The point you guys continue to ignore, for obvious reasons, is that the Taliban secured the unconditional surrender of US forces. They did it without WMDs or even any air support. How do square that reality with your WMD requirements fantasy?
How do you square your fantasy? Countries facing an existential threat don't give up and walk away. We got defeated in Vietnam, because we could walk away. Soviets in Afghanistan. British in India and America. Your hypothetical civil war isn't something the United States government or its military forces could walk away from. Even the Basque have a better chance than the Michigan Militia fantasy scenario, because at least theoretically France and Spain could let them win and their countries would exist largely intact. You're going to have to render the United States armed forces incapable of fighting back, either by your backyard armaments or by convincing enough soldiers to stage a coup in defense of the Constitution, to which they swore their oath. You'll certainly find people within those ranks who will do that under the right circumstances, but they will likely be ineffective unless military leadership decides to jump in.
This is a common foundation for the fantasy of military power - despite the indisputable fact it's been disproven.
Can the military walk away from it? Well, turns out that military operations on US soil are against the law except in very narrow circumstances (18 U.S. Code § 1385). It would be quite the needle to thread to get the military to accept orders for offensive action against US citizens on US soil. Here's a fun fact, when I was in they did a study that seemed like everyone in the military was required to participate. They asked us if so ordered, would we attack a US city/state? They've done this a few times I'm aware of and the results typically fall in the range of 30% to 50% saying they would not. Think about it, you got some guy from Kansas City taking a bomber through his childhood neighborhood and dropping ordinance, he's pretty much not going to do it. Nor would a soldier or marine go house to house on a search and destroy mission with the people he knew growing up inside. You would get people that refuse those orders and they would likely have the legal cover to do so since they are almost certainly illegal orders. But if they were legal, you still ain't getting soldiers and airmen to kill their neighbors, the only question is how many?
Let's just take the low end, 30% would refuse to kill their fellow citizens. Do you know what percentage starts degrading combat effectiveness. 30%. The range varies but with 50% to 69% of the military available and willing, the US military will be struggling or fail to accomplish objectives. They would start this fantasy civil war already teetering on the edge of combat effectiveness. The US has about 1.4 million people in its military. At 30% it would be down to just under a million. The US has over 17 million veterans, many are combat tested and trained on the same equipment the US military is using. If only 10% of them joined the war and fought, it would be essentially number parity or slight advantage to the non-government forces. Plus, they would be armed with the deadliest weapon ever to grace the battlefield, the AR15. Not to mention all the civilians that would join in.
Look, if the Taliban was able to force the US to surrender when they're using nothing more than rusty AKs and sketchy IEDs and have the training of a 5th-century goat herder, then a well trained and motivated force like the US veterans in the civilian population is going to be a hell of a thing to handle. It would make the first civil war seem tame by comparison.
That's the beauty of the second amendment, people like you cannot enslave others by force. If you try, the cost will be so high as to make success unpalatable.
