Hi Troufion,
Interesting questions and, being in a somewhat philosopnical mood for the nonce, I'll take a stab at them.
First off, I do happen to agree with the Churchill quote; it is not only "unphilosophic", it is idiotic on the same level of idiocy as that expressed by groups such as the more extremist members of PETA.
Let's look at your questions in order.
I have a touch of a problem with the underlying assumption of the word "valid" - it implies "truth", "truthfulness" or "right action", an implication that I think is probably at odds with the question. If we take it as meaning "correct" in the sense of "the most effective action in order to achieve our objectives", the the question an only be answered on a case by case basis. It certainly has been the case, at least in military conventions, when applied to property destruction in order to break he national will of a civilian population and exert a form of "control" over that population. At the same time, it has also been applied in civilian law enforcement settings if "destruction" is taken as "the removal of X [property] from use by Y [person]". So there do appear to be some cases where it is the "correct" (i.e. judged to be most effective) action to take to control a populace.Is property destruction a valid means of population control?
There are other cases where it certainly does not appear to be the correct action having, if you will, the opposite effect on the population. This certainly seems to be the case on current COIN operations, although I fully suspect that this situation arises, in part, from the fact that current COIN ops are being conducted by foreign governments rather than local governments (i.e. property destruction is not part of the socio-cultural matrix of local "law" - it is being conducted by "outsiders").
Again, with the caveats on the word "valid", I think it is a situation of examining it on a case by case basis, as well as defining "punitive action". In general, "punitive action" can range from limitations of freedoms (e.g. curfews, forced registrations, etc.) through property destruction / appropriation and forced relocations (e.g. Malaysia) to decimation and annihilation.Is punitive action valid?
In general, "punitive action" is in response to some action taken by an opponent; it is an effect whose "cause" is an opponents initial action modified by my "likely" reaction. Thus, for example, if I know that unit X has a bunch of people in it with hair trigger fingers, I will try shooting at them from a crowd to evoke a specific reaction that I will then use to achieve my greater ends. In this case, the "punitive action" of returning fire does not have a "punitive" effect thereby rendering it "invalid". This is the type of thing that is encapsulated in the paradoxes in FM 3-24 and Kilcullen's 28 articles (it's also what Hizbollah did to the IDF).
But if we take this thinking further, truly punitive action causes damage to one side. So what types of punitive action can be taken against insurgent groups? Well, property destruction per se is probably contra-indicated since building a population infrastructure is one of the goals. How about the redistribution of property (think about LE auctions on confiscated goods but do it by locally run lotteries amongst the poor)? Rather than detention (solely) on captured low-level fighters, many of whom were co-erced anyway, why not have them engage in reconstruction activities? The idea behind these is not to apply a concept of retributive justice but, rather, one of restorative justice.
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