State vs guerillas and terrorism

 

Build up an Iraqi military capable of doing all the flattening.  They're probably much better suited to this than the US army, under Saddam, they had to deal with a lot of Kurdish insurgents, and their standard tactic (surprise, surprise) was to surround a hostile town and flatten it with airstrikes, helo strikes, artillery, and tank fire, then have infantry clear out the rubble.

 

I cant even think of 10 Goliath victories where Goliath was facing a truly determined insurgency.

 

The only ones that I can think of are....

1.  United Kingdom defeating Malaysian Communists

2.  Turkey defeating or at least nueteralizing Kurdish rebels

3.  United Kingdom defeated Boers  (partially through ethnic cleansing of all Boer civilians from guerilla areas)

 

Nazi Germany may have nuetralized /  defeated several insurgencies but only by committing large scale atrocities against the civilian population.

El Salvadoran and Guatemalan  leftists were never defeated but accepted cease fires and a role in the government.

 

 

Here is link to an article describing a report by a U.S. Marine Colonel.  The report describes Anbar province as a politically lost cause.  Four years of a  "heart and mind campaign" combined with the killing a fair number of insurgents / terrorists and their leaders has not worked.

 

Since truly flattening Anbar Province is not a option.... what does one do next ?

 

 

 

 

One can do what the British did and treat it as a large police action with military support and try to win the hearts and minds of the people like they did in Malaya, or there is always the Genghis Khan option of beheading anyone who resists in the slightest way.  Both must deprive the guerrillas of the support of the people.  One does this by making the people unwilling to help the guerrillas, or merely killing them so they can't help them.  I read about two French commanders in Morocco who were dealing with counterinsurgencies in neighboring provinces.  One of them protected the people who collaborated and set up things such as a subsidized market to get their help, and the other guy massacred every village that resisted.  Apparently there was even one time when the women and children of a village hid in a nearby cave and he started a fire at the mouth of it and asphyxiated all of them.  Yet, by these two different approaches, they were both able to pacify their provinces.