Protectorates, colonization, and failed states

[ZOmegaZ]

My knowledge of history and geopolitics is better than most random people, but worse than most people I see posting here. So I'm hoping that maybe someone can tell me why this idea is terrible.

The way I see it, failed states are one of the big challenges of the world this decade. The whole world order is based on the idea that each state has exclusive control of its territory, and that you do not promote border change in another country (unless you're Russia). But things start to break down with areas like Iraq and Syria and Lybia, where the central government can not control much of its own territory. I would argue that ISIL would not be able to form in an environment where a strong central government existed. Lesser but similar problems could be argued to exist in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Mexico, and many other areas.

For example, the government of Damascus can't control the territory of Syria, and they're not likely to ever be able to again. That failure to control the territory has directly lead to ISIL's numerous crimes, the further destabilization of Iraq, and a tremendous refugee crisis that threatens to overwhelm all neighboring states. It's to nobody's interest for failed states to continue. I think we're at a point where we need a new structure in place to encourage border changes in a case like this, especially when many world borders were arbitrarily drawn by external powers to start with.

I propose that the world community (presumably through the UN) should declare Syria and Iraq to no longer control their defined territories. Each should be divided into territories that are controlled by various groups that can be recognized as states on a provisional basis. Shia Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan, Syrian Kurdistan, the territories Damascus controls, anything that could reasonably be treated as a stable unit. The rest should be declared to be a protectorate of some local power. For example, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and/or Iran, depending on who makes sense in each region.

The protectorates would have very clear rules, including strong and continuous international oversight. The goal would be to prepare the protectorates for independence, with a defined roadmap to that end. Natural resources could be exploited in a reasonable manner, with the foreign power keeping a defined fraction of the profits, and the rest going to the protectorate itself. When the area was stabilized and able to execute its own business, it could then decide its own fate: independence, re-merging with other states, remaining associated with the foreign power, or some other arrangement.

I understand that what I'm proposing is functionally a new form of colonialism, which is fraught with all sorts of historical difficulties. But I also think that ISIL is basically exploiting a loophole in the rules of our civilization: if the central government of a territory can't stop you, nobody else can either. We need to close that loophole. Tell Turkey that they can functionally keep a large chunk of Syria for the next twenty years if they'll just kill ISIL, and I suspect the whole organization will be dead inside three months.

Now, why am I wrong?

[ArmorPierce]

I don't know if there is enough incentive for local regional powers to act as protectorates. Someone can prove otherwise, but would it make economical sense?

I don't think ISIL will be completely stomped out unless a scorched earth policy is taken which the international community will not allow.

[Simon_Jester]

Now, why am I wrong?

Automatic rifles, nationalism, and the 24-hour news cycle.

In 1930, pretty much the entire Earth was either a colonial protectorate, in danger of becoming a protectorate, or the owner of a protectorate.

However, things were already changing. World War One ended with what Churchill described as "a drizzle of empires, falling through the air." There were about nine multi-ethnic imperial states (or nations in the process of becoming such) in the developed world before World War One. Some offered some representation to the ethnic minorities on their periphery. Others didn't. In any event, before the war there were about nine; afterward there were about five. And three of those were destroyed or at least had their homelands conquered and ruined by World War Two.

Colonial peoples in the remaining empires took notice of this. Empires were not indestructible. With courage and determination, a people that wanted their own country could have one.

Moreover, most of those colonial empires had been founded at a time when only the colonialist powers had any modern weapons, or when only colonialist powers knew how to use modern weapons effectively. If the only armies in the world that know how to use muskets effectively are European armies, then European armies can conquer vast populations easily. And it was entirely correct for the British to note in the late 1880s, as Hilaire Belloc noted in a poem:

"Whatever happens, we have got the Maxim gun, and they have not."

It's easy to maintain an empire with rifles when your subject population is mostly armed with swords and spears, and cannot hope to make or obtain enough guns to replace those swords and spears.

But by 1920, assembly line production of modern rifles and explosives (including a mass of WWI surplus) was beginning to influence that, and the effect grew massive and overwhelming after World War Two. So in the post-WWII era, it became impossible to stop a motivated population from creating a guerilla movement that could hide among the general populace and snipe at your occupying soldiers, or plant bombs that would blow it up.

Now, nationalist rebellions against an imperial attempt to rule your country are not a new thing; they date back at least as far as Vercingetorix's campaigns against Caesar. But as illustrated by what Caesar did to Vercingetorix and the Gauls, the usual response was massive brutality. After World War I (to some extent) and after World War II and the Holocaust (to a greater extent), European powers mostly lost the willingness to kill a hundred thousand people to preserve their rule over a territory. There were exceptions to that rule, but the pattern was clear. Moreover, thanks to modern medicine, populations were already starting to increase in certain parts of the colonialized world- they were more able to absorb the loss of ten thousand or fifty thousand or even hundreds of thousands of fighting men, if that was the price of their liberty.

All these forces were in play and caused the collapse of the European colonial empires in the 1950s and '60s.

And they are STILL in play... which is why no major nation, including the US, has tried to recreate empires along that pattern. It's just too dangerous. The minute anyone in the nation you hold as a 'protectorate' decides to start a nationalist revolt against you, you're almost certainly going to lose your protectorate. And if you fight to hold onto it for any length of time... you will also lose vast sums of money and the lives of many soldiers.

So at this point if I were, for example, Turkey, and someone said "you can keep a large chunk of Syria for the next twenty years if you'll just kill ISIL..."

I wouldn't take that offer on a bet. Too dangerous.

[Honorius]

The FSA will not allow Assad to keep his territories and who can blame them. Especially after Assad gassed children on live TV. Syrian Kurdistan is non-viable and just as bad as IS, except communist and has no place in this world especially if all it does is serve as base for PKK attacks which it is.

So scratch that ideal. Instead unconditionally back FSA which without any air support whatsoever and without carpet destruction of cities, managed in January of 2014 to take 90% of IS held territory, including Jarabulus, al-Bab, Manbij, Tal Abyad, most of Deir Ezzor, and were on the verge of taking Raqqah when they ran out of steam and IS punched back in late February, early March. YPG by contrast needs air strikes to take out machine gun nests just to advance. Also Kurds don't make up a majority even in supposed Kurdistan.

Give FSA the tools, destroy Assad's Air Force, give it some air support and it will unite Syria.

As for the rest of the partitioning bullshit:

Iraq and Syria are not separated so neatly. Kurds are a minority in Kurdistan with large numbers of Arabs, Assyrians, and Turkmens living there. Substantial Shia populations and Shia shrines are dotted across so called Sunni Provinces. Kirkuk is a historically Turkmen City and the Turkmen are opposed to Kurdish control of it.

The KRG of Iraq actually consists of two shotgunned wedded Mafias. The KDP and PUK, neither of whom like each other, fought a brutal civil war in the 90s and have separate Peshmerga Units who don't coordinate. They also are astonishingly corrupt as fuck. Especially Barzani.

The Syrian PYD is a front for PKK, a terrorist organization and has no place in this world along with IS and a bunch of others.

True, FSA has JAN and a few other AQ aligned groups, but they make up a tiny fraction of the fighting power and like it or not they have the support of the Syrian people who just want Assad gone and IS out so they can live without fear of being blown up or gassed.

The Shias are not united either. The Sadrists hate Iran. The Iranian groups hate Sadrists. Its more complicated than that, but it just gets more fucked up the deeper you go into the tangle of alliances and motivations.

But long story short:

Its a fucking mess however you slice it, thanks to a long string of assholes starting with the original asshole Winston Churchill and a long string of treaties starting with Sykes-Picot and culminating in the San Remo Conference in which the borders were finalized, then followed by a series of foreign policy fuckups that saw any state daring to have democracy as a threat.

The other choice is to pull completely out of the Middle East and let everyone reap what they sowed now rather than later which we'll do anyway.

[The Romulan Republic]

My knowledge of history and geopolitics is better than most random people, but worse than most people I see posting here. So I'm hoping that maybe someone can tell me why this idea is terrible.

The way I see it, failed states are one of the big challenges of the world this decade. The whole world order is based on the idea that each state has exclusive control of its territory, and that you do not promote border change in another country (unless you're Russia). But things start to break down with areas like Iraq and Syria and Lybia, where the central government can not control much of its own territory. I would argue that ISIL would not be able to form in an environment where a strong central government existed. Lesser but similar problems could be argued to exist in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Mexico, and many other areas.

For example, the government of Damascus can't control the territory of Syria, and they're not likely to ever be able to again. That failure to control the territory has directly lead to ISIL's numerous crimes, the further destabilization of Iraq, and a tremendous refugee crisis that threatens to overwhelm all neighboring states. It's to nobody's interest for failed states to continue. I think we're at a point where we need a new structure in place to encourage border changes in a case like this, especially when many world borders were arbitrarily drawn by external powers to start with.

I propose that the world community (presumably through the UN) should declare Syria and Iraq to no longer control their defined territories. Each should be divided into territories that are controlled by various groups that can be recognized as states on a provisional basis. Shia Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan, Syrian Kurdistan, the territories Damascus controls, anything that could reasonably be treated as a stable unit. The rest should be declared to be a protectorate of some local power. For example, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and/or Iran, depending on who makes sense in each region.

The protectorates would have very clear rules, including strong and continuous international oversight. The goal would be to prepare the protectorates for independence, with a defined roadmap to that end. Natural resources could be exploited in a reasonable manner, with the foreign power keeping a defined fraction of the profits, and the rest going to the protectorate itself. When the area was stabilized and able to execute its own business, it could then decide its own fate: independence, re-merging with other states, remaining associated with the foreign power, or some other arrangement.

I understand that what I'm proposing is functionally a new form of colonialism, which is fraught with all sorts of historical difficulties. But I also think that ISIL is basically exploiting a loophole in the rules of our civilization: if the central government of a territory can't stop you, nobody else can either. We need to close that loophole. Tell Turkey that they can functionally keep a large chunk of Syria for the next twenty years if they'll just kill ISIL, and I suspect the whole organization will be dead inside three months.

Now, why am I wrong?

What happens if, say, Turkey doesn't give up that piece of Syria after twenty years? That's a big objection off the top of my head. There's also the negative stigma attached to colonialism (with reason) and the fact that other countries aren't necessarily going to want to pay for this.

[K. A. Pital]

The Syrian PYD is a front for PKK, a terrorist organization and has no place in this world

You seem to repeat "has no place in this world" a lot. You do realize that it doesn't make your argument stronger, just makes me think you are a dumb school kid?

Give FSA the tools, destroy Assad's Air Force, give it some air support and it will unite Syria.

Old story, doesn't get better if you tell it again. This was tried (except for the air support), and it failed. Why continue to support something that fails? Especially after the IS ascendancy, which pretty much put an end to the claims of various small groups that they have enough military power to take down the Syrian government, IS or - what a joke - unite Syria.

The "FSA" is somewhere in the green parts, doesn't even control all of the green territory.

[Simon_Jester]

To be fair, the green areas are not trivially tiny- they represent a large fraction of the heavily populated coastal belt of the country. But it would be a massive, laborious, detailed task to support them enough to overrun both the government and Da'esh.

More generally, I haven't seen any further comments to reply to about the whole "why protectorates don't work anymore" deal.

[Honorius]

You seem to repeat "has no place in this world" a lot. You do realize that it doesn't make your argument stronger, just makes me think you are a dumb school kid?.

Fine, I'll use better language to describe a front for a known terrorist organization. Said Front which has serious issues with regards to Human Rights.

If all it is going to do is use Syria to serve as a base to attack Turkey, then PYD is not a partner to work with especially as its in bed with Assad. FSA's goal is to unite Syria and remove Assad and govern by consent, granted its not what we associate with democracy, but its a damn sight better than Assad blowing cities up and gassing children while the West cries over stone ruins and freaks out over IS beheading Westerners as if Assad's far greater crimes against Syrians don't exist.

Old story, doesn't get better if you tell it again. This was tried (except for the air support), and it failed. Why continue to support something that fails? Especially after the IS ascendancy, which pretty much put an end to the claims of various small groups that they have enough military power to take down the Syrian government, IS or - what a joke - unite Syria.

The "FSA" is somewhere in the green parts, doesn't even control all of the green territory.

If you are going to use a wiki map, at least use it in context.

Like the fact the FSA just deflated Assad's erection in Idlib Province. They did it without massive air support and under heavy air strikes.
Even before that, FSA with JAN Support nearly wiped out IS in Syria before running out of steam.

In Daara, the FSA has been consistently and slowly wiping out SAA positions in Daara Province and moving to expel Assad from the Province.

FSA, and I'm using the looser definition that includes Islamic Front and JAN as all operate together under a single control room for all practical purposes,has shown it can win victories without massive air strikes, which YPG has not and in fact has shown rank incompetence in not being able to handle machine gun nests with T-55s they posses. If anything its a myth that Kurds are great fighters, in fact their military history consists of being bitch slapped b every other power in the region and puppetized by other powers.

Do recall Kobani was pretty much falling when the US flattened it with the majority of their airstrikes to enable the Kurds to retake it after months of street fighting. In the process Hit fell in Iraq and the Shia Offensives towards Mosul stalled out turning Baiji into a back and forth meat grinder, and a Peshmerga push on Hawija failed and an attempt to retake Sinjar failed all over a worthless town that Obama let public opinion dictate help to.

It s not too late to reverse this mess and have a stable IS free Syria, but Assad has to be the first focus and that means working with FSA to expel Assad out of Syria if not capture him. Then IS can be dealt with.

Or we can keep throwing gasoline on the fire by supporting the wrong groups or ignore the fire and let it burn itself out.

I back throwing water on the fire to save Syria. Iraq there is no credible Sunni group to help and the KRG has its own agenda, which doesn't mesh with the central government of Iraq, that is when PUK and KDP can stop fighting long enough to put one together. So Iraq is a lost cause.

Syria we have the FSA Alliance which has street cred, but needs help removing Assad before it can deal with IS, and wants US help, even if all it does is impose a no fly zone and hands them TOWs to TOW Assad's AFVs to the junkyard.

[K. A. Pital]

Fine, I'll use better language to describe a front for a known terrorist organization. Said Front which has serious issues with regards to Human Rights.

It is expected for a paramilitary unit to have human rights issues. From the report you linked to, it is clear that the administration of Kurdish enclaves lets HRW visit the cities under their control, as well as prisons, and apparently is running a reform of the legal system. They pledge to demobilize all child soldiers, too. That's kind of strange for a militia that "has no place in this world", as you insist, especially given the fact they have been fighting ISIS which just indiscriminately slaughters or enslaves everyone who isn't a Sunni Arab.

If all it is going to do is use Syria to serve as a base to attack Turkey, then PYD is not a partner to work with especially as its in bed with Assad.

It seems that, from your link, the PYD administration is not doing anything on scale comparable with ISIS. It also is not gassing civilians - or, indeed, the enemy (indeed, it was the Kurds who came under ISIS chemical attacks during the war). I think that a rebel group, so as long as it makes an effort to follow the laws of war, is a legitimate military organization and should be treated as such. It is much harder for a paramilitary to follow all the laws of war: but what is clear is that between ISIS, Assad's Alawite sectarian rule and PYD, the PYD has by far had a much better human rights record than the others. The fact that Syrian Army isn't keen on fighting the Kurds shouldn't be much of a surprise, Assad may be a brutal dictator but he isn't a theocratic fanatic like Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi, or Hekmatiyar and Mullah Omar, who were the forerunners of that particular breed of leaders. Doesn't mean that Assad would not like to crush the PYD - he would, he just doesn't have the means to. Just like ISIS.

By your logic, if someone is not fighting someone that means they're allies. The FSA had its own ceasefire periods with the Syrian government. But it doesn't help much since FSA's corruption led to its disintegration and takeover by the likes of Al-Nursa, Ahrar ash-Sham and ISIS.

FSA's goal is to unite Syria and remove Assad and govern by consent, granted its not what we associate with democracy

Please try to follow my argument. The noble goals of a group do not matter if it is not politically feasible. The FSA's goals are no longer politically feasible. Crushing the Rojava Revolution in the Syrian Kurdistan will require bloodshed on the scale of what Assad's government did in 1980s, crushing the islamists in Hama with dozens of thousands of dead.

Rojava (1) isn't a constant bloodbath (2) schools work, water is running (3) relics are not being destroyed (4) people are not under threat of genocide from the PYD. That's enough, I think, to establish the PYD as a positive force. They also control a huge territory in Syria and they will not give it back without a fierce fight. If you want to crush the Kurds much like in Kobane, razing the cities to shit, you can. But then how are you different from ISIS?.

Like the fact the FSA just deflated Assad's erection in Idlib Province. They did it without massive air support and under heavy air strikes.
Even before that, FSA with JAN Support nearly wiped out IS in Syria before running out of steam.

FSA could never "wipe out IS in Syria". In fact, early FSA advances (like that in Raqqa) paved the way for the well-known "Silent Slaughter of Raqqa" when Ahrar ash-Sham and Al-Nusra fighters who later defected to IS took over the place and turned it into a fucking Dark Age citadel. Inclusion of the "Islamic Front" in the FSA is preposterous. That's including the porous islamist rebels who defect to Al-Nusra/ISIS on a regular basis. This should not happen and this is a good argument for cutting off aid to FSA (which is basically what happened IRL, too).

If anything its a myth that Kurds are great fighters, in fact their military history consists of being bitch slapped b every other power in the region and puppetized by other powers.

Kurds are not great fighters, and I did not mean to build my argument on that. But they are good administrators. Their territory looks way more sane when administered by PYD than any other enclaves and cities in the region.

It s not too late to reverse this mess and have a stable IS free Syria, but Assad has to be the first focus and that means working with FSA to expel Assad out of Syria if not capture him. Then IS can be dealt with.

Once again, and don't be an idiot now: that was the approach taken before. Joint FSA-Al-Nusra offensives led to the expelling of the Syrian Army from the North. Guess what happened then? Even you must know that, you can't be dense as a brick. Or?

I back throwing water on the fire to save Syria.

Your idea is (1) supporting a group known to fold to genocidal islamists from ISIS/Al-Nusra when they attack but known to work together with them to "get rid of Assad" (2) drown the Rojava revolution in blood because that's the only way Kurds will give back their autonomy, essentially flatten Rojava like Kobane and hope the world won't notice this shit.

Are you sure that's "throwing water on the fire" to save Syria? When such insanity is proposed in the name of "saving Syria", maybe Syria isn't worth saving. Sorry, but that sounds like a very immature approach.

[Channel72]

To be fair, the green areas are not trivially tiny- they represent a large fraction of the heavily populated coastal belt of the country. But it would be a massive, laborious, detailed task to support them enough to overrun both the government and Da'esh.

Yeah, in terms of population size, ISIS territory isn't that large. It looks imposing on a map, but most of that "gray zone" is just empty desert. Most people who live in Syria do not live under ISIS control. For that matter, ISIS is actually a much smaller organization than either the Kurdish Peshmerga, the Iraqi army, or the Syrian army, in terms of raw manpower.

Which is why I keep saying that most of their perceived "fearsomeness" is achieved via PR and concentrated acts of brutality, (along with their initial blitzkrieg through northern Iraq), not actual military capability. The idea that they could ever have actually taken Baghdad is pretty far-fetched, considering the high concentration of Iraqi military in that area.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, the real key is that stopping Da'esh requires troops willing to fight them. I am told of times when the Iraqi army retreated from Da'esh forces, when Da'esh was in pickup trucks and they were in tanks. And Stas has cited the instances of fundamentalist 'militias' in Syria peeling off from the nominally anti-Da'esh forces and switching sides in the middle of a battle.

The will to fight is critical. Revolutionary movements rarely* succeed in destroying the armies of the nation they're fighting to overthrow unless the will to fight is undermined.

*Disclaimer: specific counterexamples do not invalidate the statement that something 'rarely' happens.

[K. A. Pital]

Greatest successes of ISIL come from subversion of Al-Nusra, Ahrar ash-Sham and various jihadi movements' fighters, incorporation of disillusioned Sunni Arabs who also see the corruption of their commanders in day-to-day fights, their inability to reach the claimed goals. Without the decline of FSA and collapse of most jihad movements to simply fill ISIS ranks, without the similar collapse in Iraq that led to the coalescing of former Baathist Sunni Arabs who have skills to run towns... ISIS wouldn't be what it is. It is a theocracy that can recruit by fighting on several fronts units which are too corrupt and cowardly to stand their ground.

As for Rojava, I think that on-the-grounds account do make it look way more sane than other territories:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awake ... revolution

[Knife]

Now, why am I wrong?

Automatic rifles, nationalism, and the 24-hour news cycle.

In 1930, pretty much the entire Earth was either a colonial protectorate, in danger of becoming a protectorate, or the owner of a protectorate.

That pretty much started the issue we have now. As much as people like the whole 'the US broke it' meme, we are still paying for the sin's of England and Europe, on top of US Imperialism. A lot of those lines should not have been drawn, and making them continue to exist makes no sense, we still suffer from the Ottoman's and the English.

[Knife]

Greatest successes of ISIL come from subversion of Al-Nusra, Ahrar ash-Sham and various jihadi movements' fighters, incorporation of disillusioned Sunni Arabs who also see the corruption of their commanders in day-to-day fights, their inability to reach the claimed goals. Without the decline of FSA and collapse of most jihad movements to simply fill ISIS ranks, without the similar collapse in Iraq that led to the coalescing of former Baathist Sunni Arabs who have skills to run towns... ISIS wouldn't be what it is. It is a theocracy that can recruit by fighting on several fronts units which are too corrupt and cowardly to stand their ground.

As for Rojava, I think that on-the-grounds account do make it look way more sane than other territories:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awake ... revolution

I wonder if some of those Sunni's wrote a paper, starting with " in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution". With all the various Sunni flare, if America would get it.

[Simon_Jester]

That's pretty much what the Kurd-dominated Rojavans did...

[cmdrjones]

Now, why am I wrong?

Automatic rifles, nationalism, and the 24-hour news cycle.

In 1930, pretty much the entire Earth was either a colonial protectorate, in danger of becoming a protectorate, or the owner of a protectorate.

However, things were already changing. World War One ended with what Churchill described as "a drizzle of empires, falling through the air." There were about nine multi-ethnic imperial states (or nations in the process of becoming such) in the developed world before World War One. Some offered some representation to the ethnic minorities on their periphery. Others didn't. In any event, before the war there were about nine; afterward there were about five. And three of those were destroyed or at least had their homelands conquered and ruined by World War Two.

Colonial peoples in the remaining empires took notice of this. Empires were not indestructible. With courage and determination, a people that wanted their own country could have one.

Moreover, most of those colonial empires had been founded at a time when only the colonialist powers had any modern weapons, or when only colonialist powers knew how to use modern weapons effectively. If the only armies in the world that know how to use muskets effectively are European armies, then European armies can conquer vast populations easily. And it was entirely correct for the British to note in the late 1880s, as Hilaire Belloc noted in a poem:

"Whatever happens, we have got the Maxim gun, and they have not."

It's easy to maintain an empire with rifles when your subject population is mostly armed with swords and spears, and cannot hope to make or obtain enough guns to replace those swords and spears.

But by 1920, assembly line production of modern rifles and explosives (including a mass of WWI surplus) was beginning to influence that, and the effect grew massive and overwhelming after World War Two. So in the post-WWII era, it became impossible to stop a motivated population from creating a guerilla movement that could hide among the general populace and snipe at your occupying soldiers, or plant bombs that would blow it up.

Now, nationalist rebellions against an imperial attempt to rule your country are not a new thing; they date back at least as far as Vercingetorix's campaigns against Caesar. But as illustrated by what Caesar did to Vercingetorix and the Gauls, the usual response was massive brutality. After World War I (to some extent) and after World War II and the Holocaust (to a greater extent), European powers mostly lost the willingness to kill a hundred thousand people to preserve their rule over a territory. There were exceptions to that rule, but the pattern was clear. Moreover, thanks to modern medicine, populations were already starting to increase in certain parts of the colonialized world- they were more able to absorb the loss of ten thousand or fifty thousand or even hundreds of thousands of fighting men, if that was the price of their liberty.

All these forces were in play and caused the collapse of the European colonial empires in the 1950s and '60s.

And they are STILL in play... which is why no major nation, including the US, has tried to recreate empires along that pattern. It's just too dangerous. The minute anyone in the nation you hold as a 'protectorate' decides to start a nationalist revolt against you, you're almost certainly going to lose your protectorate. And if you fight to hold onto it for any length of time... you will also lose vast sums of money and the lives of many soldiers.

So at this point if I were, for example, Turkey, and someone said "you can keep a large chunk of Syria for the next twenty years if you'll just kill ISIL..."

I wouldn't take that offer on a bet. Too dangerous.

agree 100%
The other side of this is that if you ARE willing to kill 100,000 (or simply kill 50 so spectacularly that you Terrorize 10 million) you too can carve out a chunk of territory from a nation state and no one will be willing to stop you. It's an modern Irony that despite having vastly more men of fighting age than we did in WWI that the 'civilized' nations of the west are no longer willing to lose 50,000 men in an afternoon like the brits did at the Somme.

[The Romulan Republic]

Their are good reasons for that lack of willingness to sustain massive casualties. First, World War I is hardly an example we want to aspire to. Secondly, back then, you didn't have video and the internet ensuring images and statistics of casualties were splashed all over the world right away. A big part of it though, at least in America, is probably Vietnam. Its fairly safe to say, I think, that the heavy casualties (many of them draftees) sustained for an ultimately futile, lost war in Vietnam and the anti-war movement of that era pretty much killed any willingness on the part of the American public to engage in mass casualty warfare, unless the casualties are overwhelmingly on the other side (and even then, I very much doubt things like the fire bombing of Dresden or the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be accepted by the majority of the public today).

[Ziggy Stardust]

It's an modern Irony that despite having vastly more men of fighting age than we did in WWI that the 'civilized' nations of the west are no longer willing to lose 50,000 men in an afternoon like the brits did at the Somme.

Why would you ever consider such willingness a good thing or a sign of 'civilization'?

[cmdrjones]

Their are good reasons for that lack of willingness to sustain massive casualties. First, World War I is hardly an example we want to aspire to. Secondly, back then, you didn't have video and the internet ensuring images and statistics of casualties were splashed all over the world right away. A big part of it though, at least in America, is probably Vietnam. Its fairly safe to say, I think, that the heavy casualties (many of them draftees) sustained for an ultimately futile, lost war in Vietnam and the anti-war movement of that era pretty much killed any willingness on the part of the American public to engage in mass casualty warfare, unless the casualties are overwhelmingly on the other side (and even then, I very much doubt things like the fire bombing of Dresden or the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be accepted by the majority of the public today).

Agreed to a point. In hindsight we find that WWI 'wasn't worth dying in' but for many at the time it was a war against Hun barbarity or against Franco-british world domination, or against the horrid foot of the slav, the vile turk etc etc
You are absolutely correct when it comes to the media available influencing the willingness of those parties involved to inflict and sustain casualties. See for example the civil war.

http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/brady-photos/

I think you've also answered your own question to an extent, we're talking about ridding the world of ISIS, right? What if Turkey decides that the only way to do that is to tac-nuke Mosul, Raqqa, Fallujah, Ramadi and a few other ISIS strongholds?

[cmdrjones]

It's an modern Irony that despite having vastly more men of fighting age than we did in WWI that the 'civilized' nations of the west are no longer willing to lose 50,000 men in an afternoon like the brits did at the Somme.

Why would you ever consider such willingness a good thing or a sign of 'civilization'?

Depends on the context. The willingness to take said casualties can be a sign that a civilization is willing to defend itself. Actually DOING it in the pursuit of something immoral is entirely different.

Barbarians are sometimes also willing to sustain massive casualties, but less so due to not having such numbers in the first place. (and by barbarians I am referring to non-settled nomadic type tribes with lower birthrates and lower populations)

[Simon_Jester]

It's an modern Irony that despite having vastly more men of fighting age than we did in WWI that the 'civilized' nations of the west are no longer willing to lose 50,000 men in an afternoon like the brits did at the Somme.

Why would you ever consider such willingness a good thing or a sign of 'civilization'?

Partly because the past few hundred years, including incidents like the actions of Da'esh over the past few years, suggest so. There is reason to think that a nation's willingness to take casualties is a survival trait for that nation.

This is one of the reasons Iraq is collapsing- even under Saddam Hussein, very few people wanted to die for Iraq. Nowadays, almost none do. Therefore, when there is even a modest risk of death, Iraqi soldiers flee rather than fight, unless they're defending against a direct threat to their own homes.

Moreover, the collective unwillingness to take military casualties fighting for principles has greatly undermined our attempts to create a peaceful post-WWII order. There are a lot of examples of tyrants and genocidaires who convince themselves that the world will not interfere meaningfully with them, because it won't risk the losses.

Peace does not endure without some kind of meaningful enforcement mechanism.

[Metahive]

Eh, that's backwards, the willingness to throw your citizen's lives away for the cause is actually what makes major wars possible in the first place. Throwing your citizen's lives away to enforce peace in the civil war of some other nation meanwhile...does Viet Nam ring a bell?

[cmdrjones]

Eh, that's backwards, the willingness to throw your citizen's lives away for the cause is actually what makes major wars possible in the first place. Throwing your citizen's lives away to enforce peace in the civil war of some other nation meanwhile...does Viet Nam ring a bell?

It also assumes that some wars are worth fighting. This does bring up an intriguing point, what would encourage people to believe in such a patently silly notion?