I've watched this debate from the sidelines so many times I can repeat the arguments...

The answer is: tanks need to refuel somewhere, or trucks need to bring them more fuel. Also, the people inside the tanks need to get out to eat. And worse... again, just repeating the usual argument here... if it was against a truly dictatorial regime, let's say, to give the benefit of the doubt... the people inside the tank have friends and family that are not with them inside the tank.

But I assume if it got to the point that hundreds of tanks and hundreds of aircraft were being used against US citizens, the humans in the military would probably not be okay with that and this scenario would never happen.

All of these arguments apply in guerilla warzones (eg. Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia) and while insurgents there have certainly been capable of inflicting casualties and denying the U.S. its strategic objectives, they also couldn't stop millions of their countrymen (and usually themselves) from being killed. Winning is cold comfort when everybody is dead.

Except the Vietnamese were not living among the Americans in the same cities. That would've complicated matters a lot. Would we have carpet bombed Chicago? Napalmed people hiding out in Yosemite?

> the humans in the military would probably not be okay with that and this scenario would never happen.

Yes, but in this scenario they would be shooting back. All you need is to label them something starting with T and ending with 'rists' and the rules of engagement change.

In this day and age, the best bet for democratic societies is to try to keep democracy while they still have it. After that is lost, all bets are off. The government controls the legislative, the executive and the judiciary. It controls intelligence gathering. It can make your group illegal, it can then persecute your group, it can throw law enforcement at it before it is even properly organized.

If the military even gets involved, it means that whoever is in charge dropped the ball.

Small arms mean nothing if you have well organized law enforcement. If you add the military to the picture... well, they are trained for exactly this sort of thing, aren't they?

It's all delusions of grandeur from people living in a romanticized fantasy world that does not exist.

This presumes a minority suppressing a majority. The situation in China is a majority suppressing a minority. What would that look like in the US? I would assume it’d involve popular and congressional consent to use SLBM decapitation strikes against “rebel” leaders. No need to advance into contested territories.

This pretty much already happens but the police are used instead. They just shoot a few protestors and the media frames it as "they were resisting".

Look at how fast "good guys with guns fighting the government" got shut down when the BPP started carrying.

A government can't use tanks, artillery, missiles, bombs, etc. in its own territory without wrecking civilian infrastructure and eroding goodwill from neutral or (initially) pro-government civilians.

The goal of conquering an area (unless it's purely a natural resource grab) is to put its infrastructure and people to work to boost your economic tax base. That's not so easy to do when you're blowing stuff up and hurting innocent bystanders and scaring everyone.

Whenever you look at advanced countries fighting against guerrillas, no matter how many guerrillas die for each government soldier, the war never really seems to get won, and the government bleeds money: it has to feed the war machine (direct capital losses), and it suffers productivity (tax base, GDP) losses when infrastructure is destroyed and productivity declines.

Petrol bombs are more effective, though small arms can restrict vision and mobility.

https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=taHFUKKKmJM

There are reasons IEDs have been the preferred mechanism in recent decades. Now drones.

Pretty good. Tanks unsupported by infantry have a really bad success rate.

The afghani’s are doing just fine with Lee Enfields and a bit of DIY homebrew.

So pretty darn well!

Guns are not match for tanks, and whoever has tanks would definitely control the Mojave desert.