Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
Finally one complication that should be very familiar in your neighbourhood; the replacement leaders tend to be more extreme, aggressive and young than the original ones.
OK, but since you can never tell the future, that's not a reason not to do it. The times where it does turn out to be counter-productive are not foreseeable and are very rare.
So yes, killing an enemy leader may actually be counter-productive.
Imagine Alexander had killed Darius in the first battle; someone better, less cowardly, might have replaced Darius and bested Alexander in the next battle.
Can you give me an actual example? - Which the enemy could have reasonably predicted?
Killing leaders is no surefire thing to anything if the enemy organization has prepared for this contingency. Think of the thousands of officers lost in battle during the World Wars. Organizations can often replace such losses - and even raise the competence level while doing so.
Nothing is war is "surefire." Killing enemy commanders is 9 out of 10 times works, and works well. There is simply no body of evidence to suggest it is not something you should not pursue aggressively.
To kill more enemies isn't necessarily leading to a significantly better end state anyway. Few (para)military powers of history seem to have lasted till their point of total destruction.
Sure. The German Army was 1 Million plus men when it surrendered, but it's will to fight was broken and killing achieved 90% of that.
The exhaustion is linked to attrition AND replacements - any move that adds more to replacements than to attrition is not going to help.
Sure. Tell Hannibal. Sooner or later you have to break the collective will to fight. You have to destroy more than they can replace and/or destroy the replacement mechanism.
The physical destruction of Taliban may be necessary for the mopping up phase, but it would likely be a minor contributor to a turn of the war's course.
The best way to "defend a population" is to kill those people seeking to harm it.
Quote Originally Posted by Rex Brynen View Post
There's no clear and unequivocal answer to this issue--the impact of leadership assassination (whether by drone or otherwise) is entirely contextually dependent.
Agreed, but the context which makes counter-productive is rarely if ever foreseeable.
On the other hand, it can backfire. It can be seen by the local population as a violation of local sovereignty. It can cause radicalization. It can be used as an aid to recruitment. It can have unforeseen second and third order effects. It can result in even more skilled leaders emerging, as Fuchs notes (Hizbullah/Nasrallah being a case in point). It can cause ###-for-tat killings, an expansion of the geography of confrontation, or uncontrolled escalation.
Agreed, but all unknowable, but never a reason not do it.
....earn their pay by doing some solid analytical thinking about costs, benefits, precedents, and contingencies, rather than reflexively adhering to the position that leadership assassination is always "good" or "bad."
It's not a reflex. Evidence shows that 90% of the time it is better rather than worse, and the times when it is worse cannot be predicted with any certainty.