5 ms·

Perhaps while we are making some attempt to not just go complete scorched earth on them they can, but if and when there is a threat they don’t have a whole lot

• lazide 5y ago
  You’re thinking of it from a normal military perspective - which is why normal militaries always consistently lose these types of conflicts. British, Russians, Americans in Afghanistan. Americans, French, Chinese in Vietnam, etc. For a counter example, look at Britain in India. The more people you kill (regular folk), the more the population turns against you, and less likely you’ll actually be able to stay long term, and the more you get stuck in an endless morass of guerrilla attacks. Because it motivates suicide bombers, desperation, hate. Even more true in a civil war. If you co-opt leadership while nominally supporting the locals and making their lives better, it can help instead. Or go full scorched earth, but that generally doesn’t work in a civil war unless there is only a small region rebelling.
• afarrell 5y ago
  A scorched-earth campaign would prompt a lot more blue-on-blue attacks and assassinations from people who don’t like having their homes and mothers incinerated.
• ShrigmaMale 5y ago
  Because scorched-earth counterinsurgency never works. It doesn't usually work tactically amd it never achieves long-term goals strategic or political unless you want the place to stay a smoking crater. This is basically the reason why the communist guerilla tactics pioneered by Mao and used by many others were so effective.