Why is it that when it comes to a guerilla war the occupying power simply doesn't kill all the inhabitants as long as you have more bullets than there are people then you can accomplish it.
>>18761727Because most people aren't psychos and won't kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people
They do. All the time. Read up on genocides and most of the time it'll start with a guerilla uprising. On a lesser scale too, plenty of massacres start that way.The reasons it doesn't always work are that it forces normies to join the side that's not trying to kill them, and also that governments generally don't want to slaughter their own labor force/tax base, winning a war doesn't mean much if all you win are mass graves.
>>18761727Land is useless without people to work it.
>>18761727It's a very costly (and sometimes logistically impossible) and rather pointless endeavor (>>18761751) that will horrify all your neighbors and make diplomacy close to impossible.
>>18761727Guerrillas are only ever successful when they have foreign supporters, if you start massacring the inhabitants then the guerrillas will simply get more support from abroad and many of the inhabitants will join the guerrillas in desperation, you may even see your own side and allies start to undermine you as they realize you are an edgy faggot who thinks warcrimes are a funny meme not someone reliable who can win this war.
>>18761727The problem of the modern guerilla is that it tends to have an ideological bend.A Taliban or Vietnamese communist will not care a village harbouring him was burned down, they died for the cause. He will not be swayed by a mayor or city council being taken hostage to guarantee safety of the troops, you kill them he's happy because they're part of the state he hates.The obvious solution were always resettlements and concentration camps for the population but the international law makes those difficult to uphold and the logistics are easy with the boers who weren't very numerous but not so great with the Afghans.
>>18761727Because that's a time-tested strategy in asymmetric warfare that only works in specific cases where you have a tremendous technological advantage, we're talking centuries of advantage (e.g. Germans vs Herero, Brits vs Kikuyu) or a huge army controlling a tiny territory (e.g. Indonesians vs Timorese, Sinhalese vs Tamils), which is usually not the case in modern asymmetric wars. Most of the time, undisciplined brutality only makes the guerrillas stronger in numbers and intelligence, because your own civilians will join them and give them information on you. That's what happened in Colombia, the Philippines, Nicaragua or Algeria, for example. In fact, losing your cool and going amok on the civilians is exactly what guerrillas want you to do. Read Mao.
>>18761852And you also get outsiders coming to help the people you're massacring, either as individuals or state actors.
>>18762067Apropos of nothing but ngl you could probably write a kickass book about what not to do in a COIN operation entirely using the nazis as an example.Possibly the first recorded instance of a military power embracing capeshit as strategy&tactics.
>>18762067Britbongs did alright in Malaysia, and basically set the gold standard for COIN tactics.
>>18762119>huge army controlling a tiny territory
>>18762119All their campaigns (not just Malaysia, but also the Mau Mau revolt) had a very robust civilian/hearts&minds aspect to them concurrent with the deportations, villagization, etc. One should keep that in mind.>>18762129Malaysia is not very tiny.
>>18762142The part where the emergency actually took place is.
>>18761727The Soviets easily subjugated Germany through mass rape and terror, so clearly it works. The USA could've easily won Vietnam and Afghanistan if they just mass raped all the women and killed any man over 14.
>>18762156Also forgot about my GOAT von Zass showing the world how to deal with Circassian rebels.
>>18762149The Algerian, Phillipine, and Nicaraugan insurgencies all had comparatively smaller theaters of operation. You're not wrong, but it's a bit reductive to insist it's as simple as plopping a huge fighting force in a small area.
>>1876211990% of Malaysian Communists were Chinese, so the Brits told the Malays it was open season on chink hunting, and everything went smoothly. It doesn't take a lot to convince Southeast Asians to massacre the Chinese for obvious reasons. However Brits were lucky that the Communist insurgency was manned and led by the most hated minority in that area of the world, which is extremely rare. It's as if IRA, ETA, Brigate Rosse and the RAF had been 90% gypsy. They would have been defeated much earlier and much more violently.
>>18761727The Roman Empire did this
>>18762349And where are the Romans now?
