Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
population decline. However, I suspect the 'enemy' KIA count would suddenly climb...
As you would expect, preferably with command sanction. My read of Shu Han's expedition to Nanzhong is that ROE was very loose; she burned thousands of insurgents and civilians alive when the fighting took the villages, but quickly turned the survivors loose with some sort of reparation for their hardship. I ask the question to find out to what extent detention and ROE restrictions mutually interact to advance or deter pacifying an insurgent populace. I also get the impression the COIN camp focuses on ROE at the expense of other means in which to assuage enmity within the host population. So, could a more liberal detention policy offset the impact of a more robust firefight?