Posts Tagged ‘asymmetric war’

Losing in Afghanistan

Monday, September 7th, 2009

Michael Yon, who should know better than anyone, reports we are losing in Afghanistan.

He suggests the solution is more troops.  I don’t think so.  After all, we originally won in Afghanistan with near zero troops.

Democracy has been a disaster, both in Afghanistan and in Iraq.  The masses just do not like us much, and tend to elect people that do not like us much – or like freedom, or like democracy, or like capitalism.  And especially, they do not like religious freedom.

The winner in a guerrilla war is the side that most brutally terrorizes the population.  Our troops lack the stomach for what it takes to win a guerrilla war, so more troops will not help.  We already have enough troops to win any conventional battle, and there is not much else to do, other than what our troops are reluctant to do.  It also helps to know the locals, know the language and know the culture – so winning in a guerrilla war means arming the local killers that are on your side, and killing the local killers that are against your side.  And that, of course, means arming the Northern alliance and terrorizing the Pashtuns.

Moral progress

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Robert Hanson observes we are less inclined to kill, rape and plunder than in past centuries, and proposes some explanations for this: (more…)

Terror works

Friday, May 23rd, 2008

Before the twentieth century, the usual method for suppressing guerrilla war was artificial famine, state sponsored mass rape, and mass murder. During the twentieth century the communists used these methods heavily to quell not only resistance, but to quell resentment, to quell suspected politically incorrect thoughts. These methods generated curiously little resentment. Indeed, it seems that the greater the injury, the less the hostility. Certainly that is how things worked out for the communists. (more…)