You claim that “just fight the war” is a wasteful and inefficient way to defend against invasion compared to clever strategies like taking out the enemy’s leadership or deploying a propaganda campaign to change the invading nation’s opinion about your nation’s citizens. But doesn’t most invasion-defense mostly consist of just fighting the war? If assassinations are so easy and are obviously the right thing to do, shouldn’t they happen more often? When was the last time assassinations were used to end a war anywhere? Without examples, the ideas in this post seem unmoored from any real assessment about what’s hard vs easy.
As for cultural/propaganda solutions, these all seem far too slow. Once the enemy’s tanks are rolling, the war will be decided in a matter of days or weeks—no time to go about changing the cultural attitudes of an entire population! (And how might we expect to shift their attention to domestic issues overnight, when we have to compete with the headline that their country has just declared war??) I could see some of these defensive tactics working as a way to try and prevent invasion from ever occurring in the first place (like Taiwan’s situation), or as a way to make the best of a small international incident (like how the occasional India/Pakistan flare-ups are played by both governments to score domestic political points), or that they would become relevant amid a long, drawn-out stalemate. But if you’re the victim of a fast-moving surprise invasion, no clever cultural shenanigans are going to stop the hard power streaming across your borders.
Once the enemy’s tanks are rolling, the war will be decided in a matter of days or weeks—no time to go about changing the cultural attitudes of an entire population!
Contemporary war happens in two phases. The first phase involves tanks and planes and lasts days or weeks. The second phase involves putting boots on the ground and asserting the victor’s will over the victim. As you may imagine, the second phase involves a lot of human rights abuses.
America is great at the first phase, but is generally unwilling to admit that the second phase actually exists. Therefore, American wars tend to involve quick kinetic victories that degenerate into insurgencies and civil wars almost immediately. Think Iraq or Afghanistan.
Successful second-phase war looks like what China is doing in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong. Constant direct subjugation of the losing population, lots of propaganda, and creating an environment where any hint of resistance is directly confronted and destroyed. Eventually the population just gives up and stops resisting. The process seems to be essentially complete in Tibet, well in progress in Xinjiang, and just beginning in Hong Kong.
War is hell, but there are different circles in hell.
That’s certainly the case for some wars; I’m certainly not claiming that no war is won quickly by an overwhelming force.
On the other hand, look at the US wars in Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. The outcomes of these wars were determined much more by political forces (in both of the relevant countries) than by overwhelming force.
If assassinations are so easy and are obviously the right thing to do, shouldn’t they happen more often?
Regarding assassinations specifically: they are not obviously the right move, in many circumstances. In many cases, one leader killed will quickly be replaced by another of similar competence. Or a group will be replaced by another group. Nonetheless, they are a useful tool, and if you think they don’t happen often then I wonder why you believe that to be the case. Would you have heard about it?
Without examples, the ideas in this post seem unmoored from any real assessment about what’s hard vs easy.
I basically agree with this. The lack of examples is not because they’re hard to find, but because I didn’t want to spend a week on the post (and make it 3-4x as long).
I’m just finishing Nixonland, which focuses on the military/political intersection of the Vietnam war from the American perspective.
In Vietnam, the decision of whether or not to get involved in the first place, and whether or not to pull out, was indeed highly political. We got entangled (after initially supporting Hochimin) because France claimed that they’d fall under Soviet influence if we didn’t help them keep their colony. Then it was the domino effect theory. And then it was (under Nixon) a hard to parse concern that losing Vietnam would harm America’s stature as a superpower.
Perversely, it was these political concerns that drove some of the intensity of the punishing American bombing. Nixon wanted to show off how violent he could be. There’s a parallel here to the decision to bomb Nagasaki and Hiroshima partly to show off our willingness to use a nuclear bomb to the Soviets.
As another example, a key victory in driving the French out was when Hochimin slaughtered an entire dug-in French army corps in the valley of Dien Bien Phu. He lost 3x the men, but it showed France just how much death they’d have to suffer to continue colonizing Vietnam. They did assassinate bureaucrats too. But a lot of those bureaucrats were Vietnamese mandarins. The French already thought they were inferior people, so why would they care? There’s nothing like wiping out a huge number of enemy troops to make them think twice about pressing on.
Violence is a form of signaling. And signaling your willingness to use, escalate, and sustain violence by doing so is part of the political theater. So I’m not really convinced that history shows alternatives to violence to achieve political ends being the norm.
On the other hand, look at the US wars in Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. The outcomes of these wars were determined much more by political forces (in both of the relevant countries) than by overwhelming force.
Insurgencies aren’t a good comparison for conventional wars like the Nagorno-Karabakh war.
If assassinations are so easy and are obviously the right thing to do, shouldn’t they happen more often? When was the last time assassinations were used to end a war anywhere?
The issue with assassinations is that while they can be effective for the country, a leader ordering an assassination of a leader of the other side faces the prospect of having an assassination ordered against them.
A gentlemens agreement between leaders of both sides not to assassinate the leaders of the other side is personally benefitial for the leaders involved.
The other reason, as noted by Clausewitz, is that the enemy leader is the only person who can order its army to surrender. If you kill them, victory gets much harder to achieve.
You claim that “just fight the war” is a wasteful and inefficient way to defend against invasion compared to clever strategies like taking out the enemy’s leadership or deploying a propaganda campaign to change the invading nation’s opinion about your nation’s citizens. But doesn’t most invasion-defense mostly consist of just fighting the war? If assassinations are so easy and are obviously the right thing to do, shouldn’t they happen more often? When was the last time assassinations were used to end a war anywhere? Without examples, the ideas in this post seem unmoored from any real assessment about what’s hard vs easy.
As for cultural/propaganda solutions, these all seem far too slow. Once the enemy’s tanks are rolling, the war will be decided in a matter of days or weeks—no time to go about changing the cultural attitudes of an entire population! (And how might we expect to shift their attention to domestic issues overnight, when we have to compete with the headline that their country has just declared war??) I could see some of these defensive tactics working as a way to try and prevent invasion from ever occurring in the first place (like Taiwan’s situation), or as a way to make the best of a small international incident (like how the occasional India/Pakistan flare-ups are played by both governments to score domestic political points), or that they would become relevant amid a long, drawn-out stalemate. But if you’re the victim of a fast-moving surprise invasion, no clever cultural shenanigans are going to stop the hard power streaming across your borders.
Once the enemy’s tanks are rolling, the war will be decided in a matter of days or weeks—no time to go about changing the cultural attitudes of an entire population!
Contemporary war happens in two phases. The first phase involves tanks and planes and lasts days or weeks. The second phase involves putting boots on the ground and asserting the victor’s will over the victim. As you may imagine, the second phase involves a lot of human rights abuses.
America is great at the first phase, but is generally unwilling to admit that the second phase actually exists. Therefore, American wars tend to involve quick kinetic victories that degenerate into insurgencies and civil wars almost immediately. Think Iraq or Afghanistan.
Successful second-phase war looks like what China is doing in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong. Constant direct subjugation of the losing population, lots of propaganda, and creating an environment where any hint of resistance is directly confronted and destroyed. Eventually the population just gives up and stops resisting. The process seems to be essentially complete in Tibet, well in progress in Xinjiang, and just beginning in Hong Kong.
War is hell, but there are different circles in hell.
That’s certainly the case for some wars; I’m certainly not claiming that no war is won quickly by an overwhelming force.
On the other hand, look at the US wars in Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. The outcomes of these wars were determined much more by political forces (in both of the relevant countries) than by overwhelming force.
Regarding assassinations specifically: they are not obviously the right move, in many circumstances. In many cases, one leader killed will quickly be replaced by another of similar competence. Or a group will be replaced by another group. Nonetheless, they are a useful tool, and if you think they don’t happen often then I wonder why you believe that to be the case. Would you have heard about it?
I basically agree with this. The lack of examples is not because they’re hard to find, but because I didn’t want to spend a week on the post (and make it 3-4x as long).
I’m just finishing Nixonland, which focuses on the military/political intersection of the Vietnam war from the American perspective.
In Vietnam, the decision of whether or not to get involved in the first place, and whether or not to pull out, was indeed highly political. We got entangled (after initially supporting Hochimin) because France claimed that they’d fall under Soviet influence if we didn’t help them keep their colony. Then it was the domino effect theory. And then it was (under Nixon) a hard to parse concern that losing Vietnam would harm America’s stature as a superpower.
Perversely, it was these political concerns that drove some of the intensity of the punishing American bombing. Nixon wanted to show off how violent he could be. There’s a parallel here to the decision to bomb Nagasaki and Hiroshima partly to show off our willingness to use a nuclear bomb to the Soviets.
As another example, a key victory in driving the French out was when Hochimin slaughtered an entire dug-in French army corps in the valley of Dien Bien Phu. He lost 3x the men, but it showed France just how much death they’d have to suffer to continue colonizing Vietnam. They did assassinate bureaucrats too. But a lot of those bureaucrats were Vietnamese mandarins. The French already thought they were inferior people, so why would they care? There’s nothing like wiping out a huge number of enemy troops to make them think twice about pressing on.
Violence is a form of signaling. And signaling your willingness to use, escalate, and sustain violence by doing so is part of the political theater. So I’m not really convinced that history shows alternatives to violence to achieve political ends being the norm.
For every dead enemy soldier, you create 2 bereaved parents, 1.5 bereaved siblings, many bereaved friends and a country full of terrified draftees.
Insurgencies aren’t a good comparison for conventional wars like the Nagorno-Karabakh war.
The issue with assassinations is that while they can be effective for the country, a leader ordering an assassination of a leader of the other side faces the prospect of having an assassination ordered against them.
A gentlemens agreement between leaders of both sides not to assassinate the leaders of the other side is personally benefitial for the leaders involved.
The other reason, as noted by Clausewitz, is that the enemy leader is the only person who can order its army to surrender. If you kill them, victory gets much harder to achieve.