Originally Posted by AmateurFlix

Uhm, yes, our military is fighting in Iraq right now, so that does seem a worthy comparison

Now under some circumstances in which the gov't was willing to render our entire countryside uninhabitable for the next several millennia or more with nukes, then yes in that case they would undoubtedly "win", if you want to call it that.

However that set of circumstances seems extremely unlikely. People who want to gain an undue amount of power, probably would want to have power over something other than a nuclear wasteland. Which leaves them to conventional warfare such as is taking place right now in Iraq, with the exception that we have a much larger population that would be better armed than the Iraqis