> An armed populace can defend against any sort of 3GW attack with really basic 4GW concepts (see Afghanistan)
I disagree. The reason the Afghans were able to fight the USSR and USA to a standstill was that neither of those powers were prepared -- largely for moral reasons -- to be as violent as was necessary to quell the insurgency. How violent would have been necessary? Clearly, killing every single person in Afghanistan would have done it, and probably killing a significant fraction would've worked too.
There have been plenty of historical societies that would have been ruthless enough to beat an insurgency in Afghanistan: The Romans wouldn't done so by Romanising the ruling class, and if that didn't work, enslaving/killing everyone. The Nazis would've skipped the first step and just enslaved/killed everyone. Modern China would create a total surveillance society and any dissenters would be enslaved in concentration camps until their organs turn up a match, at which point they'd be harvested.
So I don't think that armed citizens would be able to hold off an invading army, if that army had enough military potential and determination.
The USSR was one of the most unethical regimes in history, so I'm not sure your "moral quandary" argument really holds up particularly well. I think the reason the Romans could pull that off is because the Gauls didn't have guns. I think if the Romans and Gauls both had guns then the Romans could never have occupied Gaul. Firearms democratize the ability to kill. I do not think the Nazis could have successfully occupied Afghanistan no matter what approach they took.
You're right that firearms democratise the ability to kill: a medieval knight trained all his life, but a Napoleonic musketeer could be training in a week.
However, in the 500 years since firearms ave been around, loads of countries that had them have been successfully invaded.
I don't think that guerrilla warfare can stop a determined and well-resourced invasion and occupation, because the guerillas need a friendly populace to supply them with food. If the invaders cut off the guerillas from the populace (as the British did during the Boer War), the guerrillas lose.
Regarding the USSR, I'm sure it occurred to some Soviet generals in Afghanistan "let's just kill them all". But they didn't. They didn't even attempt to.
With firearms, could the Romans have conquered Gaul? If you just add firearms and make no other changes to the technology of the social structure of the societies concerned, maybe not. But historically, France has been invaded and conquered, multiple times, in the firearm era: by the anti-Napoleon coalition, by the Prussians and by the Nazis.
I agree with everything you said but I don't think you can look at France as a comp because of the gun ownership ratio there. If you want comps for the USA in terms of self-supplied potential armed guerrillas, our comps are Yemen, Serbia, Bosnia, etc, and even they are under 50% of our guns/cap. We are a unique situation here.
French culture is also more like "we don't care who's in charge just don't burn our town down" whereas the USA is almost the exact opposite of that.
I think you underestimate the level of effort it takes to "just kill them all" when "they all" have more guns than people.
>Nationalism, like most other isms, is an indoctrinated mindset
What about tribalism? Isn't international conflict just a slightly higher, more evolved form of what Goodall saw in the Gombe War? Surely the chimps aren't indoctrinated by culture. Nationalism is just a small extension of what's already there in our heads - and in fact, if the word "nation" is taken in its original meaning and not in the sense of the "National Security Agency," (which is then really as much of a semantically twisted euphemism as the "Department of Defense") then it's no extension at all, but rather a tribalism with larger tribes. Isn't "nationalism" more baked in to primate psychology than you suggest?
And if so, does anything change about the ethics of it?
> An armed populace can defend against any sort of 3GW attack with really basic 4GW concepts (see Afghanistan)
I disagree. The reason the Afghans were able to fight the USSR and USA to a standstill was that neither of those powers were prepared -- largely for moral reasons -- to be as violent as was necessary to quell the insurgency. How violent would have been necessary? Clearly, killing every single person in Afghanistan would have done it, and probably killing a significant fraction would've worked too.
There have been plenty of historical societies that would have been ruthless enough to beat an insurgency in Afghanistan: The Romans wouldn't done so by Romanising the ruling class, and if that didn't work, enslaving/killing everyone. The Nazis would've skipped the first step and just enslaved/killed everyone. Modern China would create a total surveillance society and any dissenters would be enslaved in concentration camps until their organs turn up a match, at which point they'd be harvested.
So I don't think that armed citizens would be able to hold off an invading army, if that army had enough military potential and determination.
The USSR was one of the most unethical regimes in history, so I'm not sure your "moral quandary" argument really holds up particularly well. I think the reason the Romans could pull that off is because the Gauls didn't have guns. I think if the Romans and Gauls both had guns then the Romans could never have occupied Gaul. Firearms democratize the ability to kill. I do not think the Nazis could have successfully occupied Afghanistan no matter what approach they took.
You're right that firearms democratise the ability to kill: a medieval knight trained all his life, but a Napoleonic musketeer could be training in a week.
However, in the 500 years since firearms ave been around, loads of countries that had them have been successfully invaded.
I don't think that guerrilla warfare can stop a determined and well-resourced invasion and occupation, because the guerillas need a friendly populace to supply them with food. If the invaders cut off the guerillas from the populace (as the British did during the Boer War), the guerrillas lose.
Regarding the USSR, I'm sure it occurred to some Soviet generals in Afghanistan "let's just kill them all". But they didn't. They didn't even attempt to.
With firearms, could the Romans have conquered Gaul? If you just add firearms and make no other changes to the technology of the social structure of the societies concerned, maybe not. But historically, France has been invaded and conquered, multiple times, in the firearm era: by the anti-Napoleon coalition, by the Prussians and by the Nazis.
I agree with everything you said but I don't think you can look at France as a comp because of the gun ownership ratio there. If you want comps for the USA in terms of self-supplied potential armed guerrillas, our comps are Yemen, Serbia, Bosnia, etc, and even they are under 50% of our guns/cap. We are a unique situation here.
French culture is also more like "we don't care who's in charge just don't burn our town down" whereas the USA is almost the exact opposite of that.
I think you underestimate the level of effort it takes to "just kill them all" when "they all" have more guns than people.
>Nationalism, like most other isms, is an indoctrinated mindset
What about tribalism? Isn't international conflict just a slightly higher, more evolved form of what Goodall saw in the Gombe War? Surely the chimps aren't indoctrinated by culture. Nationalism is just a small extension of what's already there in our heads - and in fact, if the word "nation" is taken in its original meaning and not in the sense of the "National Security Agency," (which is then really as much of a semantically twisted euphemism as the "Department of Defense") then it's no extension at all, but rather a tribalism with larger tribes. Isn't "nationalism" more baked in to primate psychology than you suggest?
And if so, does anything change about the ethics of it?