The problem with these cases is that you are trying to compare how regimes behave in their own backyards with how the US or any other western nation can behave in a foreign country. The lessons of what Mugabe was able to get away with are not tenable for American armed forces in Afghanistan, for example. Perhaps the conclusion you want to make is that it is very difficult for a foreign power to deal successfully with insurgencies and rebellions because they cannot, in the end, utilize the sort of force necessary to defeat them. In this case, the example would be the Japanese in China during WWII and their infamous "Three Alls" campaign -- which made the Rape of Nanking seem like a loving embrace. Despite every form of brutality applied against the Chinese population they continued to contest the Japanese occupation of their country, bleeding the IJA white and softening up the enemy to the best advantage of the Allies in the war as a whole. At the end of the day, the historical record significantly favors the foreign army that is intelligent and as benign as possible in its treatment of the locals.

And for what it's worth, whatever reprieve Mugabe has gained for his regime, the brutality he has visited upon segments of his country will be repaid at some point. Unfortunately, it will likely result in even greater chaos and brutality for that country, to nobody's benefit.

Finally, I do not agree with your conclusion that the concessions that must be made by a foreign power in order to win are pyrrhic. Again, I look to WWII, and the tremendously effective post-hostilities COIN campaign that was conducted in Germany/Western Europe and Japan. We did end up giving our opponents in the war just about everything they had sought to obtain through force, and it was a smashing success to the ultimate policy aims of the war.

Jill

Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
Exactly... and that is why western or civilised countries can't "win" counterinsurgencies or suppress rebellions.

Take Zimbabwe for example. Mugabe, that darling of western liberals (in the US sense of the word) faced a rebellion of sorts in Matabeleland through the actions of a number of armed dissidents....

Conservative estimates were that Mugabe's (North Korean trained) 5th Brigade killed 30,000 men, women and children until the Matabele population reached tipping point. The Matabele were crushed.

That's the way you do it... and you don't have to fix the political thing because even today if the people of Matabeleland hear of soldiers in the area wearing red berets the whole nation has a collective bowl movement. All you need to say if they become problematic again is "do you some some more of the same"?

Then (in a tamer example) we see Sri Lanka first securing support from China (that great nation with supposedly thousands of years of civilisation but still no human rights conscience) then they too apply a little "poison" to the water in which the (Tamil Tiger) fish were swimming. The rest is history.

That's how you put down rebellions and win counterinsurgency wars... brute force.

Now which western country would dare employ such an approach? So that is why in most cases one has to give away the farm to "win" the war. Always a Pyrrhic victory to be sure.