Jpod’s column the other day on brutality was bracing and powerful. There is certainly something to what he’s getting at–if we had killed more Sunni fighters in the way into Iraq, for instance, we would have been better off. (Before I say anything else, I should note that his column was written entirely in question form, in the spirit, I take it, of raising questions rather than definitely answering them).

But, in general, I don’t think a lack of brutality is our problem. Brutality typically is not a good way to beat guerilla forces, unless you pursue a Roman-like policy of slaughtering all the men, selling the women and children into slavery, and salting the earth. Perhaps the closest thing we have to that in recent history is the Russians in Afghanistan and in Chechnya. In Afghanistan, they acted with near-genocidal fury and still lost. In Chechnya, they’ve had more success, but it has taken years and it’s been a shameful campaign by any standard.

A quicker Israeli ground invasion with less concern for Israeli military casualties and Lebanese civilian casualties might have been better militarily, but still wouldn’t have destroyed Hezbollah. Since Hezbollah is a guerilla force with deep support among a substantial part of the Lebanese population, there is probably no way to eliminate it short of–and no one is advocating this, for good reason–a Milosevic-style campaign of massive ethnic cleansing of the Shiites of Lebanon. You don’t have to be squeamish to consider that wrong.

The moral way to beat insurgencies is to have excellent intelligence that allows you to carefully kill the right people, and grind out it over a long period of time (that means it’s not always going to be pretty, but there is no reason for brutal campaigns against civilians, which are usually counter-productive). I think this basically is how the Israelis beat the second intifada. There’s not going to be enough time to do something similar with Hezbollah, but Israel can damage it and hope there’s a political/diplomatic solution that keeps them off the border and is acknowledged to be a defeat for Hezbollah.

UPDATE:

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Rich,
Your recent post on brutality in response to Jpod makes a very important point … successful counterinsurgency always entails the minimum use of force rather than maximum firepower in order to win hearts and minds. Unfortunately some conservatives seem to think that this is soft liberal mush because it involves restraint. We have a major problem in Iraq in part because that skeptical view dominated for so long and excess firepower (e.g. leveling a building in response to small arms fire) alienated many Iraqis needlessly. Tom Ricks put it well recently when he said that in a counterinsurgency the people are the prize not the playing field. Thankfully most of the officers in the field have now come around and are leading the way in COIN doctrine.