lwarmonger

Never to that degree. With 280 million people, and most of them living in urban areas, the United States would never be as fragmented as Afghanistan, short of nuclear war.

They aren't fighting a war on two fronts, and they have their nuclear arsenal to protect them. Afghanistan and Vietnam were not the main opposing forces to the Soviet Union/United States. Therefore, the bulk of the two superpower's respective militaries were still focused upon one another. In this situation, the United States would be the main enemy. Therefore the vast majority of the military strength of the aggressor would be focused on us.

They could have done much worse, and they did do their best to maintain a puppet government. Destroying the Afghani population was never their goal.

First, who said anything about conventionally? Gassing every town and concentration of people that the Soviets saw, nuke the few cities. Soviet forces were designed to operate in an NBC environment, and they had complete air superiority to do this. They may not have been able to kill everyone, but they would have been able to make enough of a clean sweep as makes no difference. Second, in removing the United States, whoever it is has removed the one nation that has substantial ability to force project. If they've conquered us, the only other nations they must fear are the ones with nuclear arsenals, and that would be mutual annihilation. Hence, world opinion is no longer relevent.

But conquest without pacification is also a wasted effort. If an occupier kills enough, eventually the people who have been conqured get the point. If they don't, then a lot of land is opened up for colonization. Or if millions are simply carted off to concentration camp style gulags, you can accomplish both at once.

International support in the face of a superpower capable of conquering the United States, and who is willing to use it's overwhelming might in a brutal manner? Perhaps, but less than you'd think. We supported the Afghanis because we were serious rivals with the Soviets. Had the strongest Soviet opposition been, say, West Germany... there wouldn't have been much equipment finding it's way to the Afghanis, for fear of retaliation. And
by killing off the surrounding population, an occupier is also killing the insurgencies ability to survive. Effective resistance groups operate because of the support, or apathy of the surrounding population. They rely on that population for food, medicine, and other support. If that surrounding population dies, then effective (meaning large and organized) resistance groups become impossible to maintain. They must focus too much on survival (hunting and gathering takes a lot of work, and will not support concentrations of men), and they also have no place to hide (save the wilderness, but even that is hard against an opponent willing to kill anything it believes is hostile).

Nowhere has the aim been to destroy the population (although such an effect was achieved with a number of American Indian tribes), save with Nazi Germany's conquest of the Soviet Union. And there, they had to devote the vast majority of their manpower to fighting/ defending all around Europe. If an industrialized power puts its mind to it, it has the capacity to defeat an insurgency. Gulags, and massive retaliation. And your every insurgency ever fought ignores the resistance to colonial rule began by native peoples across the world. When the Europeans had the will, they were capable of crushing native resistance (going up against tanks and aircraft with AR-15's is probably comparable to fighting gatling guns and breech loaders with spears). It was only years later, when the Europeans were devastated on the home front and no longer willing to make the sacrifices necessary, did new resistance groups spring up and cast off colonial rule. IF you're willing to be brutal enough, you can conquer pretty much anyone. At least for a while.

Problem with using nukes, is the United States would nuke back. I'm assuming that for some reason, the United States failed to use nuclear weapons when it's cities started falling to the enemy occupation army. Therefore nukes were not an option for the invading force (as that would have prompted retaliation). Doesn't necessarily preclude a war of annihilation after the US is prostrate though (especially in retaliation for an insurgency that won't go away). It all depends on the scenario (not even knowing the enemy makes this quite a bit harder).

dalem

That's not an occupation policy, that's an extermination policy. Any enemy willing to do that would find it cheaper to stay home or just nuke us.

-dale

lwarmonger

Gulags. Exterminate, enslave, and open up new territory for colonization. Gets some work out of em before they die. And if they nuke us, we would nuke them back. See above.

dalem

A couple of comments.

1) I think your problem is less "not even knowing the enemy" in this hypothetical as it is not knowing your own countrymen.

2) I admit to being arrogant enough that I can't honestly envision any situation where America is prostrate. But granting that it could happen for the purposes of this hypothetical, I submit that there is no reason to count the American will to mount a nationwide insurgency as any less than any other people or nation. And we are kinda-sorta ready for it by the nature of who we are as Americans. Like I said before, I might not be a soldier, but if we were indeed invaded I would join whatever defense force existed immediately and if that was disbanded or unavailable, I'd boogie into the hills and try to find the M21Snipers of the world and join up with them.

They can have my country when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

-dale

dalem

1) But if we had nukes the invasion would never happen.

2) Slave labor is inefficient.

3) Like we're saying though, policies of extermination are just going to get you killed faster.

4) How would you mount a campaign against, say, 10,000 loosely-organized and heavily-armed American insurgents in the Appalachians? In the Rockies? In the Adirondacks? The Smokies? The White Mountains? The Badlands? The Sierra Nevadas?

You simply won't go there, you say? So you're going to allow unfettered rebel consolidation? Or maybe you're just not planning on using I-90, or I-80, or I-94, Or I-65, or Route 9, or whichever. You're going to stay completely off-road, or build a new road system.

-dale

lwarmonger

I have no doubt that we would fight bravely. And I have no doubt that the insurgency would be both large and well organized, at least at first. However, we are only human. Everyone can be conquered, and while much of the south, midwest, and some of the rural portions of the rest of the country would be largely depopulated, much of the rest would cave (there are always those people content to live under an occupier, and there are always collaborators... Americans or not, this is true). Every people has a breaking point. Even Americans.

And once you were dead, and everyone else were dead? Personally, I doubt I would survive the initial invasion, but after that those of use who had been called up (and survived the initial invasion) would head for the hills (against this enemy, surrender means death to soldiers... even for those who have no stomach for a guerilla war). And when every one of our bombs and attacks was retaliated against 100 fold by the enemy, we would continue. However, we would eventually die, as would you. And millions of other Americans as well. And the rest would bow to the inevitable. The United States is probably the industrial country most capable of mounting an insurgency in the history of the industrialized world. However, we would be facing a mechanized enemy completely focused on our subjugation, something that has not happened to an industrial society before(save in WWII, by the Allies against Germany and Japan... in those two cases, resistance was prudently avoided for the most part, and so the situation doesn't apply). Hence, it's debatable.

dalem

lwarmonger-

I don't know how else to say it - I think you vastly overestimate the ability of any armed force to invade and conquer a country as large, motivated, and well-equipped as the U.S.

Could we invade and conquer China? Russia? These are geographically large places with sizeable populations. It is simply not feasible. Bring a million men, all in mechanized units, all with steady trigger fingers, ice in their veins, and a desire to kill and eat Americans at a 100:1 ratio whenever an occupier stubs his toe.

They would simply disappear in a country this large.

-dale

Anon

"That's not an occupation policy, that's an extermination policy. Any enemy willing to do that would find it cheaper to stay home or just nuke us."

Exactly.

Which is the point warmonger is missing.

"And once you were dead, and everyone else were dead?"

Then it won't matter much, will it?

Tinkertoys

The average shooter cannot shoot worth crap. Cops, try as we might, would be hopelessly outgunned, and the veterans would have no effective weaponry besides small arms. Bloodbath for both sides, but the USA would be raped.

-Tink

bonehead

That may be true in Chicago, but in more rural area in the south and west, there are tens of thousands of great s*******. With a bit of training there could be hundreds of thousands. Our civilian gun owning/hunting population is greater than standing armies of most other countries. Cops are outgunned because of politics and funding problems. Many civilians have no such restraints and are much better armed than cops. Veterans have been taught to make due with whatever is at hand, Many veterans are also much better equipped than the average cop. Veterans would be very effective with whatever is at hand. They came from the most highly trained fighting force in the world. There is no doubt there will be a blood bath.

dalem

But no great h00ters apparently? That can't be fun.

-dale

Parihaka

I,m at a loss to see how an occupation of America would go any differently from any other scenario. Taking as a given that the occupational force has sufficient ability to overcome America's conventional armed forces in the first place then what happens afterward simply becomes an insurgency/counter-insurgency scenario. I have no doubt many Americans would continue the fight as proposed in this thread but the vast majority would do what the majority of people have done in other countries that have been invaded: get on with their lives. Iraq is of course the obvious current example. Most people there are not active in the insurgency, all they want is a job, water & electricity into their house, and their kids getting a good schooling. The insurgents are doing exactly what is proposed here in the 'take to the hills' scenarios and are being killed off one by one, order is being re-established.

__________________
In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Anon

"Iraq is of course the obvious current example. Most people there are not active in the insurgency, all they want is a job, water & electricity into their house, and their kids getting a good schooling."

That's because they were freed from a brutal dictator and freed.

Reverse that, then see how cooperative they'd be.

On top of it, enact the executions warmonger was talking about. I don't think you'd find very many americans that just 'wanted to get on with their lives'.

Three things Iraq lacks in comparison to the US are millions of well trained ex-military/ trained police personnel, widely available high quality personal weaponry, and most important of all, a nation with the vast geographical size of the United States.

Iraq also doesn't have vast forests, numerous mountain chains, or vast swamplands.

Just clearing the everglades alone would take over 100,000 men and several months, and as soon as you were done and vacated the area it would fill right back up with insurgents.

Defeating an insurgency in a nation the size of the United States has never been accomplished in the history of man.

Tinkertoys

We police, M21, are trained to stop crimes, many of us are fantastic s*******, but we are not trained nor equipped to fight a war.

-Tink

Anon

"The average shooter cannot shoot worth crap. Cops, try as we might, would be hopelessly outgunned, and the veterans would have no effective weaponry besides small arms. Bloodbath for both sides, but the USA would be raped."

Pffft, any .308 cal hunting rifle and i'd be completely set to go.

Anyone with a .223 or larger rifle would be quite suitably armed for an insurgency, even if it's a bolt action. Even a 12 gauge pump or semi would be quite effective, and they friggin' grow on trees in the US.

Regardless, all you need initially is a pistol or a good knife. You can upgrade off the equipment of your victoms after that.