Rhodesian COIN (consolidated thread, inc original RLI)

[Rex Brynen]

While I don't want to divert this thread into a political discussion, it is worth pointing out that, in at least two ways, the high Rhodesian kills rates achieved against ZANLA and ZIPRA were politically problematic.

First of all, the military success achieved against black nationalist guerillas appears to have blinded many in the the Rhodesian government to what had been perfectly obvious since 1965: that, in the end, the Rhodesian experiment with white minority rule was doomed to eventual failure. By delaying the point of implementing one person, one vote it ended up weakening Rhodesian negotiating power (which would have been far stronger in, say, 1967 than it was at Lancaster House, by which time Rhodesia had become almost universally reviled). At the same time the war actually strengthened ZAPU and ZANU relative to other potential political forces in the country (much as the wars in Vietnam, Algeria, Mozambique, or Yemen strengthened the Viet-Minh, FLN, Frelimo, and NLF/YSP).

Second, Rhodesia's external operations—while hugely successful in a narrow military sense, with kill rates of up to 3000:2 in Op Dingo—also served to weaken rather than strengthen the country's international position, and thereby increased external pressure. Certainly those in the international anti-Apartheid movement at the time saw them as a political godsend, facilitating efforts to paint Rhodesia as a rogue, racist state.

While there's no doubt that ISAF ROE could be tweaked in a variety of useful ways, the political reality is that if ISAF started racking up similar kills rates, greater civilian casualties, and conducting major raids into Pakistan it would have the effect of undermining US domestic and international support for the counterinsurgency, weaken Karzai, alienate Pakistan, and probably increase Taliban recruitment rates. As Wilf and Ken are inclined to remind us, the military is an instrument of policy, and wars are fought in a context. There's no point undertaking operations that win battles at the cost of losing the broader political-military struggle.

On a side issue, might I also suggest that we start referring to the black Zimbabweans killed in the war as ZANLA, ZIPRA, "black nationalist guerillas," or something else a little more appropriate than terrs and gooks? SWJ has always frowned on the use of "gooks" for the Viet-Cong, "ragheads" or "hajis" for Iraqis or Afghans, "wogs" in the former British Empire, "kaffirs" for blacks, "stücke" or "figuren" for Jews and gypsies, etc,—regardless of whether such derogatory terms were in common use in theatre by the troops of the day.