What about this kind of small wars?

I just stumbled upon an article by the German magazine "Der Spiegel" about hooliganism in Polands capital Warszaw. Bad enough that two gangs whose members kill each other regularly have a stranglehold over the city and that law enforcment agencies seem rather powerless to stop them. But next year Poalnd and the Ukraine will organize the European Football Championship. It's easy to conceive that with the police unable or unwilling to stop there will be deaths. Especially when the Germans qualify...

http://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball...784247,00.html

Sorry, the article is in German.

Let's not conflate this like we've conflated what should be handled by police/law enforcement, CT if necessary, and intelligence services for the past 10 years rather than military force. Hooliganism, like terrorism, is a crime and the Global "War" on Terror aside, should be handled as such. Unless of course you subscribe to the idea that because Poland is a vital national interest to the US because they're a bulwark against a resurgent Russia, we need to deploy our military forces there to nation-build a more robust state to withstand hooliganism to a point that the ANSF...I mean Polish Nat'l Security Forces can do it alone. Which will take 20 years. Give or take.

If the police have lost control of the city, that constitutes a small war, in my view. It ceases to be criminal action and becomes an inherently political situation. After all, surely the core function of the state is under threat?

In Europe and other places football or soccer-related violence can be a regular activity. Invariably the violence is match or time specific and venue or location specific, admittedly the numbers involved can vary, but for the police knowing when and where is a great help. Even in the worst times the violence has never IMHO come close to control over a city being lost.

There are ways to control the violence, the simple use of matches played without spectators for example.

European level matches can attract a higher level of violence, sometimes even when the match is played elsewhere - seen at first-hand in Barcelona, Spain in May 2010 and helped as IIRC Barcelona won.

In the last European Cup series, IIRC held jointly in France and Germany, there was limited violence; sadly with one dead police officer. I doubt that the Polish and Ukrainian police cannot control the violence, indeed would venture their tactical options being harsher will dampen any violence.

Davidfpo

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Invariably the violence is match or time specific and venue or location specific, admittedly the numbers involved can vary, but for the police knowing when and where is a great help.

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I disagree with you on this point mentioned above. You are right insofar as violence of Hooligans normally erupts around the football matches and that the police can take actions to seperate the different groups. Or at least it is perceived to be like that.... The article from "Der Spiegel" tells a different story. Hooliganism is no longer a problem that can be narrowed to to football or any other specific sport. Warszaw is acutally partitioned into territories which "belongs" to one or the other group. And if one enters the territory of the other group they go after him and probably kill him.

But there is another point. Even in Switzerland hooligan violence can no longer be solely attributed to the sports events. Sadly enough that even in Switzerland we need some hundreds of policemen every weekend to avoid clashes (notably in a country with on of the lowest police officiers to inhabitants rates, at least in Europe). But during the last weeks a different phenomenon has emerged in Zurich. Groups of youths gathering on Friday's and Saturday's evenings to riot in the city. Everytime they gahtered under the pretext of organising a public party. Among them were a considerable number of hooligans from the local football clubs. And the level of aggression against the law enforcemtn officers was appallingly high.

So what I want to say is that hooligan violence no longer can be considered as a time and place specific event, but that the different groups follow a agenda where they fight for influence and power not only among the hooligan gangs but also as the example Waszwaw shows among the population of a city which they terrorize - also because the police no longer takes action against them.

PS. I hope my point is clear enough. I'm sorry if my English is a bit clumsy.:o

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Originally Posted by Markus

If the police have lost control of the city, that constitutes a small war, in my view. It ceases to be criminal action and becomes an inherently political situation. After all, surely the core function of the state is under threat?

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I agree once police have lost control it is time to step it up.

I feel the public should be alert and help the cops to fight these violence. Id do not understand why one section of people is always trying to make life difficult to the other. It is really bad