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You can't oppress people with artillery. You need to get close to them to check their identity, their Covid passes, or whatever. You need to get close to confi
by gunswork 2y ago
You can't oppress people with artillery.
You need to get close to them to check their identity, their Covid passes, or whatever. You need to get close to confiscate contraband. You need to get close to prevent them from organizing and assembling, and so on.
Of course with nuclear bombs and F-16s you can blow everything to bits, but that's not how governments typically oppress people. You generally don't want to exterminate your tax base, you just want them to have the "right" opinions and beliefs.
- beaglesss 2y agoThe Russians blew Grozny to bits but the issue is they started fighting militia with mostly small arms, then they ended up with a bunch of dead civilians plus a bunch of dead militia plus a bunch of surviving militia who now has... their own artillery pulled from the rubble. In the end deploying the artillery in Grozny and elsewhere during the first Chechen war was a pyrrhic victory that ended in years of Chechen independence. Then there's the alternative as my compatriots saw in the YPG -- small arms bought them enough time to ally with the USA.