this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
28 points (100.0% liked)

askchapo

23247 readers
309 users here now

Ask Hexbear is the place to ask and answer ~~thought-provoking~~ questions.

Rules:

  1. Posts must ask a question.

  2. If the question asked is serious, answer seriously.

  3. Questions where you want to learn more about socialism are allowed, but questions in bad faith are not.

  4. Try !feedback@hexbear.net if you're having questions about regarding moderation, site policy, the site itself, development, volunteering or the mod team.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Collatz_problem@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day 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.