Bitarch’s Column
Opponents of the idea of armed struggle against the state often discourage people from it by frightening them with the power of the state’s army. In reality, however, it can be considered that the state has no army at all! And this is not an exaggeration — it is simply unfit for this task. Only the lightly armed police and Rosgvardia will be able to realistically oppose anti-etatist fighters.
Below is an excerpt from a popular book about the decline of the era of territorial states, which every libertarian should certainly read!
“Facing armed resistance from the occupied population, the Germans soon discovered that it was the most modern components of their armed forces that were the most useless. Until then, their tanks, artillery, fighters, and bombers had experienced no particular difficulty in smashing the world’s most advanced armies to pieces (including the armies of three leading world powers, whose forces significantly exceeded their own), but, facing small detachments of partisans who were not an army, did not wear military uniforms, did not fight in open battle and tended to dissolve either into the rural landscape or among the surrounding population, the German troops found themselves completely bewildered. Like other conquerors after them, the Germans learned the lesson that when conducting counter-insurgency operations, practically the only forces that could prove useful were lightly armed police, infantry, mountain troops, special forces, signal troops and, above all, intelligence of all kinds. All of them had to move on foot or using light vehicles, preferably those that could move across rugged terrain. Outside of cities, they could be reinforced by reconnaissance aircraft, and in those rare cases when the enemy managed to be caught by surprise and forced into open battle — by a small number of artillery pieces and tanks. And there was no room in these operations for the pride of the Wehrmacht — tank and mechanized divisions, and moreover, since the scale of the operations was very small, for any divisions at all.
Martin van Creveld “The Rise and Decline of the State,” p. 485
The discovery made by the Germans (and to a lesser but significant extent by their Japanese allies) during the Second World War has since been repeated by practically all major armed forces in the world. Some of the first to encounter guerrilla warfare at the very beginning of the postwar period were the French and the English. In terms of brutality, their operations were far from those of the Germans; and yet, especially regarding French actions in Indochina and Algeria, they were ruthless enough. In both countries, the attempt by the French, using the most modern weapons available to them, to re-establish control over their colonies led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people and the destruction by fire and sword of entire villages and even regions. Although the English did not go so far (the largest number of civilian casualties in their colonial campaigns was approximately 10,000 people during the fighting in Kenya), they also frequently resorted to the death penalty, torture, and destroyed entire villages, whose inhabitants were relocated to concentration camps! Just like the Germans, the English and French armed forces discovered that it was precisely the most powerful weapons and weapon systems that were the most useless, being either too expensive, too fast, too large, too inaccurate, too indiscriminate, or all of the above simultaneously. As for the most powerful weapon, i.e., nuclear, it was simply inapplicable against an enemy whose forces were so dispersed and so elusive”
Ancap-chan’s Comment
To be honest, specifically in Russia, it is not particularly easier for people to realize that they won’t be smeared across the asphalt by tanks, but will instead be limited to being smeared across the asphalt by clubs. Meanwhile, there are more carriers of clubs and other light weaponry, specifically hired for war against their own citizens, in Russia than there are those hired or conscripted for war with foreign powers. So I would emphasize not so much how poorly these forces are equipped and how ineffective their tactics are, but how motivated they are — this is precisely the key factor in deterring armed civilian protest.