I’m often asked whether I think that a well-armed civilian population would help this or that country survive were it to be invaded by a hostile force. I usually say that I think it would. Apparently, the president of Ukraine thinks it would, too:
Preparing for the possibility of a large-scale Russian invasion, the Ukrainian government has moved to declare a 30-day state of emergency, grant citizens the right to bear arms, and conscript military reservists between the ages of 18 and 60, adding nearly 200,000 troops to the country’s defense as Russian troops continue to enter the Donbas region.
This is sensible. But it’s also a bit late. By European standards, Ukraine has fairly loose gun laws. And yet, as Stephen Gutowski points out over at The Reload:
The Ministry of Internal Affairs, which currently oversees civilian gun ownership, told Ukrinform in 2021 there were only about 1.3 million civilian-owned guns in the country of 43 million (by contrast American civilians own more than 400 million). And, even if many Ukrainians do resist the invasion by force, it’s unclear how effective they could be as a cohesive fighting force.
Indeed. The advantage of having a well-armed population is diminished a little when that population has been empowered to bear arms a few days before the Russians invade. Gutowski is correct to say that:
the history of warfare is rife with examples of smaller, weaker, and less organized forces besting even the greatest militaries in the world. From the American Revolution to Vietnam, Iraq, and multiple wars in Afghanistan, it isn’t difficult to find templates for how a Ukrainian resistance could eventually prevail if Russia attempts to capture and hold it.
But the chances of an effective resistance would be higher if there were more guns in circulation and more Ukrainians who were accustomed to using them. Whatever other problems may be attached to the United States’s extremely high rate of gun-ownership, a lack of familiarity with firearms is not among them. Hell, I suspect that, if pushed, the State of Florida could fight off an invasion simply by relying on a handful of my neighbors and the contents of my safe.