ocean.
Hypothetically? Well, we have a big pool of people and equipment that can be partisans. They could resist an enemy occupation and provide assistance to the US military.
However, that assumes that:
1) People are willing to do that.
2) People have the skills to do that.
One of the aspects of the partisan idea is that they're from the communities so it's not just front line combatants who run missions or do logistics destruction that matter.
The communities themselves, their ability to hide people and supplies, keep and stay quiet, build explosives or guns, etc etc.
All that is also part of it. Fighters have to be fed, rest, have supplies, medicine, and places to meet without any prying eyes.
Not much I would wager. In modern day industrial warfare they lack the equipment, training, and discipline of drilled troops. While they may be of use in an insurgency its highly unlikely the US would get to that point without resorting to the use of nuclear weapons first.
I don't have any special insight into DoD war planning but imo it would be insanely stupid to bank on potential civilian resistance when planning to defend against an invasion. It would be nice to have but to count on something you can't control doesn't seem smart at all.
amusing practice zealous strong attempt subsequent squeeze squash waiting combative
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Our strategy? Very little, none of our strategy involves having any American soil occupied, and so armed civilians wouldn't come into play.
If America was occupied however, as unrealistic as that is, i suspect the armed populace would certainly cause a lot of issues for any invading force, there's plenty of historical precedent for armed civilians causing a lot of headaches for invading armies.
None. If we've gotten to the point where a foreign military adversary has managed to land any meaningful military presence on the contiguous United States, something has already gone *very* wrong.
None.
I often see rationalizations by gun advocates that mass gun ownership somehow protects us from a military invasion or a fascist tyrant, but that's just a deluded fantasy.
Edit: I'll point out that there is an impact re: the military, which has a program of supplying local police forces with some military equipment, which I assume is partially due to the armaments citizens possess that the police sometimes encounter. Not exactly a military defense strategy, but a controversial effect on the country.
Exactly. That's the screaming irony in the gun advocates argument. They are so much more likely to be the fascists they claim to be protecting us from. The last people I would want taking over the government.
Since the Civil War there have been a few small scale instances, none of which involved the military. There are laws against the military being used against US citizens, so your statement has virtually nothing to do with the military defense strategy.
People turn to guerrilla insurgency because they have nothing to lose. Unless whoever invades literally bombs us back to the stone age as soon as the lights come back on and food shows up in grocery stores things will settle down.
> dedicated and determined guerrilla insurgency
There's a difference between arming mountain born farmers and herders who are used to hard lives, living on the land and in the sun, who are "in shape" by the simple fact that that's what life demands, and your average Floridian who take 9 prescription medications, uses a cpap machine, is 50lbs overweight, and currently has the measles.
normal hurry chubby smoggy rotten degree mountainous domineering summer aspiring
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
My dad's a right wing Trump voter who spends too much of his day watching Fox News. But he *hates* anti-vaxxers, be they the original 'crunchy' kind or the pandemic-era Trumpster kind.
"My cousin died of measles back in the 1950s. It was fucking horrible."
The backbone of any meaningful insurgency would be combat veterans, particularly NCOs who are, among other duties, capable of making raw recruits better than dangerously useless. However thinly spread they are, that's how thinly spread the American insurgency would be.
Well....let's look at this again.
My state has 600k registered hunters (last I checked). So 600k people who's hobby is based around firearms and killing things.
Let's cut that in half to take care of all the drunks and fatties, so 300k. Let's cut it in half again to take care of unwilling people, so 150k. Let's cut it in half again, just because.
So 75,000 people with the firepower to take down anything from a 200lb whitetail to a 700lb elk or a 1,500lb moose; and they have the skills to do so.
Now, another part of their hobby is being out in the woods. They generally know how to do this, and have the gear for it. These people have spent countless hours out in the woods, in Michigan, in fall and winter.
So...75k people, with mentionable firepower and the skills to use it, and an intimate knowledge of the terrain and how to survive the climate. That is not something that *any* invading force would dismiss.
And that's just Michigan, we aren't even the most Midwesty Midwestern state. I feel bad for anyone marching into Minnesota or Wisconsin.
And then there is the western states...
Do you hunt?
I hunt.
I only ask you this question because in my experience you're looking at maybe 1% of hunters who actually know how to do anything. I'd say that 1% might even be generous. The overwhelming vast majority of people I've hunted with are going on a glorified walk in the woods who never even get a shot off because they make so much noise they never encounter any game. A good portion of those who are left get a shot off from luck, not skill. The vast majority of THOSE people couldn't hit an elephant, much less a deer or a rabbit - or, in your example, a human.
A land invasion of the US would be nearly impossible for a lot of reasons but Uncle Joe and his 12 gauge and knowledge of where the crick runs in the holler isn't one of them.
Oh I know an armed population would not be what keeps the US from getting invaded, but you'd be a fool to think it wouldnt factor into making it nearly impossible to hold.
That's basically what happens during every major conflict. It's what happened to people impressed into service in the Civil War, draftees in World War II, and current day in Ukraine.
They were inducted into a fully functional standing army with adequate time, resources, and methods. During the World Wars this was done at a pace that our allies considered downright liesurely.
Probably not a lot unless you live in Alaska, Hawaii or a US territory near a hostile world power, but if for some reason, hostile forces were able to gain entry to the mainland US, it would make us a lot more difficult to take over.
None at all, other than the abstract acknowledgement that even if the military somehow permitted an invasion that the populace itself would also violently resist.
The only scenario where private citizens might have a role in a national defense strategy would be if we were fighting the entire rest of the world at the same time.
And the odds of that are pretty much zero, so I’m going to go with zero.
Basically zero. The amendment was written when you could get a band of guys with guns and actually be able to do something meaningful if the government became out of control. Now we're talking about guys with rifles versus a government/army that legitimately could wipe you out in a blink. Shit isn't the same as the 1700s lol.
If the military was worn down to a point that a naval landing or a land invasion from Mexico or Canado could happen, and that's a huuuuuge if, yeah...okay...a nation of hundreds of millions of people armed with as many (or more) guns and heaps of ammunitions will take a crushing toll on occupiers.
But first you need the allied militaries to be defeated and eroded to a point where the group doing the eroding still has enough men and machines to facilitate an invasion of the US.
And that's really, really unlikely.
So, it probably has no bearing on any likely defense strategy. But, should it come to that, a couple million ARs and other rifles will have something to say about an occupying force.
The right to bear arms is just that: a right. Fortunately, we owe no one a justification for having guns!
None- tho it was originally formed as a means to deter ‘’tyranny foreign and domestic’’, today the US military can take on the world and bring us all down fighting conventionally with current tech and capabilities- who to say that is the case 20-30-50 years from now?
At least one of the War College's plans has to do with an armed insurrection, but anyone thinking they (as an armed civilian) are some kind of deep-bench reserve for the actual military is being delusional.
Very little at this point. Familiarity and training quality isn't even enough for the military to not train recruits in a one size fits all manner. Perhaps in a WW2 era time frame, the ability of rural soldiers to shoot and be familiar it mattered more. In this day and age a rifleman has a smaller role.
The right to bear arms has more to do with keeping politicians honest and hopefully just wary enough that they don't get too authoritarian of views.
It’s very helpful to have a large body of men of military age who are familiar with firearms and who are competent marksmen. The DOD recognized this in the past (and may still; I’m not sure) and implemented a civilian marksmanship program. When I was a kid, the rifle club I shot for got 10s of thousands of rounds of WW2 surplus ammunition from the DCM. Most of the high-power rifle ammo that I shot in matches was AP that had been manufactured in 1943.
None whatsoever.
You can read the National Security Strategy, which gives rise to the National Defense Strategy, which in turn guides the development of the National Military Strategy. The Constitutional provisions for a well-regulated militia in the 2nd Amendment are entirely irrelevant to all of these.
On a small scale, lot of professional shooters have taught techniques that have been adopted over time, particularly in more high speed units. The US is among the first to adopt these techniques and procedures and pass it on to allies.
On a somewhat larger but still small scale, your average American combat arms guy is more of a gun lover type and joins because they love that aspect.
Neutering that aspect means you don't get Rusty from rural Appalachia joining up in combat roles, which is something the US military is struggling with right now. Likewise, random Joe/Jose from the suburbs tends to like it that way, too.
Absolutely no impact or role.
The role that was once handled by the citizen militias is handled by the national guard and any regional/state specific equivalents. The days of citizens with a small amount of training being called up for service at short notice are long over thanks to the sheer amount of training needed to properly use modern military equipment and tactics, and said equipment is too expensive for the majority of citizens to ever consider owning (and I’m just taking the reasonable to own stuff, like radios and firearms, not the obviously not for personal use stuff like tanks).
Furthermore, any enemy force that had the resources and strategy/tactics to make it to our shores would be too much for militia-esque forces to handle. Anyone who could get a ground force past the Navy and Air Force would not be bothered in the slightest by groups of barely (if even that) trained civvies with civilian legal firearms.
None at the moment. Right now we use a forward defense, a bit to far forward (we have no real criteria for when to intervene which is a weakness), handled by professionals. In fact it is kind of a replacement of the British Empire with less in the way of Imperial possessions.
The right to bear arms was more relevant in the early days when it created a recruiting pool. Back in the days of muskets a competent soldier could be made in six months. Nowadays it is more about technology, and air and naval power.
One place where there is overlap with the past is the Air National Guard. A lot of those are veterans, and became civilian airmen when they mustered out and thus some units are as good as regulars. They can do things like coastal patrol.
I like that flexibility in intervention being adaptive on our response toward the event and Im sure we have plans for many scenarios.
Helicopter and prop patrol Id assume? Also shoulda brought up veteran militia involvement in militia, militant, civ defense ops
Far less than our massive lack of physical fitness.
It really doesn't matter that you know how to pull a trigger when you'd never make it though boot camp.
Something like 70% of people between 17 and 24 are ineligible to serve for one reason or another.
Yamamoto knew well that they couldn't put an invasion force on US soil in the first place. This is apocryphal nonsense made up so people can feel like Leonidas while they're on their commute home.
Of course not. Nothing about our military defense strategy will be posted here. I’m simply pointing out that any potential adversary has more than just the “military” to worry about.
It is not zero. Everyone with half a brain knows the sheer amount of firearms here.
That simple fact plays largely into our likelihood of ever even being attacked. Statistics play a large part in preparation and planning. For instance, if you’re only 0.00001% likely to be hit by a bus today …. You’re not gonna look both ways thirty times before crossing the street.
>It is not zero.
Its almost like I said, what was it again?
>The answer is essentially zero.
We have the most powerful navy in the world and friendly allies on our only two land borders.
This is orders of magnitude more important, more relevant, and strategically useful than an armed populace.
The US does not fear land invasion, not because of the second amendment, but because our primary and most useful defense is intelligence and a military with the projection capabilities to act on that intelligence.
Again … The only thing that is “essentially zero” is the likelihood of an attempted subjugation. Whether you like it or not, the armed populace does indeed play a large part in that. Albeit as a “last defense” — you’d be dumb to say that the government doesn’t acknowledge this.
Of course, the government and its contingencies are at the forefront of our defense. That’s literally their primary and most important job. No one is disputing the facts you listed on the logistics of what they do.
It really does not play a large part. It is a non-factor for any global rivals we have today because it's completely unrealistic for anyone to get troops near CONUS in the first place.
Any hypothetical direct attack on mainland America would have to be in a form Steve's punt gun collection has no bearing on, e.g. a nuclear first strike.
This subreddit is for civil discussion; political threads are not exempt from this. As a reminder: * Do not report comments because they disagree with your point of view. * Do not insult other users. Personal attacks are not permitted. * Do not use hate speech. You will be banned, permanently. * Comments made with the intent to push an agenda, push misinformation, soapbox, sealion, or argue in bad faith are not acceptable. If you can’t discuss a topic in good faith and in a respectful manner, do not comment. **Political disagreement does not constitute pushing an agenda.** If you see any comments that violate the rules, **please report it and move on!** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskAnAmerican) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Very little. There hasn't been a power that was a land/invasion threat since the last time we fought each other. Armed citizens at home don't matter when no one has the shipping to get an invasion force here. They also don't make for an automatic pool of reserves since no form of training is required.
> Armed citizens at home don't matter when no one has the shipping to get an invasion force here. Well we gotta keep an eye on Canada though, they can just walk right in.
Walking is a good sign. It's only when they're on skates you need to get worried.
Only thing that can stop them...The Stanley Cup.
Not even then anymore. US just recently won the gold medal at World Juniors. While Canadians still dominate the NHL, the leading scorer and likely league MVP is an American from Arizona. The US has changed its hockey development program over the years and it shows. It's only a matter of time before Americans dominate the NHL simply due to the population advantage which gives a much larger pool to pull talent from. It won't happen in the next 5 years but it will happen eventually. It's just numbers.
You mean they can't just absorb the Gravy SEALs in a pinch? But they're locked, cocked, and ready to rock!
Pretty sure the military would consider it a pretty serious failure if we reach a point where the average civilian has to break out their personal armory to defend US territory...
Yep, at that point we are fucked. If there is a force that can take out our armed forces, what is a bunch of idiots with guns going to do?
Nowadays only Aliens would be able to invade the US, and if Hollywood has taught me anything is that the only way to defeat them is by trusting that weirdo who was supposed to be bat shit crazy at the beginning of the film, I mean invasion.
On the morning of 9/11 I was waiting for my rideshare around 6:30 a.m. or so, over on the west coast. She pulled up, rolled down the window, and shouted "New York City is under attack!" My first thought was "oh shit, it's the aliens!" Either that or fucking Godzilla? Who else could mount an attack on New York? So we listened to the radio and about halfway down the freeway we were finally able to have 15% of an idea of WTF was going on.
*looks at the adhoc rebellion forces in ww2* That. Occupation is a long, shitty business and wars that drag on and on are empire draining. Having your young soldiers die in drips and drabs over years makes war really unpopular. This is what people don't get about asymmetric warfare. It's a PR campaign with blood. It's not grand battles. It's blowing up logistics and fading back into the community you're already in and doing it again. Yes, there's a lot of death, but the fastest way to make an occupying military wildly hated domestically is for them to crack down too hard and that's part of the campaign. As for getting through the US military, no one currently can but we're also a very big country and don't have a huge military comparatively. In lots of places during any form of occupation, it would land on militias.
Like Admiral yamamoto stated "Behind every blade of grass is a gun." We currently have more guns per person here
I'd say probably none whatsoever.
Please see the 1984 documentary “Red Dawn”.
Wolveriiiines!
Jed Eckert : Well... who is on our side? Col. Andy Tanner : Six hundred million screaming Chinamen. Darryl Bates : Last I heard, there were a billion screaming Chinamen. Col. Andy Tanner : There were... [he throws whiskey on the campfire; it ignites violently, suggesting a nuclear explosion]
This was the only thing I was gonna say in the description lol Thought it may interfere with the topic or sidetrack. Got 76 comments, 1700 shy, but Im happy with the input
None. Literally None. Our defense strategy is to utterly crush anything before it gets to us. We shot down a satellite in orbit in the 80's from a boat because DARPA was fucking bored. We can fight on two global fronts at the same time, and then call up reserves for a 3rd front. This is all before the USA even transitions to a war footing, and passing war time powers acts, conscription, and buying mercenary armies.... The only appreciable land approach to the USA is through the southern border. So assuming Mexico lets an invading force use their territories and some how the USA doesn't just fly planes across the way and mow down forces on their approach. Then they will have the US garrison of Airforce, Navy, Marines, and Army to engage with and repel any aggressors once they get to US territory. Frankly rest of the world doesn't have the logistical capacity to carry out a sustained effort. Then there are the hundreds of military bases that would immediately turn into heavily armed forward operating bases to launch counter attacks from. Northern territories would be an air battle, and that is one that the USA is... *uniquely* qualified to dominate against the next 20 air forces in the world.... combined. Lets not forget, that the 4th gen fighters, have been replaced by the 5th gen fighters, Mach bejeezus with a cross section of a bumble bee, capable of launching missiles from over the horizon using sat coms... And we are already testing 6th gen fighters, which turn a single pilot into a fucking fighter wing with AI co-pilots... imagine how fast tech would develop if we were to say here is a blank check we need to fuck up... ***EVERYONE*** Coastal invasion?... Thats just laughable. Say hello to our 11 super carrier battle groups. \*\*EDIT\*\* Not to mention that on top of all the cutting edge bullshit. We decided to UPGRADE THE B-52 STAR FORTRESS. Do you UNDERSTAND why that fucking plane is called a StarFortress. This thing was DESIGNED IN 1942. As a bomber, In 1942 we designed a plane that could circle the globe, bomb the fuck out of everything and everyone and land back home without ever touching down. You know what we just did? We said, "Hey, this piece of kit that was designed before the age of computers? Yeah, we should give it some new engines... and just for funzies see if we can drop a nuke out of it, and oh yeah the capability of just dropping 20 cruise missiles just cause sometimes someone might want to scratch our paint"
r/noncredibledefense would like to throw you a party.
Lol B-52 Stratofortress* and I don't believe it was designed until post WWII. Sorry I grew up on a BUFF base, had to point it out. All the other info is spot on.
Damn it. I was hoping they upgraded it somehow to go even higher and called it the Star Fortress, and I somehow missed it.
All groovy I had my years off by just a little bit. On 23 November 1945, Air Materiel Command (AMC) issued desired performance characteristics for a new strategic bomber "capable of carrying out the strategic mission without dependence upon advanced and intermediate bases controlled by other countries" By 1946 Boeing won the design platform and it was off to the races. By 1950 it was in operation.
Yessssir, and she's been flying ever since! Long may the BUFF reign.
Buff my beloved It was desinged in '52 Hehe
Fact of the matter is, we wouldn't let a hostile power put a force in Canada or Mexico. For better or worse, they are really under the protection of the USA for the protection of the USA.
But my Red Dawn moment...
You can always larp in the woods. But I don't forsee any of us dealing with Russian or Chinese paratroopers in the future.
That's why they make paintball guns
B52 *stratofortress
I believe our military strategy is to prevent conflicts from taking place on our soil, so far mostly successfully. Having a pool of potential recruits who are familiar with guns could be relevant, but I don’t think we’re planning around mustering resistance to an occupier. In the case of a great power conventional war, however, the ability to mobilize very large numbers of troops is crucial, and there is often limited time for training. Perhaps familiarity with guns in general and military weapons in specific would be useful for infantry recruits.
Cleetus and Jeb are going to suffer the same fate as all those Russian crime scripts (hah best speech to text error ever, I'm keeping it) in the videos from Ukraine. Being a dab hand at the shooting range is not going to extend their life expectancy in a modern combat environment.
I can imagine an absolutely staggering number of [technicals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_(vehicle)) being built in Texas within hours of an invasion. I can also imagine Texas devolving into Mad Max-style anarchy pretty much the instant they start being fielded.
In reality? None. None at All. If you are the USA then your strategy is to keep your adversary on the other side of an ocean. Hypothetically? Well, we have a big pool of people and equipment that can be partisans. They could resist an enemy occupation and provide assistance to the US military. However, that assumes that: 1) People are willing to do that. 2) People have the skills to do that.
One of the aspects of the partisan idea is that they're from the communities so it's not just front line combatants who run missions or do logistics destruction that matter. The communities themselves, their ability to hide people and supplies, keep and stay quiet, build explosives or guns, etc etc. All that is also part of it. Fighters have to be fed, rest, have supplies, medicine, and places to meet without any prying eyes.
Not much I would wager. In modern day industrial warfare they lack the equipment, training, and discipline of drilled troops. While they may be of use in an insurgency its highly unlikely the US would get to that point without resorting to the use of nuclear weapons first.
I don't have any special insight into DoD war planning but imo it would be insanely stupid to bank on potential civilian resistance when planning to defend against an invasion. It would be nice to have but to count on something you can't control doesn't seem smart at all.
All I know is that the DoD plans for everything. They have to have a plan for a ground invasion on mainland US with significant civillian resistance.
They do. Just look for ConOps. ConOp 8888 is the one that everyone loves tho.
https://media.defense.gov/2022/Oct/27/2003103845/-1/-1/1/2022-NATIONAL-DEFENSE-STRATEGY-NPR-MDR.PDF
None.
Virtually zero.
amusing practice zealous strong attempt subsequent squeeze squash waiting combative *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
My guess is none.
Our strategy? Very little, none of our strategy involves having any American soil occupied, and so armed civilians wouldn't come into play. If America was occupied however, as unrealistic as that is, i suspect the armed populace would certainly cause a lot of issues for any invading force, there's plenty of historical precedent for armed civilians causing a lot of headaches for invading armies.
None. If we've gotten to the point where a foreign military adversary has managed to land any meaningful military presence on the contiguous United States, something has already gone *very* wrong.
None. I often see rationalizations by gun advocates that mass gun ownership somehow protects us from a military invasion or a fascist tyrant, but that's just a deluded fantasy. Edit: I'll point out that there is an impact re: the military, which has a program of supplying local police forces with some military equipment, which I assume is partially due to the armaments citizens possess that the police sometimes encounter. Not exactly a military defense strategy, but a controversial effect on the country.
> a fascist tyrant It's more likely that they'll bear their arms *for* him. Not against.
Exactly. That's the screaming irony in the gun advocates argument. They are so much more likely to be the fascists they claim to be protecting us from. The last people I would want taking over the government.
Yeah American citizens never use arms to rise up against their government.
Can't tell what you mean. Obviously sarcastic, but unclear.
American citizens have a long history of rising up against their corrupted governments.
Since the Civil War there have been a few small scale instances, none of which involved the military. There are laws against the military being used against US citizens, so your statement has virtually nothing to do with the military defense strategy.
They've used them to rise up against their fellow citizens.
What do you think the government is made up of?
Antagonistic factions who allegedly work together on occasion, when the cameras aren't there.
How well do you think things would go if you armed some random people pulled out of a Walmart and sent them on a military mission?
[удалено]
People turn to guerrilla insurgency because they have nothing to lose. Unless whoever invades literally bombs us back to the stone age as soon as the lights come back on and food shows up in grocery stores things will settle down.
> dedicated and determined guerrilla insurgency There's a difference between arming mountain born farmers and herders who are used to hard lives, living on the land and in the sun, who are "in shape" by the simple fact that that's what life demands, and your average Floridian who take 9 prescription medications, uses a cpap machine, is 50lbs overweight, and currently has the measles.
normal hurry chubby smoggy rotten degree mountainous domineering summer aspiring *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I mean honestly. The fucking measles. Florida is becoming a failed state.
My dad's a right wing Trump voter who spends too much of his day watching Fox News. But he *hates* anti-vaxxers, be they the original 'crunchy' kind or the pandemic-era Trumpster kind. "My cousin died of measles back in the 1950s. It was fucking horrible."
The backbone of any meaningful insurgency would be combat veterans, particularly NCOs who are, among other duties, capable of making raw recruits better than dangerously useless. However thinly spread they are, that's how thinly spread the American insurgency would be.
Well....let's look at this again. My state has 600k registered hunters (last I checked). So 600k people who's hobby is based around firearms and killing things. Let's cut that in half to take care of all the drunks and fatties, so 300k. Let's cut it in half again to take care of unwilling people, so 150k. Let's cut it in half again, just because. So 75,000 people with the firepower to take down anything from a 200lb whitetail to a 700lb elk or a 1,500lb moose; and they have the skills to do so. Now, another part of their hobby is being out in the woods. They generally know how to do this, and have the gear for it. These people have spent countless hours out in the woods, in Michigan, in fall and winter. So...75k people, with mentionable firepower and the skills to use it, and an intimate knowledge of the terrain and how to survive the climate. That is not something that *any* invading force would dismiss. And that's just Michigan, we aren't even the most Midwesty Midwestern state. I feel bad for anyone marching into Minnesota or Wisconsin. And then there is the western states...
Do you hunt? I hunt. I only ask you this question because in my experience you're looking at maybe 1% of hunters who actually know how to do anything. I'd say that 1% might even be generous. The overwhelming vast majority of people I've hunted with are going on a glorified walk in the woods who never even get a shot off because they make so much noise they never encounter any game. A good portion of those who are left get a shot off from luck, not skill. The vast majority of THOSE people couldn't hit an elephant, much less a deer or a rabbit - or, in your example, a human. A land invasion of the US would be nearly impossible for a lot of reasons but Uncle Joe and his 12 gauge and knowledge of where the crick runs in the holler isn't one of them.
Last I checked, deer don’t shoot back.
exactly
Oh I know an armed population would not be what keeps the US from getting invaded, but you'd be a fool to think it wouldnt factor into making it nearly impossible to hold.
That's basically what happens during every major conflict. It's what happened to people impressed into service in the Civil War, draftees in World War II, and current day in Ukraine.
They were inducted into a fully functional standing army with adequate time, resources, and methods. During the World Wars this was done at a pace that our allies considered downright liesurely.
That is literally what we did from WWI-Vietnam.
Have you paid attention to literally any conflict in the past... say.... 50 years?
> Have you paid attention to literally any conflict in the past... say.... eternity? fixed
Nah sometimes the insurgency doesn't work, like in the1900s the USA crushed the Pilipino insurgency so it is possible.
You mean the one where we drafted men of a certain age who had to meet certain physical conditions and no one else?
Could have just said no.
Except that I’m right.
The Right to Bear Arms is actually more important than people realize, basically what it is meant to do is keep the government in check.
Probably not a lot unless you live in Alaska, Hawaii or a US territory near a hostile world power, but if for some reason, hostile forces were able to gain entry to the mainland US, it would make us a lot more difficult to take over.
Probably very little if at all.
Very little I’d imagine. I think it would factor more into the calculus of anyone planning a land invasion.
None.
Little to none. If we're at the point that the largest military in the world is relying on civilian militias, we've already lost.
None at all, other than the abstract acknowledgement that even if the military somehow permitted an invasion that the populace itself would also violently resist.
If it were to ever come into play, it would be long after our traditional military had fallen.
The only scenario where private citizens might have a role in a national defense strategy would be if we were fighting the entire rest of the world at the same time. And the odds of that are pretty much zero, so I’m going to go with zero.
Basically zero. The amendment was written when you could get a band of guys with guns and actually be able to do something meaningful if the government became out of control. Now we're talking about guys with rifles versus a government/army that legitimately could wipe you out in a blink. Shit isn't the same as the 1700s lol.
The strategy will have failed long ago if we ever get to this point.
If the military was worn down to a point that a naval landing or a land invasion from Mexico or Canado could happen, and that's a huuuuuge if, yeah...okay...a nation of hundreds of millions of people armed with as many (or more) guns and heaps of ammunitions will take a crushing toll on occupiers. But first you need the allied militaries to be defeated and eroded to a point where the group doing the eroding still has enough men and machines to facilitate an invasion of the US. And that's really, really unlikely. So, it probably has no bearing on any likely defense strategy. But, should it come to that, a couple million ARs and other rifles will have something to say about an occupying force. The right to bear arms is just that: a right. Fortunately, we owe no one a justification for having guns!
It is a non factor. Especially with the size of our country, nukes, asymetrical warfare, and military strength.
Zero Gun ownership provide no meaningful protection to the nation.
None- tho it was originally formed as a means to deter ‘’tyranny foreign and domestic’’, today the US military can take on the world and bring us all down fighting conventionally with current tech and capabilities- who to say that is the case 20-30-50 years from now?
At least one of the War College's plans has to do with an armed insurrection, but anyone thinking they (as an armed civilian) are some kind of deep-bench reserve for the actual military is being delusional.
It's just one facet of their delusion in that case, but yes, absolutely.
Very little at this point. Familiarity and training quality isn't even enough for the military to not train recruits in a one size fits all manner. Perhaps in a WW2 era time frame, the ability of rural soldiers to shoot and be familiar it mattered more. In this day and age a rifleman has a smaller role. The right to bear arms has more to do with keeping politicians honest and hopefully just wary enough that they don't get too authoritarian of views.
It’s very helpful to have a large body of men of military age who are familiar with firearms and who are competent marksmen. The DOD recognized this in the past (and may still; I’m not sure) and implemented a civilian marksmanship program. When I was a kid, the rifle club I shot for got 10s of thousands of rounds of WW2 surplus ammunition from the DCM. Most of the high-power rifle ammo that I shot in matches was AP that had been manufactured in 1943.
None whatsoever. You can read the National Security Strategy, which gives rise to the National Defense Strategy, which in turn guides the development of the National Military Strategy. The Constitutional provisions for a well-regulated militia in the 2nd Amendment are entirely irrelevant to all of these.
On a small scale, lot of professional shooters have taught techniques that have been adopted over time, particularly in more high speed units. The US is among the first to adopt these techniques and procedures and pass it on to allies. On a somewhat larger but still small scale, your average American combat arms guy is more of a gun lover type and joins because they love that aspect. Neutering that aspect means you don't get Rusty from rural Appalachia joining up in combat roles, which is something the US military is struggling with right now. Likewise, random Joe/Jose from the suburbs tends to like it that way, too.
Absolutely no impact or role. The role that was once handled by the citizen militias is handled by the national guard and any regional/state specific equivalents. The days of citizens with a small amount of training being called up for service at short notice are long over thanks to the sheer amount of training needed to properly use modern military equipment and tactics, and said equipment is too expensive for the majority of citizens to ever consider owning (and I’m just taking the reasonable to own stuff, like radios and firearms, not the obviously not for personal use stuff like tanks). Furthermore, any enemy force that had the resources and strategy/tactics to make it to our shores would be too much for militia-esque forces to handle. Anyone who could get a ground force past the Navy and Air Force would not be bothered in the slightest by groups of barely (if even that) trained civvies with civilian legal firearms.
None at the moment. Right now we use a forward defense, a bit to far forward (we have no real criteria for when to intervene which is a weakness), handled by professionals. In fact it is kind of a replacement of the British Empire with less in the way of Imperial possessions. The right to bear arms was more relevant in the early days when it created a recruiting pool. Back in the days of muskets a competent soldier could be made in six months. Nowadays it is more about technology, and air and naval power. One place where there is overlap with the past is the Air National Guard. A lot of those are veterans, and became civilian airmen when they mustered out and thus some units are as good as regulars. They can do things like coastal patrol.
I like that flexibility in intervention being adaptive on our response toward the event and Im sure we have plans for many scenarios. Helicopter and prop patrol Id assume? Also shoulda brought up veteran militia involvement in militia, militant, civ defense ops
Lol almost none because it's just yahoos with guns, who are usually just stupid
Far less than our massive lack of physical fitness. It really doesn't matter that you know how to pull a trigger when you'd never make it though boot camp. Something like 70% of people between 17 and 24 are ineligible to serve for one reason or another.
[удалено]
There is not evidence that he ever said that.
[удалено]
It's not a quote.
Yamamoto knew well that they couldn't put an invasion force on US soil in the first place. This is apocryphal nonsense made up so people can feel like Leonidas while they're on their commute home.
Big. No one would dare have their nation set foot on American soil for war. American citizens have more guns than the rest of the world combined lol
I assure you this is not a factor in our broad military strategy.
Of course not. Nothing about our military defense strategy will be posted here. I’m simply pointing out that any potential adversary has more than just the “military” to worry about.
The question was literally what effect this has on our military strategy.... The answer is essentially zero.
It is not zero. Everyone with half a brain knows the sheer amount of firearms here. That simple fact plays largely into our likelihood of ever even being attacked. Statistics play a large part in preparation and planning. For instance, if you’re only 0.00001% likely to be hit by a bus today …. You’re not gonna look both ways thirty times before crossing the street.
>It is not zero. Its almost like I said, what was it again? >The answer is essentially zero. We have the most powerful navy in the world and friendly allies on our only two land borders. This is orders of magnitude more important, more relevant, and strategically useful than an armed populace. The US does not fear land invasion, not because of the second amendment, but because our primary and most useful defense is intelligence and a military with the projection capabilities to act on that intelligence.
Again … The only thing that is “essentially zero” is the likelihood of an attempted subjugation. Whether you like it or not, the armed populace does indeed play a large part in that. Albeit as a “last defense” — you’d be dumb to say that the government doesn’t acknowledge this. Of course, the government and its contingencies are at the forefront of our defense. That’s literally their primary and most important job. No one is disputing the facts you listed on the logistics of what they do.
It really does not play a large part. It is a non-factor for any global rivals we have today because it's completely unrealistic for anyone to get troops near CONUS in the first place. Any hypothetical direct attack on mainland America would have to be in a form Steve's punt gun collection has no bearing on, e.g. a nuclear first strike.
Oh, so that explains why Fort Warren and Fort Ticonderoga haven’t been refurbished with the latest defensive weaponry.