Upcoming Military Robot Could Feed on Dead Bodies

[Samuel]

the abolition of the distinction between combatants and non-combatants.

False. It requires the targeting of the enemies warmaking capacity. It generally ignores the distinction between soldiers and civilians due to the fact the civilians are directly contributing to the war effort. If the enemy is not that mobilized than you don't need to target everything. For example, if war was purely between professional military castes with no recruitment of civilians there would be no need to target civilians- while they would be making the weaponary, the limited manpower pool would be a bigger target. As you can imagine, such an arrangement has never really occured due to the fact that the desire of countries to win larger than their desire to contain conflict.

What Open_sketchbook is talking about sounds like a slightly different animal; call it "brutal war." The basic doctrine seems to be that because war is intrinsically brutal, the combatant should be as brutal as possible, to maximize the enemy's demoralization and minimize costs. This is not exactly the same as the concept of "total war."

The technical term would be genocide because the astest way to end a war would be to nuke your enemy into oblivian. Unlike nuclear warfare it would truly deserve the name because to maximize brutality you keep hitting them until everyone is dead.

We don't do that because slaughtering the opponent is not the goal of modern war.

I think this example is important because Germany is the world's best example of what happens when a nation commits terrible atrocities and is then forced to collectively realize what it has done at point blank range. It isn't pretty. I wouldn't wish it on my descendants, and I doubt you would, either.

Japan is a better example. Heck, most modern countries could qualiy. Atrocities occur throughout history and not just in war- we just like to bury them. The Germans were only unique in how they commited their crimes, not what they did.

we still have to ask ourselves how we're going to look at ourselves in the mirror afterwards. And how our descendants will. And how our willingness to do that to others will affect our willingness to accept brutality by our leaders directed at their enemies within our society.

We won't have any desendants to worry about- if the US started using bioweapons in warfare, how long do you think it would be before we face blowback?

I wasn't trying to say that we should kill every person in the other nation to win a war. But the worse you make a war for your enemy, the shorter it's going to end up being, and the less suffering and death in the long run. Obviously trying to kill everyone, or killing completely indiscriminately in a situation of limited warfare would be counterproductive, but holding your own side back with restrictions when you could minimize your own casualties by "stooping" to a lower level seems equally counterproductive.

Like not killing prisoners? Believe in or not, holding prisoners is not a major reource drain upon us, but allows us to reduce the cost of warfare. While slaughtering prisoners might up the costs of future wars and reduce the odds of anyone engaging in them, genocide would do that more effectively. The rules and traditions are in place to prevent going down that slippery slope on the path towards making war too horrible for your enemies to engage in.

[K. A. Pital]

the abolition of the distinction between combatants and non-combatants.

That is false. Armies never fail to make the distinction unless they are given explicit orders for genocide, which is not a military objective of capturing land but a political one.

For example, America, Britain and Russia commited to total war during World War II but neither nation made an explicit statement that distinction between combatants and noncombatants is anyhow "abolished" or that the Geneva does not apply. In fact the only nation that did such things as directly ordering the distinction between combatants and noncombatants be ignored was Germany, and it did so not for the military objectives but for political objectives.

[PeZook]

I wasn't trying to say that we should kill every person in the other nation to win a war. But the worse you make a war for your enemy, the shorter it's going to end up being, and the less suffering and death in the long run.

You know, it's funny: I had the impression that this kind of warfare produces century-long blood feuds sparking more and more brutal conflicts over the years, when your opponent's grandchildrend decide they're now strong enough to take bloody vengeance. Eventually, this state of things becomes common enough that no reason is necessary to hate and kill those guys from beyond the river.

It's even worse when your brutality galvanizes resistance and you have to kill everyone in order to stop it. It would seem everybody learned that lesson after horrifying German brutality failed to actulally force the surrender of their enemies.

[Simon_Jester]

That is false. Armies never fail to make the distinction unless they are given explicit orders for genocide...

All right, you and Samuel win. I revise my definition of total war:

"Total war" involves two basic concepts- the complete mobilization of all the nation's resources and the abolition of the distinction between combatants and non-combatants.
to
"Total war" involves two basic concepts- the complete mobilization of all the nation's resources and the blurring of the line between combatants and non-combatants.

And the line does get hard to define- the night janitor at a power plant becomes a target because he's helping to supply power to the city's air defense radar, and so on. Even if noncombatants aren't treated as "targets: kill 'em all," a lot of them end up getting shot at as part of the overall war effort. And one way you can identify a total war is that there's a lot of this happening, more than in a war where the two sides don't push themselves all the way to the limit.

But you're right; the combatant/noncombatant line doesn't completely disappear. Babies are still generally held to be far off limits, for instance. The line just gets blurred. A lot.

Now can we get on with our lives?

It's even worse when your brutality galvanizes resistance and you have to kill everyone in order to stop it. It would seem everybody learned that lesson after horrifying German brutality failed to actulally force the surrender of their enemies.

Except in the Balkans, because nobody ever seems to learn anything that might get in the way of the ethnic conflicts down there.
It's traditional.

[K. A. Pital]

But you're right; the combatant/noncombatant line doesn't completely disappear. Babies are still generally held to be far off limits

Deliberate murder of combatants in territories captured by land forces also is off-limits. Collateral deaths from aerial bombardment are occuring anyway in any war, be it total or not. They are also, to the extent I know, not considered a breach of the laws of war.

But yeah, there is a blurring of lines when it comes to total war, simply due to the scale factor.

[Knife]

I wasn't trying to say that we should kill every person in the other nation to win a war. But the worse you make a war for your enemy, the shorter it's going to end up being, and the less suffering and death in the long run. Obviously trying to kill everyone, or killing completely indiscriminately in a situation of limited warfare would be counterproductive, but holding your own side back with restrictions when you could minimize your own casualties by "stooping" to a lower level seems equally counterproductive.

Your grasp on history is pathetic. Grinding a country down next to you, until they are totally wrecked puts lots of really poor people next to your country that really fucking don't like you. Nothing can go wrong there?

[open_sketchbook]

My point is that the faster and harder you ruin their shit, the less stuff gets destroyed in the long run. The earlier the other side throws in the towel, the better!

[Narkis]

My point is that the faster and harder you ruin their shit, the less stuff gets destroyed in the long run. The earlier the other side throws in the towel, the better!

Yeah, because people who hate your stinking guts and have nothing left to lose because you ruined their shit are so much more inclined to peace, right? There's no way this'll harden their resolve till they kick your ass with sharp sticks. Or start a bloody feud that'll last for generations, ruining everyone's shit. And for the unbelievers, there are plenty of examples where overwhelming brutality saved the day! Like, ehm... I can't think of any at the moment, but I'm sure they exist somewhere in the vast annals of history.

[Junghalli]

My point is that the faster and harder you ruin their shit, the less stuff gets destroyed in the long run. The earlier the other side throws in the towel, the better!

On the other hand gratuitous brutality ("it takes resources to feed POWs? Don't take them!") may just as easily make your enemy fight harder. For one thing the more bloodthirsty you make yourself look the more (rationally) reluctant people will be to grant you any power over them; people who would surrender to an enemy that demonstrated compassion toward defeated foes might fight to the end against an enemy that does not. Second, brutality often creates resentment and rage in your enemy instead of fear. Attempting to terrify your opponents into submission with your brutality is something that could easily back-fire and cause the opposite reaction from your enemy than the one you want.

Consider the example of a don't take prisoners policy. It'll mean that every cornered enemy army will always fight to the death, because you've made surrender impossible. It may save you some resources, but it means that enemy forces that otherwise might have surrendered will instead continue to fight and the battle will drag on longer, maybe much longer.

[Knife]

My point is that the faster and harder you ruin their shit, the less stuff gets destroyed in the long run. The earlier the other side throws in the towel, the better!

All that will do is change it from a large set military piece battle field into low intensity fighting. You trade the big battles with nifty tanks and shit into a hit and run insurgency/guerrilla type warfare. It only looks attractive to starry eyed politicians who can play off a low intensity conflict as terrorists and vandals and play up the 'we won the big bad dudes next door' bit. In reality, breaking a nation down and backing them into a corner with brutality will make them more resolved to do anything to harm you instead of peace.

[Simon_Jester]

My point is that the faster and harder you ruin their shit, the less stuff gets destroyed in the long run. The earlier the other side throws in the towel, the better!

Can you cite examples of this actually working? Cases where the enemy is more likely to surrender now that they know you shoot prisoners out of hand, or where deliberately spreading a plague causes less destruction than nto deliberately spreading a plague?

This strikes me as counterintuitive.

[Samuel]

My point is that the faster and harder you ruin their shit, the less stuff gets destroyed in the long run. The earlier the other side throws in the towel, the better!

Can you cite examples of this actually working? Cases where the enemy is more likely to surrender now that they know you shoot prisoners out of hand, or where deliberately spreading a plague causes less destruction than nto deliberately spreading a plague?

This strikes me as counterintuitive.

It is the threat of that happening that works, not actually doing that. I think nuclear warfare counts as the example he is looking for.

[FSTargetDrone]

Getting back to the imagined horrors of machines consuming corpses....

BS. The military isn't made of idiots- they won't use human corpses to power this thing. Besides, people have bones.

I wonder how much critical thought went through the minds of the writers of the initial version of the story? Why would the military even bother to design a machine that would consume animals (including humans!) at all? Surely it would be better to design it to stick to using easy-to-find-and-burn vegetation, avoiding everything else. You mentioned bones, was there actually some notion on the part of the military that these machines would, what, just slice, dice and then scoop up parts of dead animals, feeding them into its furnace (or whatever) for the steam engine? Aside from dealing with any large bones from dead wildlife, if these things encountered a human corpse, would it deploy, I don't know, a cutting wheel or something to carve up the body so it could more easily deal with it in pieces instead of the whole thing? Surely it wouldn't want to suck up bits of metal (belt buckles, ammo clips, etc.) that are invariably attached to a soldier's uniform. It'd have to cut away all of that stuff from the body or somehow otherwise avoid ingesting it. I'd also be interested to know how it would discern the body of a soldier from that of an unfortunate civilian (but of course, we won't have to worry about that with the recent clarification!). Anyway, if they wanted it to avoid slicing through thick bones (while expending precious energy) and other hard-to-burn bits, I can just imagine...perhaps it strips the meat from the fleshier parts of a human! Buttocks and thighs might be the choicest bits. Also, I think a fresh kill would be best. A body that's been out in the elements for awhile is going to start to fall apart and be wonderfully messy. Maybe the Ingestion-ator will utilize a hose and just slurp up what it needs.

Yes, there may be relatively high energy content in flesh as compared with plant matter, but it seems like it would be so much easier and more efficient to have digest-o-droid just go around gathering twigs and dead leaves to burn. The entire idea of using any kind of largish animals seems unfeasible. Maybe it could have stuck to field mice, earthworms and the occasional squirrel.

[Simon_Jester]

It is the threat of that happening that works, not actually doing that. I think nuclear warfare counts as the example he is looking for.

But he specifically suggested shooting prisoners out of hand and spreading plagues. Those aren't credible threats if you haven't actually done those things, and I want to see an example of a situation where doing them clearly made the enemy more likely to give up and caused less long term damage.

The only related example I can think of was the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as you alluded to. But in that case, the Japanese had plenty of other reasons to surrender (firebombing attacks that were about as destructive as nuclear strikes, a blockade that was crippling their economy, a truly unreasonable number of Russians with guns massing to invade their core islands, etc.)

The Japanese case was unusual, because the only reason the Japanese were still fighting was that (they reasoned) they could charge the Allies a very high price if they tried to break Japan's remaining ability to keep fighting. And (they fondly hoped) that price was higher than the US or Russia would be willing to pay. The atomic bomb proved to Japan that the Allies had a weapon that they could use to destroy Japan utterly without having to pay that price.

But the bomb was only necessary because the Japanese were (more or less) prepared to fight to the last soldier and the last bullet. That is very unusual. Most enemies will surrender when they no longer expect to win... if they aren't afraid that you'll commit terrible atrocities after you give up.

Doing the things open_sketchbook suggests can create that fear, because if you were shooting prisoners before the war ended, what stops you from doing it afterwards? And things like bioweapons and mines don't go away when the enemy surrenders- they're going to be kicking around for a long time, and the damage has already been done.

[PeZook]

Frankly, if you have no remorse over risking the destruction of the human species (his bioweapon) in order to win the war, nobody sane is going to assume you'll turn all nice and reasonable once the shooting stops.

[Memnon]

My point is that the faster and harder you ruin their shit, the less stuff gets destroyed in the long run. The earlier the other side throws in the towel, the better!

See: Afghanistan, Iraq.

EDIT: oops, Knife beat me to the point.

[CmdrWilkens]

My point is that the faster and harder you ruin their shit, the less stuff gets destroyed in the long run. The earlier the other side throws in the towel, the better!

Knife and a few others have already begun pointing out some of the sheer stupidity involved in your assumption but I'll go back to my original point, which you have still not grasped apparently:

The brutalization of an enemy population in toto is almost completely antithetical to any but a genocidal war. While such an action may be effective in that regard for almost any other scenario you NEED the populace which you would rather willfuly destroy. Recklessly destroying everything in sight, or the more limited bomb anything idea, aside from the hideous waste of your own munitions doesn't serve any objective of war. It impoverishes the land on which you are fighting which is either YOUR land (which is now useless to you) or it is the enemies land which will innundate your forces with a host of refugees. Now you could engage in genocide to "remove" the refugee problem but then we are right back at the fighting only serving genocidal aims.

Let me repeat this: WAR IS NOT ABOUT KILLING. War involves killing, it encompasses death and destruction, paticularly in the modern world, which is staggering however that isn't the PURPOSE of warfare. The purpose is a continuation of political determination of the power in question. Unless the political objective is genocide then the sort of total destruction, salt the earth, mentality that you are advocating will be contradictory to the goals being attempted.

Perhaps another example is worth bringing to your attention. In Afghanistan (the Soviet incursion not he current one) and before then in Vietnam the occupying powers attempted to supress insurrection by some of the most brutal methods available to modern powers. The US literally scorched the earth and defoliated huge swaths of the jungle, all the while killing hundreds of thousands of people and eventually doing little to save the overall political cause. The Soviets brutally cracked down on anything resembling resistance and yet the episode ended similairly with the populace resisting all the more so because of the brutality.

There is a phrase from The Art of War which I will paraphrase: You objective is not to let your enemey escape but rather to leave the glimmer of escape lest they find themselves cornered and fighting with the determination of the helpless. The history of warfare can attest to dozens of battles, skirmeshes, and encounters where groups fought on well past the logical point of surrender because the brutality of their opponents was well known, in turn the casualties for the attacker exceeded those they would have otherwise absorbed placing additional strain on the whole apparatus.

I'll say it one last time to try and get it through: Brutality does not make wars faster.

[Knobbyboy88]

My point is that the faster and harder you ruin their shit, the less stuff gets destroyed in the long run. The earlier the other side throws in the towel, the better!

Can you cite examples of this actually working? Cases where the enemy is more likely to surrender now that they know you shoot prisoners out of hand, or where deliberately spreading a plague causes less destruction than nto deliberately spreading a plague?

This strikes me as counterintuitive.

In all fairness, I think that you all are forgetting some of the lessons of history. The Mongols, Romans, Nazis (well, Hitler was a %$*&ing idiot so we'll leave him out ), and even the Cold War's Communists all utilized brutality to great effect in their wars of conquest.

I don't think that any warlord in history has conquered as much territory as Ghengis Khan, and some of his methods made even WW2's Fascists look tame by comparsion. He rather effectively utilized genocide, mass killings, rape, and a "take no prisoners" attitude in order to carve out the largest land empire humankind has ever seen within an extremely short periood of time.

However, it should be noted that Ghengis Khan wasn't simply some rampaging barbarian. There was a definite purpose to his brutality. He would completely obliterate (and I do mean OBLITERATE) the first couple of cities he came upon in a foreign land, and afterwards, only ravage those cities which resisted his armies. Even then, such horrific conquests usually only took place after the Mongols offered up conspicuously dramatic offers of surrender to the leaders of the cities they were besieging. As news of these brutal conquests and the highly generous offers of surrender which preceeded them quickly spread, the use of such tactics would often lead the vast majority of the major population centers in a nation that the Mongols' were currently attacking to surrender without a fight. After a city had surrendered, the Mogols would then conscript every male citizen of a certain age into their forces as a kind of native auxillary, and slaughter any individuals who offered up even token measures of resitance. This ensured that the Mongol armies didn't suffer unduly from attrition and even served to force the assimilation of local cultures into the greater Mongol Empire to a certain extent.

For a more modern example, just look at the actions of various "Red" regimes during the Cold War. Mao, Stalin, Lenin, and various other Communist dictators rather successfully utilized a wide variety ofthe Soviet fiasco in Afghanistan aside).

As I'm sure we're all well aware, the "Communist" economies of the Cold War imploded in on themselves rather handily after a few decades, and the Mongol Empire was more or less doomed as soon as Ghengis kicked the bucket. However, the Romans, on the other hand; were able to hold their world in an iron grip for centuries through the use of comparatively brutal tactics.

All things considered, I would say that unparalled brutality can achieve a wide range of effects if it is approached in the appropriate manner and the nations utilizing it as a tactic of war have the sheer military strength, political will, and economic strength to really justify such brutality and keep their demonstrations up over an extended period of time.

However, I really doubt that any of today's more "civilized" nations would really care to engage in such tactics. This more or less makes the question of "brutal war" in a non-conquest oriented and "Democratic" setting kind of a moot point. A country like the United States engaging in such practices would simply lead to unparalled domestic and international backlash. It wouldn't be worth the effort.

[Samuel]

Romans

False. While the Romans have sacked cities and were ruthless towards rebellions, they did not slaughter enemy populations wholesale as a matter of course. The Romans attempted to integrate foreign populations- killing everyone left noone in the city to pay taxes after all.

I don't think that any warlord in history has conquered as much territory as Ghengis Khan, and some of his methods made even WW2's Fascists look tame by comparsion. He rather effectively utilized genocide, mass killings, rape, and a "take no prisoners" attitude in order to carve out the largest land empire humankind has ever seen within an extremely short periood of time.

Which proceded to fall apart afterwards because the conquered people hated the occupiers guts.

There was a definite purpose to his brutality. He would completely obliterate (and I do mean OBLITERATE) the first couple of cities he came upon in a foreign land, and afterwards, only ravage those cities which resisted his armies. Even then, such horrific conquests usually only took place after the Mongols offered up conspicuously dramatic offers of surrender to the leaders of the cities they were besieging. As news of these brutal conquests and the highly generous offers of surrender which preceeded them quickly spread, the use of such tactics would often lead the vast majority of the major population centers in a nation that the Mongols' were currently attacking to surrender without a fight. After a city had surrendered, the Mogols would then conscript every male citizen of a certain age into their forces as a kind of native auxillary, and slaughter any individuals who offered up even token measures of resitance. This ensured that the Mongol armies didn't suffer unduly from attrition and even served to force the assimilation of local cultures into the greater Mongol Empire to a certain extent.

That only worked because of the lose nature of the cities. In a more united country (unlike the ones he was fighting) it would encourage defenders to fight to the death because they had nothing to lose. Why do you think the seiges in China took so long?

For a more modern example, just look at the actions of various "Red" regimes during the Cold War. Mao, Stalin, Lenin, and various other Communist dictators rather successfully utilized a wide variety ofthe Soviet fiasco in Afghanistan aside).

Except they did nothing like the level of brutality you are implying. Stalin was notorious for arresting large portions of the population, dumping them in the gulag, torturing them or relocating them, not for setting up death squads and obliterating population centers.

As I'm sure we're all well aware, the "Communist" economies of the Cold War imploded in on themselves rather handily after a few decades,

That is unrelated to the level of brutality of the regime.

However, the Romans, on the other hand; were able to hold their world in an iron grip for centuries through the use of comparatively brutal tactics.

Thanas is going to kill you. The Romans were no more brutal in their warfare than most of the other ancient people- just look at the war between Athens and Sparta where Athens punished one of its allies by selling the population into slavery- and that was their fellow Greeks!

However, I really doubt that any of today's more "civilized" nations would really care to engage in such tactics.

Want to bet? Just bomb population centers to dust and embargo and you will get extreme kill totals as the society collapses.

[loomer]

It may have been mentioned, I'm not sure, but those advocating incredibly brutal warfare seem to be missing one major point.

Your nation will not always be the aggressor in such a conflict, and why should your enemies show any restraint when you wouldn't? What's to stop them from single handedly wiping your nation out, levelling the cities, hunting every single national within the country and without, and then resettling the completely 'sanitized' land with their own people? Why shouldn't they, if you would?

Unless you're quite happy to die because of the decisions of politicians that you had no impact on, most likely in a horrifically painful or lingering manner, then you are simply missing one of the major points of 'softer' warfare - it fosters a level of humanity on both sides that prevents such atrocities, as well as world wide. If a nation ever does commit such acts, it loses the moral high ground when dealing with another nation that would do so to them, and as such loses a significant amount of foreign support.

If Britain and France went to war, for whatever reason, in the manner you describe, no nation in the world would provide military or financial aid to either side purely because such acts only breed worse and worse brutality and war crimes - in fact, you might even see larger nations intervening to demilitarize the conflict and replace the leadership.

[Knobbyboy88]

No offense, but I think you are focusing a bit too heavily on nit-picking my post and not heavily enough on trying to see the "bigger picture" I was trying to get across. Gimme the benefit of a quick readthrough at least before ripping me a new one!

My point was that yes, "brutality" can be highly effective, but usually only in the short term. If you to want to utilize "brutal war" tactics to quash all resistance in the short term AND ensure long term dominance, you need to have the political strength of will and military force necessary to guarantee a certain degree of staying power.

False. While the Romans have sacked cities and were ruthless towards rebellions, they did not slaughter enemy populations wholesale as a matter of course. The Romans attempted to integrate foreign populations- killing everyone left noone in the city to pay taxes after all.

I agree. However, you cannot deny that a VERY large degree of "shock and awe" tactics and wanton "brutality" went into Roman warfare. Mass crucifictions, gratuitous massacres, gladiatorial executions, and in some cases even small scale genocide were facts of life in the Roman occupied world. Granted, the Romans were no where near as brutal as the Mongols, and were even rather average compared to their contemptoraries. However, their tactics would still be considered to be rather "brutal" by modern standards.

As I have already pointed out, the Mogols didn't simply obliterate every last enemy city either. They merely made an example out of one or two cities in order to reap the benefits of the psychological effects this would create. Ghengis Khan actually went to great lengths to try and integrate conquered peoples into his empire.

Which proceded to fall apart afterwards because the conquered people hated the occupiers guts.

This is a bit of an oversimplification. The Mongol Empire fell apart because the "Mongol Hordes" lacked the organizational staying power necessary to hold on to their conquests. Without the sheer legitimacy and strength of will of Ghengis Khan or his immediate successors driving the momentum of the Mongol conquests, the empire slowly fell apart.

The "resentment" of local peoples had nothing to do with it. The Romans managed to hold on to their empire for centuries regardless of the considerable "native" resentment their actions garnered. Besides, the splinter empires spawned by the original Mongol Hordes continued to rule and ravage these conquered lands for centuries after the greater empire split apart.

That only worked because of the lose nature of the cities. In a more united country (unlike the ones he was fighting) it would encourage defenders to fight to the death because they had nothing to lose. Why do you think the seiges in China took so long?

Once again, this is a bit of an oversimplification. The Mongol conquest of China took such a long time to accomplish because unorganized hordes of "barbaric" horsemen generally tend to suck at siege warfare. They were basically learning all of the tactics and techniques necessary for such a form of warfare from scratch. After the Chinese conquests, however; Ghengis Khan was able to integrate a lot of Chinese engineers and soldiers into his army. This essentially granted him all of the knowledge and technology that the Chinese possessed on the subject of city sieges and greatly contributed to the MUCH more rapid pace at which the later Mongol conquests were achieved.

Besides, you are completely ignoring the vast amounts of havok the Mongols were able to wreak in the much more organized regions of the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

You are underestimating the sheer terror Mongol tactics inspired. They would quite literally herd together tens of thousands of peasants from nearby villages and use them as meat shields for their siege armies. You literally couldn't fire arrows at the Mongol army that was attacking your city without killing hundreds or possibly thousands of YOUR OWN helpless women and children.

"Except they did nothing like the level of brutality you are implying. Stalin was notorious for arresting large portions of the population, dumping them in the gulag, torturing them or relocating them, not for setting up death squads and obliterating population centers."

The Cold War's Communists were just as brutal as WW2's Fascists. They might not have been quite so theatric in their crimes as the Mongols or Nazis were, but it can hardly be claimed that they didn't wrack up a rather substantial body count.

That is unrelated to the level of brutality of the regime.

You missed my point. I was trying to make the case that the Cold War's Communists lacked staying power, and that their "brutality" was ultimately ineffective for that reason.

Want to bet? Just bomb population centers to dust and embargo and you will get extreme kill totals as the society collapses.

I never that such tactics were impossible today. I simply stated they tend to be very uncommon. With the possible exception of the Eastern Front during WW2, the current trend in modern warfare seems to be against excessive collateral damage.

[Knobbyboy88]

Ugh...Try to ignore the botched quotations. I screwed the pooch on that one. lol

[Knobbyboy88]

It may have been mentioned, I'm not sure, but those advocating incredibly brutal warfare seem to be missing one major point.

Your nation will not always be the aggressor in such a conflict, and why should your enemies show any restraint when you wouldn't? What's to stop them from single handedly wiping your nation out, levelling the cities, hunting every single national within the country and without, and then resettling the completely 'sanitized' land with their own people? Why shouldn't they, if you would?.

Exactly. "Brutal warfare" is only really suited to wars of conquest. If you are going to engage in such tactics, you need to have the strength of arms necessary to back it up.

As it currently stands, the balance of power in the world simply wouldn't be condusive to any such aggressive use of power. This effectively precludes the use of "brutal warfare" as a viable tactic of war. It would accomplish nothing but to bring down the wrath of the world community at large upon your nation's head.

[PeZook]

Knobby, you're forgetting that no ancient or medieval nation had to contend with easyily organized assymetric warfare. Today, rebels can use a wide variety of highly affective tools which make a small, light force able to effectively fight back against a regular occupier. Not to mention access to effective propaganda tools they can use to disseminate their message amongst mostly literate populations.

Hence why most people use recent historical examples, rather than the ancient world.

[Knobbyboy88]

Knobby, you're forgetting that no ancient or medieval nation had to contend with easyily organized assymetric warfare. Today, rebels can use a wide variety of highly affective tools which make a small, light force able to effectively fight back against a regular occupier. Not to mention access to effective propaganda tools they can use to disseminate their message amongst mostly literate populations.

Hence why most people use recent historical examples, rather than the ancient world.

To be honest, I don't really view "assymetrical warfare" as being all that unique to the modern day and age.

After all, who can really be said to have "won" the wars in Afghanistan and Vietnam? Was it really the "downtrodden masses" of resentful natives who claimed "victory," or was it the foreign super powers whom supplied these natives with vast amounts of financial and military aid? Hell! Even the contemporary insuregncies in Iraq and Afghanistan are only even marginally successful because of the support they receive from nearby foreign powers (Syria, Iran, Lebanon, certain elements of the Pakistani government, etca).

In this regard, "assymetrical warfare" really isn't a whole Hell of a lot different that what the the "Early Modern" powers had to deal with in high seas "privateering," or what the Athenians (unsuccessfully) tried to do against the Persians in 4th century B.C.

I will grant you that it is certainly far easier to wage an "assymetrical war" these days than it ever was in the past, but the effectiveness of these tactics isn't really due to the "resentment" dredged up by "brutal" occupations. The Soviets could have easily crushed the Mujahideen without the support they received from the United States, and the Viet Cong could have never quite had the effect they did without the support their fighters received from the North Vietnamese, Soviets, and Red Chinese. In both cases, foreign powers kept the "IV" in the arms of these guerilla movements just long enough to ensure that the political will of the "regular" power was broken.

The true strength of "assymetrical warfare" doesn't lie in any latent strength that "repressed peoples" can be said to possess, but in the sheer strength of political will which a "regular" power needs to bring to bear in order to fight such an irregular force to some very often poorly defined "victory." This is a particular problem in today's world. The prevalence of the "mass media" ensures that brutal wars of conquest are sure to be unpopular with the more "wish-washy" elements of Western "liberal" society (lets face it, the "West" basically rules the world at this particular point in history), while the international "status quo" enforced by the proliferation of nuclear weapons ensures that no one power is able to amass the military power necessary to simply trample any power in their path.


That being said, however; I would argue that "brutal warfare" can be approached successfully if you are able to prevent foreign powers from interefering (as the Cold War's "Reds" were able to do in Eastern Europe, or Franco did in Spain) and you can rigidly control what the media shows of your atrocities. Besides, counter-insurgency tactics have become very sophisticated since the days of Vietnam or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. If the US is able to pull off something akin to victory in Iraq and Afghanistan, the threat of "assymetrical warfare" may prove to be something of a paper tiger.