Hard to imagine they would be able to do anything but delay the inevitable. The colonists had massive technological and organizational advantages. Sooner or later a proper army would come.
I am pretty certain that the large military powers at the time (England, France certainly Prussia) had standing armies already. So I would be highly surprised that the founders did not anticipate armies as a permanent institution. That would be a pretty big blind spot, considering they already existed.
Some colonial Americans had armed ships. "No standing army" is hard to overemphasize; the defenders of the country were merely good citizens rather than a small class of professional full-time soldiers.
It's not a question of "defeat". It's a question of control, whether that be control of infrastructure, control of territory, etc., and the advantage there lies with professional militaries.
Properly supplied and constructed, lines of control can be established that are nearly impregnable against the kind of assault a militia could hope to muster, especially considering that they won't have close air support like the military will.
More to the point, even during the American Revolutionary War itself a great proportion of the people had better things to do than join the militia or the Continental Army to overthrow the British. Many were avowed patriots. Some were Loyalists who were willing to fight for King and country. But most just wanted to get on with their lives and didn't do much to support or harass either side, and the effect would be even worse nowadays.
I mean if you could get 120 million militia in one spot to attack somewhere, that place would likely fall if only due to running out of ammunition. But 120 million people in one spot, fighting a military, is something that would not long last once the artillery and bombers are vectored in.
They had all the resources to wreak havoc, occupy and keep hundreds of millions in factory-feudalism. They would have drafted half the world to wage their wars if necessary.
But certainly a match for any internal resistance militia that may rise up. Even this out dates tech, if maintained, could help stop the probable uprisings in certain providences.
I get the feeling that if we were in real fear of the Brits trying to reclaim the land, and an untrained militia had a chance of being useful, this might go over just fine.
Without an army to defend your borders the government from which you claim independence could just remove you by force... You would have problems to trade so you would have to be completely self sufficient with food, energy etc.
You kind of need to reach some critical mass to be able to organize a functioning nation. Getting to city-states could be viable, but I don't think it can go much farther.
Wouldn't the "military" only group be able to terrorize the agriculture only as well as the ag plus military ones? Something akin to the Danes at one point? They could just build it up so that they could go pillaging indefinitely, so long as they don't outright destroy their target civs.
No single fortress would have lasted 8 years of constant fighting while being surrounded. Having a fortress increases the cost of conflict but unless support shows up they don't really help over the long term. Because, the enemy can wait for you to starve while they bring in new supply's.
Clearly we would have lost more people and it would have taken longer to overthrow the government but as individual technology improves the ability for an insurgency to last as an effective fighting force increases.
Any invasion force on land would have to attack either from Mexico or from Canada. I don't see it as remotely probable.
An invasion force with a slightest chance of success would have massive seaborne and airborne components, along with armor, and would start with a massive aerial and missile attack at the area of prospective invasion. This is not something a well-regulated militia with small arms would be effective against. If the current war in Europe is any indication, small arms are not even effective against armed consumer-grade drones.
What a militia might be efficient against could be e.g. short-term incursions by drug cartels, or similar.
The issue is that while someone is building an army, the rest of the world might stand by and do nothing in hopes that the army won't be used, via appeasement and negotiation, particularly if the world's culture is strongly set against having armies. At least until the aggressor starts conquering. That's how it tends to play out historically, so countries and kingdoms go to the trouble and expense of having standing armies, or being able to call them up quickly enough. Because there's always potentially someone who gains power that wants more, and plenty of people willing to follow.
An army of super soldiers would still take somewhere around 20 years to produce, and would cost a substantial amount of money. Said army would certainly not come as a surprise to anyone.
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