Quote Originally Posted by Chris jM View Post
In an ideal world, yes. The ideal world being where the infantry are deployed to the higher-intensity areas where the mission sees the close-with, seek-out, sieze-and-hold sorta stuff. Unfortunately the west lacks the quantity of expeditionary police forces and military police forces to be able to specialise in such a way. Thus infantry and, and most likely will continue to be, on the checkpoints and on stability (presence?!?) patrols through populated areas. Do we create a specialised 'less lethal' position in each patrol, or just factor the less lethal capability into our existing infantry tool-kit?
If we lack the right tools for the job due to cost, personnel strengths or other shortfalls, we probably should acquire the proper toools OR not undertake the job at all...

I suggest we in the west really need to ask ourselves exactly what we think we're doing in our interventions?

Most such interventions by general purpose western forces are undertaken due to a small 'l' liberal desire to make things better -- those same people then turn around and criticize such interventions as militaristic neo-colonialism etc. etc. and cry for them to end prematurely. That makes no sense. Not only is it not ideal -- doesn't need to be, BTW -- it's dumb.

Right off the top of my head, I cannot think of a single such intervention by western forces that was truly worth the cost and effort. Do you know any?

Do not take that as saying the west should not get involved, that's not what I said, not at all. I believe there should be more involvement. It should be undertaken earlier, should be intelligence driven (we do that fairly well, we just don't act on the intel at all well); involve aid, diplomatic efforts and limited special forces-like military assistance -- anything to avoid committing the GPF who will never do it well (nor should they be able to do so)...
What we can do is clearly define the less lethal weapons/ ammo natures, train the users and commanders and then rely on proper judgement and employment by the operators.
Umm, are these the same Commanders who cannot be trusted to properly conduct patrol and show presence in such interventions?

Seriously, I understand and you're regrettably correct given current realities but it is a slippery slope and best avoided -- and the non-lethal weapons should never be the only weapon issued and should be clearly identifiable as non-lethal -- just as the bearer's other weapon(s) should be lethal and clearly identifiable as such.