They didn't defeat the us military lol , there was just no political will to continue a war on the other side of the world with no real value to the American establishment. But in your scenario where the American establishment goes rogue and decides to launch a punitive campaign against its own population that won't be a problem
The US fought a war of attrition for 20 years and finally withdrew, their enemy being in a better position than before the invasion. You wouldn't call that a defeat?
Why exactly do you think that a better armed and much larger force, one that is the economic backing of the military they'd be facing, would stand less of a chance?
Politicians ran on the promise of getting the troops out of Afghanistan. They chose to leave , the Taliban didn't force them to. You're imagining a situation where the government is choosing to bully the population into submission. There are tools far more powerful than guns that they have at their disposal. Cutting off food / water / electricity / internet is a far easier way to threaten a population than attack them with guns. Likewise the real complex work of standing up to authoritarianism requires organization , thought and planning more so than just guns. Your idea of a militia standing up to a government is essentially historical cosplay.
> Your idea of a militia standing up to a government is essentially historical cosplay.
I'm not saying it is going to happen, I'm only saying it can happen with an armed population, and cannot happen without an rmed population.
"Political will" is something that happens in populations, not a leadership class. The US chose to end a war of attrition because they lost. Plain and simple.
In the event of some domestic problem going that far there would be basically no political will to continue military action, and if the government continued without that it would quickly be viewed as illegitimate, lead to instability and a larger uprising.
