Lets say that over the next 6 months, the American population attempts to remove the government using the legally defined methods that are sort-of outlined in the constitution. Lets say it fails. Lets also completely disregard the real-life historical timeline and say that we've also tried to reform it through congress for at least a decade. The reasons aren't important, it's a hypothetical. The only option to remove the corrupt government now is to fight it on the fields of war.
Lets say the core of a future new-government has already formed and taken up hiding overseas under the protection of the British, Russian and Chinese militaries, but has established lines of communication to regional "rebel leaders." The entire US military has been recalled from overseas to deal with what the government percieves as an impending crisis.
The media has chosen sides; most of them choosing to put a positive spin on the rebellion because it's the popular thing to do. Some ~10% of the general population is willing to fight offensively, roughly 50% is willing to take up arms defensively, and total support is 90%, with only 10% of the population remaining loyal to the federal government, but not willing to take action. Within the military, 10% of the officers and enlisted men desert to take up offensive roles with the rebellion, 10% desert to take up passive roles and just "be with their families," and the remaining 80% remains on their posts. Whether they will actually fight or not remains to be seen.
Slowly, hostilities begin to break out as rebels stage daring raids on armories. The GPS network is switched into 'secure' mode - all non-military access is denied (yes, this can be done and is an integral feature of the network.) The government decides to stage a crushing counterattack and the vast majority of the military is dispatched to urban centers, while aircraft and missiles are dispatched to perform three tasks: To completely level areas where rebel sentiment appears strongest, to destroy armories/bases which have been "lost", and to destroy media outlets. The results of this push are up to you to decide as is the way the rest of the conflict plays out.
My thoughts are as follows:
The vast majority of military personnel would have significant problems firing upon other Americans willingly. The media would take significant damage, and any military installations that had fallen would easily be obliterated. Those ordered to take out civilian populations would likely either destroy their own weapons, commit suicide, or defect. Through these means, the rebels would magically obtain access to some pretty high-tech gear; fighters, bombers, maybe a ship or two. They'd only be useful once because of the fact that no additional ordinance is available (well, some was probably captured at some point, but chances are it's hundreds of miles away and logistics aren't terribly good.) As soon as federal forces were faced with their own aircraft dropping things on their heads, airports would become priority targets; carpet application of bunker-buster and runway-buster munitions to most FAA-registered runways would probably be quick and accomplished without significant losses due to defection and rebel action.
From there, it becomes a messy ground war; heavy support units (navy, air force) would be practically ineffective for two reasons: First, there are no fixed installations remaining. All that's left for them is scorched earth (destroying facilities that are abandoned or captured) and saturation-bombing rebel forces/innocent civilians; which most of them would have HUGE problems doing. Armored divisions would suffer severely due to improvised explosives. Both armor and infantry would suffer extremely high turnover rates due to the fact that they're being faced with mobs of their countrymen giving them two options: Join us, or die. Eventually, whenever actual combat was initiated, federal losses would exceed 50% because of the combination of their own forces and raw civilian numbers. The rebellion would eventually prevail, primarily due to the military turnover rates. Without that factor, they wouldn't stand an icecube's chance in hell.
However, after everything is said and done, the country would be virtually devoid of (usable):
Airports
Military installations of any sort
Bridges
Highways
Schools (natural rallying points for rebel units; they're large, tend to have open areas)
Stadiums
Universities
Hospitals (sad but true)
Usable military hardware (the feds would fight to the last man, and the equipment the rebels had obtained would be in poor repair)
Electricity
Oil refineries
TV
Radio
Internet (actually, damage to this infratructure would be relatively minimal, but it's worthless without electricity)
Retail stores (Present but non-working due to lack of power and damaged highway infrastructure and looting)
Grocery stores (Same conditions as retail)
Commerce in general (Same as retail)
Industry in general (Same as retail)
In short, a bunch of people who just won a war against the most powerful military force in the world, but at the cost of... Their lives. Casualty rates would likely be higher in post-war than during the war itself. The rebel government, with the aid of overseas nations and Canada would try to establish a power center, and fail because of the complete lack of infrastructure. Any relief efforts would be ineffective because of the large landmass and lack of infrastructure. Those who survive would either become hermits or move to a civilized country as opposed to one that had just bombed itself back into the stone age. Canada and Mexico would eventually reach an agreement with each other and the UN about the annexation of the neutral, nearly uninhabited territory that lies between them.
The world in general would be in recession. The computer industry would likely survive fairly well, AMD, Intel, nVidia and ATI having most of their fabs overseas and hopefully having the sense to GET OUT before they got blown to bits, and the rest of the industry being based in Asia anyway, but the biggest customer for a number of industries would be gone, and the supplies required to keep other industries afloat would have dissapeared.
Terrorism would have a field day; what with vast nuclear arsenals that remained relatively untouched during the revolution lying in the wastelands. Canada and Mexico would likely lead initiatives in the UN to protect and extract that which they can (most of the arsenal lies in Arizona, New Mexico, and North Dakota, within easy reach of those two nations) before they fall into the wrong hands, but plenty would anyway. Europe, Russia, Japan, Taiwan, and Australia would suddenly be awash in surplus naval assets as naval crews would either scuttle their vessels at sea before abandoning them or simply pull into port and surrender them to the government. The USS Nimitz would eventually make one helluva cruise ship.
Eventually, the dust would settle, and the world would be a different place. Ultimately, world peace would be achieved generations later as people begin to move back into the wasteland and see first-hand the devastation. Maybe.
Of course, this is all hypothetical. Share your thoughts.
Lets say the core of a future new-government has already formed and taken up hiding overseas under the protection of the British, Russian and Chinese militaries, but has established lines of communication to regional "rebel leaders." The entire US military has been recalled from overseas to deal with what the government percieves as an impending crisis.
The media has chosen sides; most of them choosing to put a positive spin on the rebellion because it's the popular thing to do. Some ~10% of the general population is willing to fight offensively, roughly 50% is willing to take up arms defensively, and total support is 90%, with only 10% of the population remaining loyal to the federal government, but not willing to take action. Within the military, 10% of the officers and enlisted men desert to take up offensive roles with the rebellion, 10% desert to take up passive roles and just "be with their families," and the remaining 80% remains on their posts. Whether they will actually fight or not remains to be seen.
Slowly, hostilities begin to break out as rebels stage daring raids on armories. The GPS network is switched into 'secure' mode - all non-military access is denied (yes, this can be done and is an integral feature of the network.) The government decides to stage a crushing counterattack and the vast majority of the military is dispatched to urban centers, while aircraft and missiles are dispatched to perform three tasks: To completely level areas where rebel sentiment appears strongest, to destroy armories/bases which have been "lost", and to destroy media outlets. The results of this push are up to you to decide as is the way the rest of the conflict plays out.
My thoughts are as follows:
The vast majority of military personnel would have significant problems firing upon other Americans willingly. The media would take significant damage, and any military installations that had fallen would easily be obliterated. Those ordered to take out civilian populations would likely either destroy their own weapons, commit suicide, or defect. Through these means, the rebels would magically obtain access to some pretty high-tech gear; fighters, bombers, maybe a ship or two. They'd only be useful once because of the fact that no additional ordinance is available (well, some was probably captured at some point, but chances are it's hundreds of miles away and logistics aren't terribly good.) As soon as federal forces were faced with their own aircraft dropping things on their heads, airports would become priority targets; carpet application of bunker-buster and runway-buster munitions to most FAA-registered runways would probably be quick and accomplished without significant losses due to defection and rebel action.
From there, it becomes a messy ground war; heavy support units (navy, air force) would be practically ineffective for two reasons: First, there are no fixed installations remaining. All that's left for them is scorched earth (destroying facilities that are abandoned or captured) and saturation-bombing rebel forces/innocent civilians; which most of them would have HUGE problems doing. Armored divisions would suffer severely due to improvised explosives. Both armor and infantry would suffer extremely high turnover rates due to the fact that they're being faced with mobs of their countrymen giving them two options: Join us, or die. Eventually, whenever actual combat was initiated, federal losses would exceed 50% because of the combination of their own forces and raw civilian numbers. The rebellion would eventually prevail, primarily due to the military turnover rates. Without that factor, they wouldn't stand an icecube's chance in hell.
However, after everything is said and done, the country would be virtually devoid of (usable):
Airports
Military installations of any sort
Bridges
Highways
Schools (natural rallying points for rebel units; they're large, tend to have open areas)
Stadiums
Universities
Hospitals (sad but true)
Usable military hardware (the feds would fight to the last man, and the equipment the rebels had obtained would be in poor repair)
Electricity
Oil refineries
TV
Radio
Internet (actually, damage to this infratructure would be relatively minimal, but it's worthless without electricity)
Retail stores (Present but non-working due to lack of power and damaged highway infrastructure and looting)
Grocery stores (Same conditions as retail)
Commerce in general (Same as retail)
Industry in general (Same as retail)
In short, a bunch of people who just won a war against the most powerful military force in the world, but at the cost of... Their lives. Casualty rates would likely be higher in post-war than during the war itself. The rebel government, with the aid of overseas nations and Canada would try to establish a power center, and fail because of the complete lack of infrastructure. Any relief efforts would be ineffective because of the large landmass and lack of infrastructure. Those who survive would either become hermits or move to a civilized country as opposed to one that had just bombed itself back into the stone age. Canada and Mexico would eventually reach an agreement with each other and the UN about the annexation of the neutral, nearly uninhabited territory that lies between them.
The world in general would be in recession. The computer industry would likely survive fairly well, AMD, Intel, nVidia and ATI having most of their fabs overseas and hopefully having the sense to GET OUT before they got blown to bits, and the rest of the industry being based in Asia anyway, but the biggest customer for a number of industries would be gone, and the supplies required to keep other industries afloat would have dissapeared.
Terrorism would have a field day; what with vast nuclear arsenals that remained relatively untouched during the revolution lying in the wastelands. Canada and Mexico would likely lead initiatives in the UN to protect and extract that which they can (most of the arsenal lies in Arizona, New Mexico, and North Dakota, within easy reach of those two nations) before they fall into the wrong hands, but plenty would anyway. Europe, Russia, Japan, Taiwan, and Australia would suddenly be awash in surplus naval assets as naval crews would either scuttle their vessels at sea before abandoning them or simply pull into port and surrender them to the government. The USS Nimitz would eventually make one helluva cruise ship.
Eventually, the dust would settle, and the world would be a different place. Ultimately, world peace would be achieved generations later as people begin to move back into the wasteland and see first-hand the devastation. Maybe.
Of course, this is all hypothetical. Share your thoughts.
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