Why do conventional armies struggle against guerrilla and insurgency fighters?
Is there any effective strategy to use against them?
>>1291216
They don't.
They just take more effort to defeat than most western democracies are willing to put up with.
See
>vietnam
>afghanistan
>>1291216
Guerrillas usually have a war geared economy, whilst the larger powers usually just view them as a pesky threat.
If the West went total war mode on Afghanistan, it would have been over in a couple of months. However, that looks very bad in the press and is not conducive to promoting stability in the region (then again, neither is whatever the fuck the west is doing now).
Do as the Romans did: kill everyone and everything.
>>1291216
>Why do conventional armies struggle against guerrilla and insurgency fighters?
The rules of engagement are rigid. There's also the fact that word spreads quickly through media which will be sent back home and shame the war effort. It was organizations like ABC that America lost Vietnam.
>Is there any effective strategy to use against them?
Burn the Geneva conventions and get rid of all those cameramen. Then you could just bomb and shoot the shit out of them like in the good old days in South Africa.
>>1291222
But that's wrong. Guerrilla armies fucked up entire armies during WWII. Especially if the landscape was forested or mountainous.
It's because a guy in a good position with an AK can prevent an entire platoon from march down a mountain or forest path.
>>1291300
>It was organizations like ABC that America lost Vietnam
Yeah, not the fact that America was not trying to win the hearts of the people, they were trying to impose another dictatorship.
You can't win a war if the people you're conquering don't want you there. Even if you kill everyone and everything, that's like throwing money into a fire. You need the people you conquer to want to work for you, otherwise, the investment won't pay off until you are long dead.
>>1291314
To be fair Germany was diverting the vast majority of its forces in the official fighting against the red army. Only local authorities and some special units like the SS fought against the partisans.
>>1291314
>Especially if the landscape was forested or mountainous.
This. It's all about geography. If guerrillas try to fight a conventional battle, they lose.
>>1291314
Yeah because Finland ended up beating those dastardly Russians right?
>>1291320
Tell that to the Philippines and Orange free state. Those wars were both fought over sea but it was null from the public mind and the invaders won both conflicts.
>>1291322
Either way, Germany would've had to devote a huge amount of force to stop a tiny guerrilla force.
Additionally, they'd have to wipe out basically the entire population, which would be like burning your entire garden because of some weeds, when your garden will be your only source of food for a few years.
Which is why Hitler was doomed to fail anyway. Genocide on the scale hitler envisioned would've taken at least 100 years to recover from before the region started producing a surplus again.
>>1291351
>Philippine population did not want to resist the Americans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_War
>>1291216
>Why do conventional armies struggle against guerrilla and insurgency fighters?
>Is there any effective strategy to use against them?
Guerillas are unbeatable as long as they have the support of the local population. To beat guerillas you have to:
1. Drive a wedge between them and civilians either by goodwill or absolute terror, or
2. Get rid of the civilian population either by killing them off or resettling them.
>>1291439
this is it
geurillas can only survive through local support
once that support is gone, either because the locals prefer the invaders, or there are no more locals around, geurrillas can be starved into defeat.
this is what happened to the tamil tigers, iirc
>>1291300
Yep let's just ignore the tens of thousands of dead Americans and hundreds of thousands of wounded, $600 billion dollars of spending, and immense constant fear of an even larger WW3 that the war generated.
>>1291351
>That was because the US had a history of involvement in the Philippines,
A minor history before 1898
>and the Philippine population did not want to resist the Americans.
This is some nice meme history
>>1291504
Enlighten us then
>>1291216
The british defeat of the Malaysian communist gerilla 1948-60 are the most famous modern defeat of an guerilla. Other exempels are the Algerian civil war in the 90ies.
>>1291504
Alright Mr. expert please correct us.
>>1291300
>word spreads quickly through media which will be sent back home and shame the war effort
Exactly this.
>>1291216
The problem with guerilla forces is that you have to go total war to effectively do it. Kill villages and cut down the ground and bomb the mountains.
Modern nations arn't willing to do that because it stains their name.
drone strikes
>>1291609
Which is why the Soviets won in Afghanistan.
Oh. Wait.....
>>1291609
"Scorched earth" does not equal "total war" you nincompoop.
>>1291216
Picture this:
>rugged terrain, no vehicles can reach the place
>three to five guerrillamen put separately with some decent firepower and using good camo
>platoon aproaching
what's the outcome?
Some good points are already posted. Theres also the fact that guerillas are usually defensive, defending side always has the advantage in conflicts.
>>1291609
Total war is a situation wherein an entire nation's populace must contribute in some way to the war effort. Every available man, woman and child are affected and involved by the necessary industrialization, mobilization, rationing and propaganda effort to succeed. You mean "scorched earth" where everything in the targeted area is decimated to the point nothing left is useful to anyone. Total war policies may incorporate scorched earth, but they're not necessarily mutually incorporated into the other.
>>1291830
They can go offensive when their opposing army runs out of moral, discipline or does not have good tacticians
>>1291823
Likely outcome
>guerillas open fire
>Platoon scatters, marks where fire is coming from.
>Surround and eliminate guerillas
>have maybe 0-2 dead, 2-4 wounded.
>Gets marked up in someone's log as a skirmish.
>news might or might not get hold of it.
>In another two weeks another platoon approaches the same area and the same thing happens.
>>1291840
Right. Napalming and agent orangeing the shit out of Vietnam was a scorched earth campaign, but the USA was not in a state of total war, as it was in 1941 to 1945.
>>1291848
guerrillas move and fire in echelons, the do not fire at will and keep standing where they start. If 5 men can stop a platoon they are already winning
the finns took guerrilla warfare to another level
10 outta fucking 10
>>1291469
All of these happened on some level in successful military campaigns before the advent of mass media (with more than just Newspapers). See Napoleonic Wars and WW1 to some extent. Yes, my country is spending billions of dollars and thousands of my countrymen are dying, but I am not constantly reminded of this fact every time I sit down and watch the news every night.
>>1291439
>Drive a wedge between them and civilians either by goodwill or absolute terror.
How does one accomplish the "absolute terror" part? What could America have done to achieve the Vietnam war if they employed the "absolute terror" route you're proposing?
>>1291300
So much this
No other reason why my country still has an armed conflict with guerrillas
>>1291881
Winter war was not a guerilla war. It was a war between nation states.
>>1291878
guerillas very often are not trained soldiers in any sense of the word. They can and often do make a shitton of dumb tactical decisions, and attacking at close to 1:10 odds is likely to end badly however you maneuver.
>>1291823
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2015–present)
>>1291883
What is the Gulf War for 500
>>1291907
hey you know whats a good idea? using these guerillas trained in hit and run tactics in a large scale conventional assault against US and ARVN positions.
t. giap
>>1291929
See? If you have to have a whole multinational army such as NATO to quell a guerrilla formed by goat shepherds then you're failing miserabily
>>1291937
>A war that lasted 6 fucking months with 292 coalition casualties is a fucking example.
>>1291941
>if you have allies you're failing miserably
por que
The British experience during the Malayan Emergency is probably one of the best examples of a successful counter-insurgency strategy. The biggest fear of a guerilla fighter is getting caught out in the open.
The British relocated entire villages of Malayan Chinese (who made up the bulk of communist insurgents) into British-run safe zones where they would be fed and sheltered behind walls. Insurgents had relied on being able to gather food from villages so when these villages were suddenly placed behind razor wire they could no longer acquire food without having to sneak into these camps and expose themselves.
Separating the peasantry from the guerillas also impinges on their ability to recruit new fighters and distribute propaganda. Eventually the guerilla cells would run out of food, make a desperate raid on some food supply and get flushed into the open, where British conventional superiority could annihilate them.
>>1291968
If you compare NATO's budget, logistics, manpower, weapon tech and know how to Taliban's then you'd suppose NATO would wip the floor with the taliban, but no. Time has passed and it did not happen
>>1291968
Lack of coordination, language barrier, confusion over jurisdiction, etc etc.
How is General X going to dictate the direction of the campaign when he can't even order a sizable portion of the fighting force? It's as if the Centurions in a Roman Army had the option of following Caesar's orders. It just doesn't work.
>>1291982
However, there were a couple of factors which gave Britain an advantage. Firstly, most insurgents were ethnically Chinese (who were somewhat loathed by the majority native Malay) and were therefore easier to isolate and focus on. Secondly the insurgents had quite limited outside support. They didn't have much money or weapons coming in from China and these made them weaker. Americans get a lot of flack for Vietnam but their situation was far more difficult. The Vietcong were supported by a conventional army in the form of the NVA, Vietcong were not from a small, isolated ethnic minority, and they received considerable support from the Communist powers.
Counter-insurgency is difficult. It has a profound psychological effect on soldiers. There is no clear, uniformed enemy to fight against. Instead one has to be suspicious of almost every native who might leave a bomb at a bar or attack an isolated checkpoint. This can lead to resentment and distrust of the native population and worse relations between locals and an occupying force, as the occupiers grow indiscriminate in their violence in order to root out insurgents. I don't know about the historical accuracy of the film 'Platoon' by Olivr Stone but the scene where the GIs burn a Vietnamese village is a good representation of this effect. A GI is found murdered near a village and anyone could be a suspect. Even a little old lady might be hiding a guerilla or a stack of rifles under her hut. No one wants to co-operate and the GIs get the sense that everyone is in on it so they go nuts and start wasting people. This of course leads to even greater resentment against an occupying force and leads to more guerillas taking up arms, and so the cycle continues.
>>1291216
The best way to fight guerrilla tactics is with guerrilla tactics. Not carpet bomb the place like the Americans seem to think works
>>1291216
Yes, to kill the population that is supporting them.
Guerrillas cant raise their own food
>>1293882
Fun fact: Conventional Militaries of the world know this.
You know whos tasked to do this? Some special forces units and military advisors
>>1294024
It's a lot harder to wage a guerilla war in a hostile country compared to a friendly one, though.
>>1291537
Because they were absolutely ruthless and didn't care about the collateral damage to the entire population
When the British army came to N.Ireland to fight the IRA they couldn't understand why people were so angry that they were wantonly murdering innocent civilians, they felt one hand tied behind their back
The same way terrorism will never go away.
It's impossible to simultaneously remove all threat of terrorist attacks, and at the same time live in a free and open society.
Guerillas are supplied by the local populace. To destroy Guerillas completely you must win over or exterminate the local population.
Modern countries are unwilling to the latter, and social media has made it impossible to do the former.
Lock down a secure region and make it really fucking rad, just make local life better and the people will follow
>>1291222
>>1291216
Once guerrilla warfare has been going on long enough, you'll do enough damage to the surrounds that you'll turn a large percentage of the general populous against you.
If your objective is to get the general populous to do a specific thing (such as abandon communism), rather than simply genocide said general populous, at that point, you've lost the war.
It doesn't matter how much determination or power you have, more force is only going to exacerbate the problem at that point. There's no longer a military solution.
So the trick to dealing with them is to either nip them in the bud, hard and fast, before that happens, or turn the general populous against them via propaganda and infiltration.
Better than half the folks shooting at us had no affiliation with V-C by the end of Vietnam. Blood simply cries out for blood. We lost that war years before it ended, and had long past the point where there was anything we could do. (Hell, given what the French were doing, we kinda lost it before it started.)
>>1294110
Only really works when you can physically distinguish between insurgents and friendly civilians, or when there's some immediately obvious cultural difference (like language). ...or you've stuck yellow stars on everyone ahead of time.
>>1294518
There's also the option of placating a sufficient number of the guerrilla's leadership through negotiated compromise and bribery.
But yeah, that also only works if the war hasn't been going on too long. Once you kill enough folks, there's just no going back.
You can arm and train the guerrilla's opposition and try to let them work it out themselves, but that rarely works. Tends to be that the bulk of the population prone to determined fighting has already joined the guerrillas, or you wouldn't have the problem to begin with.
>>1291216
well you could always try and do this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program
fuck i dont even think you want to know what this entails, wikipedia tends to be awfully vauge when it comes to war crimes
>>1295227
Well, obviously, that didn't work - really, it seems almost designed to make things worse. Much like GITMO and the current "extraordinary rendition" torture programs.
>>1291891
They tried the absolute terror path, it dident work
>>1295227
"The Phoenix Program has been referenced a number of times in past chapters,
and its relevance to this discussion cannot be overstated. Phoenix was, by design,
a psychological warfare operation. Its goal was, quite literally, to scare the hell out
of the Vietnamese people—to such an extent that their will would be broken and
they would accede to the demands of their would-be oppressors. The techniques
employed were barbaric. Victims of the program were not merely assassinated;
they were frequently raped, tortured, mutilated, dismembered and left posed in
grotesque displays for their fellow villagers and family members to find."
...draftees (into the phoenix program) were made to kill dogs and vultures by biting their throats and twisting off their heads, and had to watch as soldiers tortured and killed suspected dissidents tearing out their fingernails, cutting off their heads, chopping their bodies to pieces and playing
with the dismembered arms for fun"
this next part is from from salvadoran death squads, but you could expect the same things to happen in vietnam, since you know both things where the work of CIA
"People are not just killed by death squads in El Salvador—they are
decapitated and then their heads are placed on pikes and used to dot
the landscape. Men are not just disemboweled by the Salvadoran
Treasury Police; their severed genitalia are stuffed into their mouths.
Salvadoran women are not just raped by the National Guard; their
wombs are cut from their bodies and used to cover their faces. It is not
enough to kill children; they are dragged over barbed wire until their
flesh falls from their bones, while parents are forced to watch."
>>1295246
Well it did do one thing, it created alot of serial killers in back in the U.S
i cant give you any names of the top of my head but numerous serial killers in the states where assassins in the phoneix program
>>1291300
And then be ripped apart by internal conflict like any other empire.
Because they're limp wristed.
Scorched Earth.
The Mongols never a had a problem with insurgency I'll tell you that much. The only effective way to deal with a foe that looks like a civilian is to kill all the civilians. It's barbaric, cruel, and will never fly in western society, forcing us to fight inefficiently and stupidly.
To defeat a militia you have to be evil and cruel as shit
Read stuff about these nigger
>>1296782
fuck your thread, there is no such thing as evil
>>1296839
>
>>1291504
kys
