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Armies in general are not good at fighting insurgencies, especially those supported by a 3rd party that can itself not be engaged in full scale war. But your st
by yborg 9y ago
Armies in general are not good at fighting insurgencies, especially those supported by a 3rd party that can itself not be engaged in full scale war. But your statement in general is incorrect at least as far as the US military, which has literally been engaged in continuous warfare against insurgencies and banana republics for more than 25 years. If they aren't designed for this yet, I don't know how many centuries it would take. The fact of the matter is that the US now has ballooned what it euphemistically designates as Special Operations forces to over 70,000 men - 10x the size of the Foreign Legion.
If they had 700,000 men deployed in SOCOM they would still lose. The Roman Empire showed how you defeat an insurgency militarily - by exterminating/recruiting the population of the target nation. You do this by establishing and expanding colonies along with large military garrisons to protect them. This takes generations, though, and requires either finding enough volunteers to colonize, or forcibly shipping people to these colonies, which tends to not have the desired effect. The Romans accomplished this mostly by giving land in conquered territories to ex-soldiers, along with members of the conquered population as slaves. These strategems are largely taboo now, so the "mowing the grass" strategy of continual armed sweeps is what's left and just like with your lawn, it will never end.
- gaius 9y agoThe Roman Empire showed how you defeat an insurgency militarily - by exterminating/recruiting the population of the target nation. The Romans generally preferred to co-opt local elites and win hearts-and-minds. When the Catavelauni were “conquered” they had already been trading with Rome for 50 years and loved Roman merchandise and culture. Caesar showed up with his legions one day and instead of fighting they said what took you so long?? Can we be Romans now please? The US could have done this in the 1980s in most of their former enemies I reckon. Levi’s, Coca-Cola, Hollywood, Michael Jackson and Madonna. But somehow they ballsed it up...
- nickik 9y agoThe insane thing about the US is that they have some polices that are practically impossible but they will not change them because it would be politically tricky. To both have a real country in Afganistan where a group of minorites, that don't get often get along, that make up 60% of the population supress the largest minority of 40% is totally insane in a country like Afganistan. The Pashtun tribes have dominated the their region and beyond for a long time, and they are essentially a warrior culutre that will never give up. At least not with the level of violance the west is willing to employ. The problem is that the local allies that the US uses in Afganistan also don't know the area they are fighting in and they don't know the language of the people they are fighting. This makes the 'local' support far less useful then theory says it should be.
- gaius 9y agonot with the level of violance the west is willing to employ. Not even with the level of violence the Soviets were willing to employ