Minimize human costs of wars

IMO, how we fight our enenies lately is old school. We bomb the crap out of them, then send troops in to shoot a bunch of them. I favor the first part of that, but not the other.
Our ground troops are just targets. They aren't going to win the hearts and minds of people of such different cultures. That isn't even their job, they aren't trained for it, but we ask them to do it.
I think a more effective method of dealing with the ME countries is to make them want to deal with terrorism on their own.Instead of pouring bags of money on them, withdraw all foreign aid they might be getting that is financial in nature, and send cruise missles instead. One missle on one of their military targets and then invite them to either start dealing with the terrorists within their borders, or get another missle on another day. Basically, use fear to make their leaders want to deal with the problem.
I wonder how the Saudi royalty would like to see a few of their many palaces leveled in response to 9/11. Perhaps one palace for each Saudi terrorist involved....for starters...
Their royalty would surely respond to even the threat of losing their palaces just because a few govt supported clerics want to preach hatred for America.

Or are there better methods to incentivize Arab leaders?

In Afghanistan, I think your strategy would have had promise. We could have made our point by leveling the Taliban with overwhelming force and then simply left before we lost too many soldiers to attrition. The message that attacking America has consequence would be sent without having to spend countless lives in nation building. In Saudi Arabia, that would never work. The Saudi family has a very weak grasp of their country, and they would be overthrown if they moved against the clerics. They are more afraid of their people than they are of us, and for good reason. Attacking them would simply make the Saudi government turn against us and we would lose their vital supply of oil.

rathi said:

In Afghanistan, I think your strategy would have had promise. We could have made our point by leveling the Taliban with overwhelming force and then simply left before we lost too many soldiers to attrition. The message that attacking America has consequence would be sent without having to spend countless lives in nation building. In Saudi Arabia, that would never work. The Saudi family has a very weak grasp of their country, and they would be overthrown if they moved against the clerics. They are more afraid of their people than they are of us, and for good reason. Attacking them would simply make the Saudi government turn against us and we would lose their vital supply of oil.

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We can easily keep SA from moving oil.....they will have no cash flow if they can't sell any oil...

UtahBill said:

Basically, use fear to make their leaders want to deal with the problem.
I wonder how the Saudi royalty would like to see a few of their many palaces leveled in response to 9/11. Perhaps one palace for each Saudi terrorist involved....for starters...
Their royalty would surely respond to even the threat of losing their palaces just because a few govt supported clerics want to preach hatred for America.

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What you just described closely mirrors the Nazi policy in the Balkans during WWII to discourage partisan activity. Where they would hang ten people for every German killed.
In my opinion the easiest way to minimize human costs in war is to not send our soldiers to die in pointless wars in the first place. I.E Lebanon, Desert Storm, Iraq, Vietnam, and (hopefully I will be wrong here) Iran.

txlibertarian said:

What you just described closely mirrors the Nazi policy in the Balkans during WWII to discourage partisan activity. Where they would hang ten people for every German killed.
In my opinion the easiest way to minimize human costs in war is to not send our soldiers to die in pointless wars in the first place. I.E Lebanon, Desert Storm, Iraq, Vietnam, and (hopefully I will be wrong here) Iran.

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I agree, don't send soldiers.....send cruise missiles and smart bombs, take out their military, and then step back and ask them if they want a little bit more "diplomacy" or are they now willing to pay up...

A more effective and peaceful method would be stop doing things that piss off terrorists in the first place, such as fighting an endless war in the Middle East and propping up corrupt and oppressive regimes in places like Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

UtahBill said:

IMO, how we fight our enenies lately is old school. We bomb the crap out of them, then send troops in to shoot a bunch of them. I favor the first part of that, but not the other.
Our ground troops are just targets. They aren't going to win the hearts and minds of people of such different cultures. That isn't even their job, they aren't trained for it, but we ask them to do it.
I think a more effective method of dealing with the ME countries is to make them want to deal with terrorism on their own.Instead of pouring bags of money on them, withdraw all foreign aid they might be getting that is financial in nature, and send cruise missles instead. One missle on one of their military targets and then invite them to either start dealing with the terrorists within their borders, or get another missle on another day. Basically, use fear to make their leaders want to deal with the problem.
I wonder how the Saudi royalty would like to see a few of their many palaces leveled in response to 9/11. Perhaps one palace for each Saudi terrorist involved....for starters...
Their royalty would surely respond to even the threat of losing their palaces just because a few govt supported clerics want to preach hatred for America.

Or are there better methods to incentivize Arab leaders?

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Sure you could do that, then Saudi Arabia and the other oil states in the ME could stop exporting oil, and sabatoge the production in non ME countries. They lose the US loses

Lord Tammerlain said:

Sure you could do that, then Saudi Arabia and the other oil states in the ME could stop exporting oil, and sabatoge the production in non ME countries. They lose the US loses

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I am not advocating war, just how to deal with the ME if we really have to. They play us too easily....
If their oil is that important to us, we need to find a way to get off their oil teat.

UtahBill said:

I am not advocating war, just how to deal with the ME if we really have to. They play us too easily....
If their oil is that important to us, we need to find a way to get off their oil teat.

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The US could not use a drop of ME oil and it would still be subject to price shocks due to supply cuts from the ME. If Saudi Arabia cut production to zero, the price of oil for the world goes up $60 per barrel

Smart bombs, I believe (if i properly remember the content of my readings) have not significantly reduced casualties particularly in collateral damage for themselves. We have merely been privileged enough to not have fought total wars against other major powers.

Lord Tammerlain said:

The US could not use a drop of ME oil and it would still be subject to price shocks due to supply cuts from the ME. If Saudi Arabia cut production to zero, the price of oil for the world goes up $60 per barrel

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So we pay more money, or let more American blood spill on ME sand....no other choices?

UtahBill said:

IMO, how we fight our enenies lately is old school. We bomb the crap out of them, then send troops in to shoot a bunch of them. I favor the first part of that, but not the other.
Our ground troops are just targets. They aren't going to win the hearts and minds of people of such different cultures. That isn't even their job, they aren't trained for it, but we ask them to do it.

Click to expand...

You are confusing 2 very different things. There is a huge difference between winning a war, then winning the peace afterwards.

Winning a war is easy. And in order to do that, you have to have "boots on the ground". Because no war is ever won otherwise.

But it is not the job of the troops on the ground to "win the hearts and minds". That is all political hogwash, said and repeated by politicians. The peace can only be won if all sides at the end of the conflict actually desire peace. The problem with the wars in the last 40 years is that quite often you have 3 or more sides fighting. And at least one of the sides refuses to accept or honor a peace once it is negotiated.

Compare Germany and Japan to some of the recent wars. In those cases, the loosing side agreed to peace, and ordered all of it's forces to stand down. Fighting afterwards was minimal, and both countries assisted in establishing new and stable governments.

Then you have Vietnam, where one side would talk peace, but never honor it.

Then you have Iraq and Afghanistan. Both countries have governments that desire peace, but it is other groups that do not want it. Either they are unhappy and want all power themselves, or they thrive on instability and that is their goal.

And why on earth would we attack Saudi Arabia? They did not attack us, some of their citizens did. Timothy McVeigh was an American and a terrorists. Should we bomb Kingman Arizona because he lived there before the OKC bombing? Should we bomb Brooklyn because that is where Jose Padilla is from? Richard Reid was born in London, should we drop a bomb on them because he tried to blow up a plane?