Did the Roman's ever have to engage in what the U.S military calls a 'COIN conflict'? That is, did Roman legionnaires, in either the Republic or the Empire period, ever have to contend with an insurgency or a guerrilla campaign?
>>525385
Probably; who knows.
>>525385
They had to deal with rebellions and revolts all the time. Are you serious?
The concept of a modern guerrilla war was certainly not around during the time. That's not to say there weren't people doing things a kinned to guerrilla war, such the vast majority of German tribes. But no there was never really a guerrilla war that the Romans had to fight.
And insurgencies? Do you mean political plots? All the fucking time the Roman Empire and her politics were more bloody than her wars.
>>525385
I'm sure they did, but the methods for dealing with insurgencies were different then than now. Namely if there was an insurgent group in their territory they'd just kill absolutely everyone in the region. Today we don't just slaughter everyone so insurgencies can last.
There's also a big difference between the fighting power of rebels then and now. Nowadays anyone can have bombs or guns, back then if you didn't have a way to produce good quality weapons you were more or less stuck with crappy farm tools and pointed sticks. The guys with real weapons and armor would just wreck you.
>>525385
Sure they did. The Judeans, even before the big revolt in 66-70, embarked on a campaign of what you'd think of as terrorism today: mostly attacking Romans who tried to set up villas in the Judean countryside.
To be honest, at least in that incidence (I'm sure there are others, but I'm not familiar with any details), they didn't do all that great. low level unrest continued for nearly a century.
>>525535
>I'm sure they did, but the methods for dealing with insurgencies were different then than now. Namely if there was an insurgent group in their territory they'd just kill absolutely everyone in the region.
Not really any historical evidence for this.
> Today we don't just slaughter everyone so insurgencies can last.
Which is why the USSR won in Afghanistan...... oh wait.
>Nowadays anyone can have bombs or guns, back then if you didn't have a way to produce good quality weapons you were more or less stuck with crappy farm tools and pointed sticks.
Yeah, like how those Greek and Roman militias had just farm tools and pointed sticks, and not armor and real weapons and a full panolpy.
The failing of "insurgents" back in the day was usually military discipline and coordination, not lack of equipment. Furthermore, the longer effective response times and lack of ability to gather information endemic to the classical age played into the hands of anyone trying to break away and outlast an enemy.
>>525535
To be frank, I don't believe that any Western military can defeat a sufficiently motivated insurgency abroad without very harsh methods that would be beyond the pale for most citizens. Things like putting citizens in concentration camps (the Boer War kind, not the Nazi kind), search and seizure without warrant, and the ability to censor news that would reflect negatively on the occupational authorities. Look at how the Americans crushed the Philippine insurrection in 1900 versus how they failed to do the same in Iraq and Afghanistan a century later with different methods. Rome could get away with that shit, because they were an empire.
>>525590
I'm not speaking about the Romans specifically because the Romans aren't my area of expertise, but Alexander the Great - one of the "kindest" rulers of the classical era - was utterly ruthless when dealing with insurgency or rebellion. For instance when Thebes rose up in rebellion he slaughtered masses of people and took the rest as slaves.
At one point during his campaigns - I'm trying to look this up - he fought a group I believe was the Scythians who were fighting a kind of hit and run insurgent-like fighting style. They'd attack him and then retreat to fortress cities. He simply burned all those cities to the ground and slaughtered everyone.
He was a NICE guy for his time, the Romans were not so nice. I'm sure if someone with some actual history books on their rule looks it up they can find some evidence of how they treated rebellions.
>>525646
Rebellion != insurgency; for starters. And secondly, a lot of the "history" we get about how harshly people treated defeated foes is bullshit. The story about the Romans sowing Carthage with salt so nothing would ever grow there again springing rather readily to mind, since Tunis became quite a breadbasket for them.
Generally, only enemies under arms or people in a sacked settlement got uber-harsh treatment. They wouldn't go through the countryside looking for people to round up and kill.
> They'd attack him and then retreat to fortress cities. He simply burned all those cities to the ground and slaughtered everyone.
The Scythians were nomadic. Sure you weren't thinking of someone else? The famous story about the Scythians is how he lured them in to an undefended baggage train so they'd be too weighed down with their loot to flee quickly enough.
>>525594
>What is the Malayan Emergency
>>525682
The Brits essentially let the majority of the anticommunist population fuck up the ethnic Chinese and malayan populations with machetes until Chin Penguin pussed out. *Very* effective, mind you, but still beyond what most Western societies would accept nowadays. Britain was much more accepting of colonial tactics back when they had a colonial empire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagaudae
This is what you are looking for. You have to realize to that the Roman historians/elites often wouldn't be motivated to record something unless it was 'sizeable' or 'interesting' for them
So what are some historical examples of a successful counter-insurgency?
>>525656
Yes and no. The Scythians were nomads but were related to and intermarried with the Persians. It's one of the most ancient methods to keep those groups compliant. The true, wild Scythians lived in the Scythian Mountain range (now the Tartar mountain range?) but there was a lot of intermarriage and connection to the Persians going on.
>>525646
Okay, I found it. The Scythians and Sogdianans revolted, with Scythia revolting first. Let's see... first he wiped out the "descendants of the Branchidae, who had surrendered to Xerxes the treasures of the temple of Apollo" and who had been settled in Sogdiana. Basically a Greek ethnic minority in the region. Alexander wanted peace with the Scythians but was also preparing to build a city to serve as a launching point to attack them. He proposed a meeting of their chiefs, they figured he wanted to gather them all up to assassinate them and rebelled. They seized seven cities, Cyropolis being one, and holed themselves up in them. These cities were fortified border towns with Scythian territory. At the same time a man named Spitamenes rose up in Maracanda and there were several uprisings in Bactria. He besieged several.
On taking Gaza every man was put to the sword. "Every woman and child was reserved as plunder and distributed among the soldiers". The cities were then burned to the ground. On taking each other city he repeated the process. Some people attempted to flee the other cities to the mountains but were pursued by cavalry with all fleeing people being cut down. In two days five cities were destroyed.
Taking the largest city, Cyropolis, was a bit more tricky and led to fierce in-city fighting but it too fell and got the same treatment. All survivors were put in chains and sent out of the country so they couldn't lead future insurgencies.
He then led the battle at the Jaxartes river, won, and the king of the Scythians surrendered. Alexander accepted it and gave all his prisoners back to said king.
>>525717
The Roman conquest of Gaul and the American-Philippine War, to name two of the most prominent.
>>525718
That's the sort of thing that made him seem so generous for the time. It's part of how he made sure they wouldn't rise up again, as well. He went around murdering just about everyone and kicked their asses, then when their king surrendered he just kindly accepted and gave a bunch of prisoners back. It's a great way to say, "If you don't fuck with me you get the carrot, but if you fuck with me you get a WHOLE lot of stick."
Anyway there was also the Spitamenes insurrection to deal with and the Parthian insurrection to deal with which were handled fairly similarly. Alexander went around, slaughtered everyone in the general area of people that fought him, then was nice to people that surrendered unconditionally.
Spitamenes in particular is interesting because he was a much more typical horse archer type. His men fled to the mountains and Alexander chased him and killed EVERY fucker in his way. During his death march chasing after Spitamenes he killed "twenty thousand men, not counting women and children,".
The book I'm reading, "Alexander by Theodore Ayrault Dodge", follows this up by saying, "Only Caesar's massacres in Gaul exceed the frightful score of this devastation." So that's pretty on-topic as a quote.
Ultimately Spitamenes was cornered and murdered by his own men. Basically Alexander dealt with rebellion and insurgency by going full psychopath and murdering everyone, then being super nice to the people that surrendered. So rebellions basically tore themselves apart either shitting themselves in fear of him or desiring the benefits of peace.
>>525737
Thats pretty fucking metal. Any more stories?
>>525590
>Which is why the USSR won in Afghanistan...... oh wait.
They almost won but local drug lords who fought them received new weapons and religious-fanatics as a cannon fodder from the US, Saudi Arabia and China.
>>526121
>They almost won
>>525587
>So how did the Romans deal with such conflicts?
Kill everyone
>>526151
Read a book.
If opium overlords wouldn't get help from the outside powers(fighting "the war on drugs" at the same time), legitimate Afghan government would just burn opium fields and bleed them out by fighting them until they go out of resources.
Chinese and Americans didn't wanted Afghanistan to fall into USSR SoI and Saudis were stronger than ever after oil crisis, so they've started organising jihad(which last to this day in form of wahhabi-sponsored organisations like ISIS).
Not saying USSR were some kind of good guys, this is wrong on many levels, but in case of Soviet intervention in Afghanistan they have the "moral upper hand" over west for sure, if you want to argue about it.
Maybe the Jews?
>>526155
yeah I feel like that would work pretty well
>>526204
>Not saying USSR were some kind of good guys, this is wrong on many levels, but in case of Soviet intervention in Afghanistan they have the "moral upper hand" over west for sure, if you want to argue about it.
>moral
>upper
>hand
>>526237
>>Not saying USSR were some kind of good guys, this is wrong on many levels
Yeah, for example billions usa dollars was spend by USSR for another countries wealth.
>>526244
>mutual exclusivity
>>525441
it was very different than nowadays obviously
when they had to deal with a guerilla war, they made step by step advancements
one town at a time or left the whole place alone
putting into todays perspective, the US would gradually gain control of afganistan, only advancing once the occupied territory is pacified, or not going there at all
>>526244
quite literally absorbed them into their own bodies to become stronger
