this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
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Militarily, how viable could a revolution in the US possibly be? (hexbear.net)
submitted 1 day ago by bunnossin@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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Maybe this is too fedposty (and let me know if it is), but I've been thinking about this a lot, especially with how things are going in Iran. It seems like modern warfare is basically just "my drones strike your drones", and if either side has drones free to not strike other drones, they can instantly kill whoever they like. With this in mind, is it even really possible for a revolution in the US to escalate into a civil war without simply being air-superiority'd into oblivion with modern sensors? Is guerilla war viable anymore? The main counterpoint I can think of to this possibility is that the US military is A: incompetent and B: mostly a colonial garrison force, but I don't know.

(And yeah, I know a revolution in the US would have a whole laundry list of prerequisites and is significantly hindered by the fact it can't be tied with anti-imperial nationalism. I'm talking strictly in terms of if it actually happened.)

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[–] bunnossin@hexbear.net 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not discounting a mostly-"peaceful" (as in non-violent) revolution as something that can happen. My issue with this idea is that I feel like the US is, like you said, very different from anything ever dealt with before. Specifically, the systems in place. Could a toppling of the government in the vein of the February Revolution happen? Yes, absolutely. But I find it hard to believe the beast would just roll over and die. The US already has a chain of command in place in case the central government is destroyed, and even if there was no central leadership, I can't help but feel that the military and the second military (police) would fight back.

I suppose this view is also influenced by my belief that there's simply no way the military could be turned to even be neutral towards socialism. That belief is certainly being tested right now as discontent about dying for Israel grows, but I still think if something happened, the military would either splinter into a bunch of fash factions that all bomb the fuck out of the commies, or be firmly on the side of the Greatest Economic System. I fully recognize this might be informed by some lingering USAmerican brainworms about the "power" of the US military, though.

Very open to hearing counterpoints to this (though I think saying this might not be necessary? I'm not used to online platforms where good-faith discussions happen heart-sickle )

[–] Collatz_problem@hexbear.net 3 points 18 hours ago

Could a toppling of the government in the vein of the February Revolution happen? Yes, absolutely. But I find it hard to believe the beast would just roll over and die. The US already has a chain of command in place in case the central government is destroyed, and even if there was no central leadership, I can't help but feel that the military and the second military (police) would fight back.

The Russian Empire also had reserve chains of command, but the central government was so rotten, strained by WWI and embroiled in internal power struggles, that it was completely unable to mount a coherent response to strikes and riots. As a result, the Civil War was fought mostly against peripheral members of the Russian state and competing revolutionary parties, because its central apparatus completely disintegrated.

[–] HamManBad@hexbear.net 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I suppose this view is also influenced by my belief that there's simply no way the military could be turned to even be neutral towards socialism

IMO everything hinges on this point. The Russian revolution was successful and relatively non violent because of mass defections from the military in support of the revolution. We will organize and do everything we can on the civilian side, but in the critical moment, the fate of the US will be in the hands of the enlisted.

[–] ComradeRat@hexbear.net 1 points 5 hours ago

trump will reintroduce conscription and 5 years later we will have a revolution long live jdpon don