if terrorists can be deterred, then 9/11 wouldnt have happened. the goal of terrorist attacks is to invite retaliation. that's how you mess everything up. so israel can just keep on bombin and make everyone hates it, while hamas's main force is hiding away from harm. this is why israel is actually moving in with their ground force now, the lessons of lebanon and iraq taught them that you cannot defeat a guerilla force with airpower. but even so israel is only gonna make hamas more popular. deterrence would be a very hegemonic and yet ignorant way of thinkin. Lao Tzu said: if the ppl are not afraid of death, how can you expect to deter them with death?
Israeli preparing for 'all out' war (Ground Invasion)
- Thread starter alwaysfresh
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In World War II, the Japanese were not afraid of death. The sent Kamikazis (World War II version of suicide bombers) by the many thousands, even tens of thosuands, against allied soldiers, ships, buildings, etc. The people committed mass suicide rather than be occupied (Okinanwa). It was religious to them and it was engrained into their culture over many hundreds and hundreds of years.
And yet they were defeated...and they were defeated by shear dissproportionate allied (mainly American) attacks on their military forces and on their cities and population centers. Fire bombing Tokyo and other cities, nuclear bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The fact is, these dissproportionate attacks ultimately wore the enemy down and saved hundreds of thosuands of allied lives, and probably millions of Japanese lives because they ultimately surrendered unconditionally.
The same thing happened against the fanatic Nazis...but they were not as suicidal as the Japanese.
Isreal, IMHO rightly, is calculating that it will utlimately have to be the Palestinian people themselves who depose organizations like Hamas. They also understand that the Islamic culture, particularly the fundamental, radical Jihad culture, is not going to be easy to wear down, nor will it be done quickly or sporadically. But wearing it down to the point that those people reject people like Hamas is the only thing that will work against people, particularly the terrorist fighters, who are not afraid of death, like the Japanese were.
Very horrible..very difficult...but also something that tragically has to be done if Israel is ever to have peace. And it is going to take time, and it is not going to be pretty no matter how we or anyone else tries to dissect it.
Your first paragraph unequivocally outlined an outdated perspective of IR which I must respectfully disagree. There is a fundamental difference between the Japanese and the terrorists. When the japanese slammed their planes into American ships, they have done so thinking that if everyone else follow suit it will eventually fend off the enemy and save the empire. Its like if a robber points a gun at you and threatens to kill your family, you’ll definitely try to fight him, but once he shot your arms and legs, you know its useless to struggle on.
Terrorists are different. They are not “defending” anything the Americans can bomb. When they slammed planes into American buildings, or fire rockets upon Israeli civilians, they expected no gains for themselves, they wanted to create a chaos and induce their targets to collapse upon themselves…or simply to deter them. So what if the Americans bombed Afghanistan? What did the Taliban lose? Caves? Must have been a horrendous loss. But when al-qaeda bombed the WTC, the US lost hundreds of billions of foreign investment (they went to safer places) and billions more to the stupid war on terror. There could not have been a worse decision than declare war on something you can barely see. These ppl are not out to defend anything, they are not bound to anything, because they have nothing to defend and nothing to bound to. In China there is a saying “the barefooted scares those with shoes”. You can kill all of my men, but I’ll be happy as long as I am killing yours. So good job USA and Israel for playing right into the terrorists hands. Hopefully obama will be a little smarter than that.
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We do disagree fundamentally.
The Japanese did their suicide attacks (and not just on ships) after their religious fervor and dedication to their God (their emperor) and expected rewards in the after life for it. And blessings on the remainder who lived on as well.
The suicide bombers of today do similarly. They do expect gain for it, not the least of which is paradise and 32 virgins in the hereafter.
The Islamic terrorists are also out to convert the world, and prevent any other ideology from "invading" their lands...at the point of the sword, for their ideology and religion. Either convert or die and they are using the weapons they have at hand.
So, we clearly disagree not only on their methods, but also on their objctives. It certainly is not just to terrorize and create chaos. They want to annhilate and defeat what they deem as their enemies.
optionsss
Junior Member
They were afraid, that's why they have and landing gear automatically fallen off after plane take off. Many were forced into the airplane in a way.
If Israel, is willing to take it that far. They would have to destroy entire Gaza strip, cut off all essential supplies, and kill hundreds of thousands people. Yes, the Palestinians will be forced to turn against Hamas. But this only guarantees short term peace, and it could only get rid off Hamas. The suicide attacks and the rocket fire will continue, it would just be organized by small time terrorist groups.
we are lookin at different concepts here. yes the individual pilots and terrorists are prolly driven by similar motivations. but i am talkin about the incentive of the organizations as a whole. the jap gov wanted to preserve itself, and its land. they tell the americans, "you let us keep our land and we'll listen to whatever you say". meanwhile the terrorists has no land it needs to protect, its everywhere. no there is no way that the terrorists expect to destroy their enemy such as US, israel, or even China through direct actions. the fact that they had to resort to terrorism shows that the disparity of power is so great that it is inconceivable for them to do anything by conventional means. if the islamic world had the military power of the US and economic growth of China, they would be the ones fighting the christian terrorists today wouldnt they?
on the other hand, when the US hit japan, they have specific targets and objectives. hit that factory, level that city,**** ***** *****. we are still fighting a restricted, symmetrical warfare. you cannot say the same for terrorists. civilian sectors such as media and financial market has become part of the war rather than spectators. this is not something military can solve. if that were the case it wouldnt take the US 5 years and over a trillion dollars to calm the situation down in iraq...only to severely hinder its economy. by that measure the terrorists have achieved something that the Japanese did not even think to achieve in 1945.
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Sorry to be such a stickler, but I don't even think it's an "arguable" loss. Israel definitely lost the war. They were the ones to invade, but they were the ones who had to withdraw also. They went in to recover their captured soldiers, but they weren't retrieved. They went in to stop the rocket fire, but the rocket fire didn't cease throughout the entire war. Most important of all, they were hoping to eradicate Hezbollah, but they failed in that regard too.
2006 was a Hezbollah victory, as was 2000, when the IDF withdrew from South Lebanon.
Israel has shown that against a tough unconventional military force, it definitely is vulnerable.
In Gaza's case, Hamas isn't exactly a great unconventional military force.
Sorry...both the Japanese and the Germans waged unrestricted warfare against the military and civilian populations of their enemies. The terrorists try to do the first and very weak at it because of the inequities in military hardware...so they defer almost soley to the second.
In any unrestricted war...it is by definition also asymetrical because it is not restricted.
In World War II, the allies waged unrestricted war against the people of the enemy nations as well as the military. But the allies were definitely not trying to totally exterminate the enemy civilikan populations, just break their will. That was necessary to preseve the allies, to preserve freedom and to protect the future generations of even the enemy. And it worked.
We are seeing more and more of this with these terrorists and the population centers that support them. Breaking the will of the support is the only way to win in the long run...and that is going to take time, not be easy, and will be ugly.
All war is ugly, but sadly, sometimes necessary. There is no clinical, "pretty", high tech war. In the end it is about killing not only enemy soldiers, but destroying the infrastructure and support structure they depend on...and normally that means people.
Anyhow, we are not apt to come to agreement on these points...but others can read and come to their own conclusions. That is a great thing about the internet and forums such as these.
indeed, its boring to agree with everyone on everything.
but just a sidenote, unrestricted warfare doesnt always entail use of force. trade wars, propaganda wars, cyberwarfare etc all fall into this category. the one we saw in WWII is unrestricted but its still mostly military, so that one was closer to clausewitz's abstract concept of total war.
