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Thread: War on the cheap?

  1. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
    That means creating a reality of defeat that the enemy understands and fears.
    The problem is that no one likes to be defeated, and they're not defeated unless they quit, so if you don't offer an opportunity to save face, they don't quit.

    The Sunnis in Iraq are a good example. They never surrendered. They forced us to offer them a deal. Which goes back to my original point. Unless you start killing women and children in retaliation for not surrendering, ""legitimate, discriminate, poportional force doesn't produce unambigious results.

    (As before, I'm open to counter examples that prove I'm wrong.) Actually, I guess I should add "without the support of the population." If you accept that the objective of the first gulf war was to remove the Iraqis from Kuwait, we had Kuwaiti support and a definitive victory. If you had broader objectives, the results were more ambiguous.
    Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
    Sometimes it takes someone without deep experience to think creatively.

  2. #22
    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rank amateur View Post
    The problem is that no one likes to be defeated, and they're not defeated unless they quit, so if you don't offer an opportunity to save face, they don't quit.

    The Sunnis in Iraq are a good example. They never surrendered. They forced us to offer them a deal. Which goes back to my original point. Unless you start killing women and children in retaliation for not surrendering, ""legitimate, discriminate, poportional force doesn't produce unambigious results.
    If someone has an option not to quit, then they are clearly not defeated. Defeat means "choosing not to continue." Any situation that allows options, other than quitting, is not a defeat. If they choose to continue, then no decision.

    The IRA never surrendered, but they gave up the armed struggle. Communists in Malaya are also an example.
    Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"

    - The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
    Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition

  3. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
    The IRA never surrendered, but they gave up the armed struggle.
    Correct, but not because of force, because of a political settlement. (The use of force may have made them willing to accept a settlement, but force didn't produce an unambiguous victory by the unionists.)
    Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
    Sometimes it takes someone without deep experience to think creatively.

  4. #24
    Council Member Ron Humphrey's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rank amateur View Post
    Correct, but not because of force, because of a political settlement. (The use of force may have made them willing to accept a settlement, but force didn't produce an unambiguous victory by the unionists.)
    One would think that physically turning your guns the other way and actively working towards the coalitions goals of reconciliation with opposition groups entails a little more than just political change.

    If someone is going north and you require them to go south then you could:

    1- Force them to turn around or else
    2- Require them to turn around by blocking all other directions with immovable barriers
    3- Ask them and do so in such a way as to show that it is truly in their best interest to do so

    No one is the final answer nor do any guarantee success in that; one leaves no one to turn around, another requires resources to build the barriers, and the third requires skill sets which may not be inherent within ones force. That however doesn't change the fact that all are options.

  5. #25
    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rank amateur View Post
    The use of force may have made them willing to accept a settlement, but force didn't produce an unambiguous victory by the unionists
    Well that's all the use of force you require. Force is never an ends in itself. It's a tool. Fail to use it properly and you don't get the results you want.

    ....and it denied the (P)IRA the victory they had been seeking.
    Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"

    - The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
    Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition

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    Council Member clayton's Avatar
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    Default Scholarly article on military occupations

    The security studies community has also been looking at the issue of the effects of the amount of force used in counterinsurgencies and stability operations. In the Summer 2004 edition of International Security, a Georgetown University professor examined the likelihood of military occupations succeeding based on an analysis of twenty-four historical cases. In the article, he touches upon some of the points made by people like William Owen and Ken White in this thread. Here is an example:
    Occupations are more likely to succeed when they follow a destructive military victory that has eviscerated prewar political, economic, and social institutions. Such a victory increases the likelihood of success for two reasons. First, destructive military victory demonstrates that the pre-occupation regime can no longer deliver vital needs to the population, and thereby reduces the number of loyalists to that regime. Starting from a clean slate with no lingering elements of the pre-occupation regime, the occupying power is more likely to be able to convince the occupied population that the future under and after an occupation will be better than the bitter wartime past.Once the occupation begins strategies to eliminate the influence of the pre-occupation regime, such as denazification in post–World War II Germany, can clear the way for a successful occupation.
    Second, if an occupied territory has been destroyed by war, then the population is more likely to accept the occupation as a necessary evil. Without the occupying power’s help, the country may never be able to rebuild....
    The author does go on to list several important qualifiers to this statement. You do have to sort through the rather longish and dense article to get to some of the nuggets. Here is the link: http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/d...%20hazards.pdf

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