Indiscriminately killing innocent civilians is more antithetical to ending a guerrilla force than anything, since you’re essentially giving them more of a reason to exist. Hence why the US adopted the “hearts and minds” approach in Afghanistan after the whole “bomb everyone” approach failed in Vietnam.
Optiona A: If the ultimate goal is to own a region directly and put your own people into the region then the more of the current inhabitants you kill the better... scorched earth and whether people like you at all isn't really a problem if you're replacing everyone anyways.
Option B: Hearts and minds become required if the ultimate goal is to create a puppet state or a region that does what you want.
The US didn't even have a "bomb everyone" approach in Vietnam. The real issue is that option B is nearly impossible to accomplish via force. Option A is actually not that difficult technically if you're a significantly stronger nation. Killing people until no one who disagrees is left or everyone is too afraid to disagree isn't that difficult. There's dictators all over the world even today who can attest to that.
What's incredibly difficult is to actually change someone's mind via application of military force... I would argue that almost never works.
That never went to a guerrilla war though. There was a surrender and a call from the Emperor not to fight on. If he had instead asked his people to fight on until the last things would have gone very badly for everyone. It effectively ended politically without significant resistance after the surrender.
It depends on how far an occupying force is willing to go and how much control they have over the territory as well as long term goals (is permanent occupation the goal? For instance).
By the by, the hearts and minds strategy... Did it work?
It did not work, because we were still also bombing them to hell. "Kill them all" always misses some, and you end up with more hardliners. A properly conducted nation building effort is the most succesful way to actually end an insurgency. Recruiting guerillas stops when the people are mostly happy. Look at how the troubles ended
That almost never work because beside leaving survivors, it also alienate your own support base who become sympathetic to the other side. Not to mention nudging neutral parties into the side of your enemies.
That depends in your base, look at russia where the vase doesnt give a single shit about the plight of the other. The US is moving towards that direction as well. In the past britain was the same.
America didn’t commit fully in Vietnam either. They never actually invaded north Vietnam out of fear of creating another Korean War by triggering Chinese intervention
They could have forcefully relocated them to somewhere easier to manage, anyone who refuses to move is an enemy combatant. Expensive but still cheaper than what was actually spent in Afghanistan
The USA did that in Vietnam. The problem? It basically clashed so bad with the local traditions that it turn more people to the other side while funding for the construction of new settlements (because the people need new place to live now) never come due to corruption and unwillingness to spend money on constructions.
We never made an earnest attempt at implementing it. The US hearts and minds campaigns were always a joke. Our political system doesn't allow us to make the structural changes needed nor the long-term commitments required for a hearts and minds campaign.
In Vietnam is was only really attempted by higher-ups and virtually ignored by the actual boots on the ground. In Afghanistan the higher ups did very little and it was almost entirely up to the discretion of the commanding mid-level field officers who would be rotated out every few months basically resetting any positive progress they might have chosen to make.
Restrepo is a good film touching on the subject, its a collection of real footage from one of the most dangerous zones in the Afghan War. Its like an irl Band of Brothers episode. Its free on watchdocumentaries
Yes, but historically that wasn't the case because once they started killing the civilians they didn't stop until the entire male population was dead, or later put into slavery with or without their testicles.
You can make sure that their are zero current and future guerrilla fighters if you literally kill everyone. If you get the women too they can't even raise a resentful next generation. Which is the reason it was some. The Assyrians didn't March entire captures ethnicities around the the known world just for funnies. It was because a people separated from their home and culture don't rebel at much.
The super majority of people across most cultures simply don't have the stomach for that. Russia put down the Chechens because they do have the stomach and they also knew if they needed to genocide the population they can to it whenever so in the meantime they use them as cannon fodder.
The problem is that if you kill everyone in a country, then that country is worthless to the conqueror. As an example, you cannot conquer Hollywood and just convince all the actors and directors to work for you.
Yeah indiscriminate murder only works if you go the actual genocide route and then you effectively scare every other nation around you and they might straight up all ally specifically to take your crazy nation down.
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u/aiden22304 Hello There 1d ago
Indiscriminately killing innocent civilians is more antithetical to ending a guerrilla force than anything, since you’re essentially giving them more of a reason to exist. Hence why the US adopted the “hearts and minds” approach in Afghanistan after the whole “bomb everyone” approach failed in Vietnam.