**Counter-insurgency lessons from the past**

Can modern militaries learn from the past on how to combat counterinsurgencies?
Did insurgencies present persistent issues for ancient powers?
Was brutality a legitimate strategy?

What do you think

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    best way to wage counterinsurgency is genocide

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Yup worked for the British with the boers

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Well it is based on the situation.
    Vietnam was able to counter the Cambodian insurgency by digging miles of trenches through the jungle and filling them with water making it a breeding ground for mosquitoes making life hiding in the jungle miserable as frick.
    Doubt you can do that in a dry arid desert like OP pic though

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >insurgency doesn't work in the desert

      anon...

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Are you a moron?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        When did I say insurgency doesn't work in the desert illiterate frickhead? Digging trenches and filling them with water to breed mosquitoes won't work in the desert.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Oh, so you felt the need to tell us that mosquitos don't inhabit the desert? Ok, thank you for the education.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >being moronic on purpose
            Enjoy having a shit life since you can't even properly read.

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >how to combat counterinsurgencies?
    you can't. unless you genocide.

    I read that an effective insurgency only requires 1 out of 20 people to be actively involved in resistance.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      best way to wage counterinsurgency is genocide

      Not even genocide is a sure thing.

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Just blockade them from all sides so they cannot possibly get any weapons. Worked for Israel against Palestinian rebels. Probably helps that the area they need to control is the size of LA though.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      So maybe if the U.S. somehow fixed the Durand Line and prevented movement of arms/people than Afghanistan could've went "better"?

      Ive heard this before but would it have been remotely possible?

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Can modern militaries learn from the past on how to combat counterinsurgencies?

    From the present, even. Infiltrate, subvert, demoralize, and encourage snitching. Create an atmosphere of paranoia that encourages cells to turn on each other or be a lot less effective cooperating.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I can understand this strategy to prevent unified opposition and such–but would this eventually stop the local IED planter?

      From an American perspective it seems that if one wanted to make the Afghanistan war sustainable (politically), then one would have to worry about the causalities.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >but would this eventually stop the local IED planter?

        Probably not, but even in a situation as unfavourable as afghanistan, you could have some paths to sow discord. Support resentful, dissenting muftis, tear up old wounds between tribes and sects, pull a Lavon affair and make your own IEDs and bomb mosques so that you can smear differing sects and tribes among the mujahideen, and so on. The goal is to make the resistance implode internally.

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    You can learn counter insurgency from the present best and most well documented conventional vs insurgency is the USAs desert frickery.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      But that was not successful

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        The United States failed politically the u.s military is actually really good at counter insurgency.

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Mass executions with a bit of bribery. You can’t have an enemy if they’re all dead or on your side.

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Guerilla warfare is overrated, people only think it's infallible because they focus on some cases that were 90% determined by other factors.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      All Guerilla warfare has to do is just not lose, winning isn't even needed.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Lol, just look at the naxilites if you think "not losing" will lead to anything.

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Malaysia was won by the brits via relocating all the chinese into camps. That and hearts and minds too.
    Counter insurgency is also.easier when you don't have to run through an incompetent middle-man. Like how you would do in an occupation or a colony.
    It's also vital to cut their supplies off. Big part why vietnam was unwinnable was the Ho Chi min trial.

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    None.
    The just cause status buff is broken, it caps morale at 99 for the duration of the war, ensuring that even at an overwhelming numerical and technological disadvantage you’re very likely to win,

  11. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Cutting off foreign support is the key, since cells that are homegrown and don't have connections quickly get stamped out (Muslims in Europe after ISIS lost their caliphate and cut off online, Rhodesia being internationally isolated, ETA, etc.).

    If you look at any successful insurgency of terrorist group, foreign support is all they have in common.
    >French Resistance & Soviet Partisans; given money, training and weapons by the Allies.
    >Vietcong: given money, training and weapons by NVA, China, and Soviets
    >All the groups involved in Italy's Years Of Lead: given money, training and weapons by the CIA and KGB to the respective sides.
    >IRA; given money, training and weapons by US expats, Libya, and Dublin (who also worked with them to plan, train and have members escape across the Irish border).
    >Iraq; made from remnants of the Sadam regime depending on the sectarian group, as well as Iran in the latter half of the 2000s.
    >Taliban; Pakistan, particularly for the Pashtun elements.
    >Donbass and Luhansk: You know who.
    And so on.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Rhodesia being internationally isolated

      Rhodesia wasn't an insurgency, it was a fully functional state. Moreover, it was never engaged in armed conflict with the United Kingdom, which had no real ability to prevent UDI by physical force.

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