Newish philosophy on counter insurgency

Could we adapt "Mongol" tactics into modern counter-insurgency tactics? Such as vassal states and using fear tactics. It seems to me that the U.S. has gone to great lengths to win the hearts and minds of the people, which is a smart move, but what do you do with the other half that hates you?

Imagine your platoon rolling into a pro Taliban village. What are you suppose to do? Give the kids, who are currently throwing rocks at you, candy? What if we did shit like reparations for things like bomb making, as in. If I find a bomb in or around your village, I'll burn all of your crops to the ground kind of shit. Or just straight up classifying those like bomb makers as terrorists and executing them in front of the whole village.
By doing this, we would be using both sides of a double edged blade. Your thoughts Veeky Forums?

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Can't we use the crusader method of extermination?

No. Insurgencies happen for two reasons - economics and politics in that order. People will not rise up and fight if they feel that the current situation is more beneficial to them than fighting would be, and the best way to ensure that mentality is by creating favorable economic circumstances and realistic incentives for potential fighters to be a productive member of society.

Now the exact threshold for how important the economic factors are tends to depend on politics - the political ideologies of the potential insurgents and local area and how well those mesh with that of the occupying power. In general, the less compatible the ideologies are, the less economic incentive it'll require for people to take up arms as insurgents.

The Mongol strategy is completely retarded in a modern context. The Mongols, as with most historical imperial states, were concerned more with preventing upstart warlords rather than the more popular uprisings we see nowadays. Their methods were specifically aimed at the ruling classes, as those were the ones that would be mobilizing any kind of real threat to Mongol hegemony. Nowadays, insurgencies are a more grassroots kind of threat - while you do generally have "upper class" leaders in the form of either a warlord or some driving intellectuals, it's far easier to mobilize populations compared to pre-modern times, and thus grassroots movements can more easily take shape.

eating people and stealing their piss-water?

almost all insurgencies are demagougery and impiety. It's basically crime

But without leadership, all rebellions will dissolve into just that, grassroot rebellions, that can be stomped out easily by an occupying force. For the sake of argument, lets say an insurgency rises with a base leadership and general idea that all "cells" in the insurgency fight for. The whole reason why we even care at all about "hearts and minds" is because this is the key for an insurgency to survive. Without it, they become fish out of water.

The reason for making this thread is because of the obvious but never talked about problem of what do do with the population that is already pre disposed to hate you? Such as pro Taliban villages. Forcing the population of said villages into ultimatums; either join me or die by me, we could take the sea of people away from the insurgencies. In essence, become the Taliban FOR the Taliban.

Yes, but there are very real incentives that attract people to the causes that can be addressed to prevent the movements from growing.

If you look at ISIS/the Balsamic State/Rainbow Daesh: Jihad is Magic, you'll see that a lot of the fighters they recruited cited economic reasons, especially in occupied zones - when the economy is shit and you're under constant threat of death for arbitrary reasons, might as well join the only employer - the terrorists - for at least a chance at bettering your situation.

Ethiopia was also an interesting example where it impacted both insurgents and military recruitment. The Ethiopian economy was so terrible in the '80s that fighting became the only real way to make a living. If you lived in government regions, you tried to join the army, and if you lived in one of the many insurgent regions, you joined the rebels - not necessarily because you agreed with any particular cause, but because the alternative was to starve.

And again with a recent case, the insurgency in Iraq after the 2003 invasion was supposedly made exponentially worse by the decision to disband the entire Iraqi Army at once with no real contingency plan for how they're going to make sure one of the world's largest armies can reintegrate back into the (wrecked) Iraqi economy.

>that can be stomped out easily by an occupying force
Even lacking a central leadership (from either the PKP, who had been gutted, and the American forces, who had been mostly death march'd with only dregs left in the mountains) and facing the japanese, no strangers to "draconian" measures on populations, the anti-japanese resistance in luzon went at about the same intensity throughout the occupation.
>Forcing the population of said villages into ultimatums; either join me or die by me
And what is the substance of this ultimatum?

>And what is the substance of this ultimatum?
Referring to my original post referencing bomb makers. Reason why I chose bomb makers as an example was to show the power of human emotion in conflict. IEDs are not great weapons, if looking at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan purely from a scientific standpoint(k/ds, equipment losses, etc). IEDs are not effective at all. With all the prep work involved and resources consumed just to maybe kill one American, but you know, like everyone else, is that the IED is an incredibly powerful tool in the arsenal of an insurgency, purely for its effects on the "Human" aspect of conflict. The constant threat of an ied being anywhere and everywhere. If we fought wars purely from a scientific standpoint, we would still have troops driving around in un armored humvees because who gives a shit about a couple getting blown up here and there.

But because of the Human aspect, we see soldiers riding around in MRAPs and the tactics and procedures of the entire U.S. military completely change because of a simple mortar with a cellphone ducked taped to it.

Enforce brutal reparations on bomb makers, get rid of ieds. Basically, the same effect the ied produces being projected onto the civilian populations of pro Taliban villages. Thus the ultimatum being; get rid of the trouble makers, or else all of you will be punished for the few.

Draining the water to kill the fish doesn't work. Mao may have been retarded with a lot of things, but he had insurgency down right. Retaliation and annihilation campaigns against the civilian populace are economically devastating, a huge drain on resources, and helpful to the insurgent cause. Yes, genocidal tactics may eventually eliminate all the insurgents, but that takes a long time, and in the mean time it strengthens the rebellion's cause, and ultimately, following the fish and water analogy, you're left with no water to drink.

No population is going to be eternally predisposed to hate. Sufficient "hearts and minds" can ease cultural incompatibilities, and, more importantly, when you create a situation where it's more economically beneficial for people to be on your side as opposed to fighting you, the insurgency dies out. Insurgents may attempt coercion, but just like an occupying force can't make that work perfectly, neither can the insurgents. Forced support is always going to be less effective than willing, and if you improve incentives to not join the insurgents, then even worst case you'll only have locals supporting the enemy literally at gunpoint as opposed to whenever you don't have a patrol coming through the area.

And that's how you expand the insurgency. Reprisals do not work.

No army can be everywhere, and that applies to both the occupiers and the insurgents. Reprisals breed resentment among the noncombatant population, so while they may continue to support you begrudgingly while troops are there holding the locals at gunpoint, the minute they leave town they'll at best stop giving a shit and remain neutral or at worse actively support the enemy.

Insurgencies are not conventional wars. It requires more than just killing your enemies to win.

>just to kill one American
Kidding me? One American killed is a treat, especially if you only lose 5 people to do it.
>scientific standpoint (k/d's)
Westmoreland pls leave

In any case, when I asked about the substance I meant what actually happens as a result of either choice?

I believe you misinterpreted my post when I said fish out of water. I was not implying genocide of the populace of the host nation where the insurgency is. This is exactly why the U.S. pursues the Hearts and Minds tactic, and I agree with it. When I said fish out of water, I meant having the entire populace of the host nation being in support of the occupying(U.S.) force and against the insurgency, in that case, the insurgency would have nothing else to do except either; fight openly against a far superior force, or surrender, hence fish out of water. My point about adopting certain Mongol tactics is in regards to "forcefully persuading" the populace that is pro insurgent onto your side without the need of massacre. Because right now, the U.S. does not have a strategy to deal with these people in Afghanistan other than just showing a presence here and there.

To be fair, for the period before the end of the civil war Mao's writings in general were actually pretty good and informative as to the general situation. It's afterwards where he went kooky.

It's not so much that the US doesn't have a plan so much as its politics do not allow the sort of long term planning and commitment to a single line of thought that counter-insurgency requires.

The problem is that there really is no way to coerce people into permanently being on your side. You have to create a situation where they feel it's better for them to join you than the insurgents. And not because of a threat of violence, but because of more long-term solutions. Offering a way out of mere subsistence helps a bunch - many people who join insurgent groups do so because they really don't have anything to lose. In effect, improving economic conditions gives potential insurgents something to lose and makes them think twice about potentially throwing everything away to risk their lives.

>I meant what actually happens as a result of either choice?
Through culling of those such as bomb makers and a zero tolerance policy towards civilians in pro insurgent regions, the people will have to make the choice of continuing to support the insurgency at the sacrifice of there own safety, or abandon them with the benefit of security provided by the occupying force. This would be the second step. The development of "vassal states" which were former insurgent strongholds. I should also point out here that these "mongol" tactics would only be applied in insurgent regions and not universal over regions that already side with the occupying force.

This fear and use of force tactic is to push the population that is pro insurgent over to your side through force, since they have already made up there minds to be against you. Once this has been achieved, this is where the hearts and minds procedure takes over. Humanitarian aid, medical care, and safety and security.

And how do you determine who is a bomb maker and who is not? After the fact, the execution I mean, how do you confirm the allegiance of the population as a whole?

Valid questions, difficult response. tbvqhwy, this is the reason why I made the thread, refinement. How would we figure out who is a civilian and who is not? I believe the current method of databasing everyone and spies(local, not James Bond shit) would help. As for allegiance. I think one aspect of society that many people throughout the Western world take for granted is safety and security. Imagine some motherfucker, if you will, telling you(village elder or some shit) that if you continue to find bombs or continue to get ambushed in or around your village, he will burn down all of your crops and kill your livestock, thus potentially starving your people(unless you relocate, village hamlet idea from Nam). What would you do?

Either way, from the perspective of the occupying force, you either continue to resist, which results in all of your people having to relocate or else they all starve(one way to drain the water), or you side with the occupier.

>What would you do?
Keep fighting, of course. I'd rather not keep folks around who threaten to kill livestock and burn crops, when it's the village boys up in the mountains who work them in the first place. I mean, that's how it went with the NLF in Vietnam, when folks had their shit burned or designated a free-fire zone all of a sudden it seems as if those NLF folks really have a point regarding the invaders.

How about refraining from engaging in continual wars with them while propping them up at the same time as part of the perpetual plan to maintain the petro dollar.

The American military did some similar shit in the past and look how that turned out apart from any supposed infliction of casualties. They're still not hearing the end of it.

Also the US's approach as an imperialist occupying force akin to Rome is bound to fail when faced with a customarily nomadic force like the Mongols both in tactics, culture and religious belief, and again sustained through transnational commerce in the first place.

What if we could keep constant surveillance? Like what we do in Afghan, with drones and high alt blimps? The NLF had the advantage of both the Americans actually leaving after an attack allowing the locals to do whatever the fuck they wanted, political retardation of never being allowed to occupy North Vietnam, and the terrain of the Jungle, which is very different than open mountain.

>What if we did shit like reparations for things like bomb making, as in. If I find a bomb in or around your village, I'll burn all of your crops to the ground kind of shit. Or just straight up classifying those like bomb makers as terrorists and executing them in front of the whole village.

This doesn't actually do anything but drive more people into the insurgency

this whole "rule by fear" shit doesn't actually work

Surveillance just lets you see what's happening not like it physically affects what happens on the ground by itself lest you commit more forces to it and incur even more government expense.

>The surge
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_troop_surge_of_2007
not gonna lie familia, shit worked.

>Could we adapt "Mongol" tactics into modern counter-insurgency tactics? Such as vassal states and using fear tactics.
You mean, what every army did against insurgents since the dawn of time?

>terrain of the Jungle
This prompted me to go have a quick look at its terrain on google maps and it's literally nothing but mountainous jungles with abundant rivers and streams. No wonder they pulled out. The Chinese border is also not far from Hanoi, wonder how much that affected things or could have.

Afghanistan has lots of caves which serve as a natural fortress from bombs. Even in Syria the rebels have taken to tunnel digging like the Vietnamese did. The Syrian ground appears to be rockier though.

Almost resembled America's GDP growth during the same period.

Most people don't rise up, it's a minority that are actually willing to take up arms in any conflict.

Jolly good idea

like, staying in the village? Sitting there? While the insurgents can look on and decide "alright, how best should we blow their eyeballs out?"
They weren't pulling out for nothing, bub. That aside,
>spreading your forces out to every dumbfuck village for miles around
oh great, now the insurgents can concentrate their forces on any small position they like.

Part of exerting your control over a region theoretically involves maintaining a presence. If you are forced to retreat to a more defensive position it means your aims at controlling that area have been overcome.

...20 years later
"Hmm, I wonder why our society is ruled by generals now. Ooops."

The Mongol empire fractured within two generations.

Sure, and part of maintaining presence is weaving it within the fabric of society, as something less alien, rather than armed americans threatening to burn crops.

probably not a good idea to be this edgy anymore

Look at what Russia and Iran did in Syria and do that.