I read, in another thread, the following statement ...

[Savannahmann]

132. Really?

So you think the Awesome American Military would do the job well of securing a nation that is three thousand miles from coast to coast?

You do know that we have just over one million people in uniform including the National Guards and Reserves right? That is less than one percent of the population of the nation. How many of them would refuse to fire upon other Americans? Let's say it is only one in ten. Since the most patriotic and gung ho types join the military, it might be much much higher, but how many units would be combat effective if they were literally decimated before the action began? So what would happen? Would the military spread out and sweep through areas? Or would they fall back and attempt to defend vital areas. Let's say Manhattan, Washington DC of course, and some other cities.

Oh, and a third of those in uniform are people on ships in the navy and coast guard. How useful is a Submarine going to be in Kansas City? Or someone trained for submarine duty with a rifle? More than a couple hundred miles from the coast and even the Carriers are useless. We could park the ships, and end up with five thousand poorly trained infantry.

You should look at the numbers my friend. If the nation rebels, there is literally next to nothing that the military can do about it except secure a few vital areas, and then the question of supplying those areas with food, electricity, water, and all of that medical supply stuff that gets trucked in every day is a real one for folks in that area.

Tanks? We don't have enough to put one in every city with more than a hundred thousand people. Helicopter gunships? We have fewer of those than we do tanks. Attack jets? Fewer even than the helicopters. So either the military ceeds large swaths of the nation to the notional rebels, or they try to fight them piecemeal. That didn't work in Viet-Nam where we had a hell of a lot more people per square mile, what makes you think it will work in the US?

If the people are behind you, you can accomplish great things in a Democracy. If they are against you, you are powerless. Oh, and before you start talking about the police, remember that there are even fewer cops, including federal agents, than there are military people.

All told, everyone who could conceivably carry a weapon in Federal service would make up far less than one percent of the population. If on the other hand, a mere five out of one hundred decide to take action, then the cops and federal agents are outnumbered by about six to one. If the military joins in, and all combat troops deploy, then the numbers of the rebels grows dramatically, and you're talking about the authorities being outnumbered by about ten or twelve to one. How long before several of those ones just pack up and go home? We know that after three days many police officers left New Orleans to its fate. Outnumbered, no support, they just quit. The military might hold out longer, say a couple weeks before they decided to fall back and secure the vital sections, meaning cities.

All told, if they handed a rifle to every man and woman, police and military, they could field about 2.2 million people. How many states have populations greater than that? How many of those law enforcement types would turn and walk away. We saw many who were uncomfortable with the police response in Ferguson, if things like that were happening every day, how many would just walk away? Especially since about three quarters of the military people are support rather than combat types. The general rule of thumb there is for every infantryman, you have ten soldiers in support. That is tanks, engineers, artillery, aviation, dental, medical, supply, transportation, intelligence, and several other specialties like water purification. I don't think that a detachment of dentists is going to do much good on the lines or on patrol in the towns and smaller cities do you?