2022: HOLD MY TEA! đŸ”

General Chat
1021

That really fried my brain, just by reading it.
There is not a single war or skirmish in history where the opposite is true.

When the Germans executed all those villagers in Kalavryta what did the resistance do?
Did they say “oh no, they are killing our people let’s stop” OR did they say “they are killing our people, we are going to fuck them up”

You think that’s lowering the morale?
Good GOD.

My grandfather is among the 9 people recorded staying on the beach of the island and fighting against the German landing. When it became apparent that they couldn’t win, they retreated. On the way back, my grand-father’s aunt (also in the resistance) who was a nurse tried to help one of the people that got hurt and got captured.
She was executed in the town square next day.

My grandfather went “oh damn, there goes my aunt. I’d better go home!” ?
or
“I’ll get back at you! See if I don’t get revenge!”

Take a guess. Go on, take a guess.
Lowering the morale 
 Jesus 
 that’s one of the certain ways to RAISE it.
That is why in wars accross all human history the narrative of Kings was “fight or they’ll kill your family”, and not “fight or they will take away my power! noooo please please peasants fiiiiiight for meeeeee”

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1022

I’m too much of a pedant to really comment about this as I get in a tangle trying to work out what is meant by “civilians” and “targets” and also the fact that I’ve no idea how war really works


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1023

But this is the opposite of the scenario I described. If attacking civilians is used to deplete morale, it’s generally the weaker party that attacks civilians. Germany isn’t the weaker player here.

There’s other reasons for attacking civilians. In particular, executing young male civilians could be strategically advantageous, since those are (considered) potential soldiers. This is what I’d guess is the reasons for the Germans executing those villagers.

Another reason could be oppression. Hitting back hard and with force at the slightest hint of resistance, or the use of decimation to punish the collective for something an individual has done, it can be a method to keep control over a rebellious area.

(assuming you used a double negative to be a single negative, judging by the rest of your comment)

Consider the end of WWII, where the US managed to make the Japanese government resign exactly by targeting civilians.

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1024

But I guess your grandfather was not the president/leader which I think makes a difference in response.

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1027

It is never used to deplete morale, period.
It is so good on RAISING morale that it is considered a “good tactic” to entice the enemy to do so. And it is such a bad idea to do this that it is drilled into every soldier to avoid harming civilians, unless their lives are in grave danger.

Maybe you should click that link and read on what happened in Kalavryta, instead of making such embarrasing statements about a historically recorded massacre of hundreds of civillians (including women and children)?

Btw, if you think that by then (1943), the Germans didn’t know what the Greek women were capable of, you are gravely mistaken.

Funny you should say that, I remember exactly that to be mentioned as to be avoided at ALL COSTS back in my military officer training.
I mean what does the army know about wars, right? :stuck_out_tongue:

If you look into it, there are many reports that the resignation was going to come either way and very soon. Those two bombings are ofter refered together so a lot of people think that they happened at the same day, but they were spaced 3 days apart.
There is a lot of material on the matter, you can look into it.

No, but by then Greece had already surrendered, that is why I said “the resistance”.
Iirc it was mentioned here earlier, but the problem with modern warfare is the mass introduction of urban warfare which makes the old traditional “hey, your king gave up, now your country is mine!” to lose a lot of its power.

If the ground-roots people are down to fight, it does not matter what the president/king/PM says. The fight will go on and on. The only way to long-term avoid urban warfare and REALLY gain control of the ground is to de-escalate any repercuassions towards citizens. If you can guarantee them safety, that they can retain their lives, their every-day routine, their houses and their jobs, most civilians do not care enough to risk their lives. If the citizens are safe, they themselves will be among the first to try to shut down (via peer-pressure) the few radicals hard-heads that will be keen to fight.

If you threaten their lives, their home, their land and their way of life, then even the more meek among them, will not stop fighting, no matter what anyone above says, because that is all they have and noone can replace that.
It is one of the most basic rules of warfare, ever.

How do you think that vast non-homogenous empires were able to be formed through history?
How did the Persians or later the epigoni of Alexander the Great manage their vast empires?
The Romans after them?
How did the Ottomans kept Greece and the whole of the Balkans (a notorious rowdy place) under their thumb for 400 years?
Magic? Or maybe good strategic administration? :wink:
It is a very interesting topic, worth looking up.

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1028

It’s no point discussing with a brick wall.

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1029

Maybe we can pick up the discussion/analogy when Ukraine has surrendered then.

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1030

It is used to deplete morale. All the time.*
Now, the question of if it should be, because cornered dogs bite back, is another issue.

*inb4 your training and stuff, people do things when they should know better all the time, military operations are no exception.

I happen to know, in their late years, people who were so completely terrified by the Nazis that they just rolled over and took anything, as long as it wasn’t their own house destroyed. And their descendants perpetuate this as the correct way of acting during the war, basically “lay low whatever happens, let the rest of them take the heat”. Or cursing whoever fought back for causing even more misfortune.

There are of course always people who will fight back and will not tolerate things, but my experience is people give in to fear more often than not.

Also, because our grandparents happened to be resistance and not traitors, doesn’t mean there weren’t a lot of oil merchants around


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1031

Instant flashback: “Clearly you don’t know our women”

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1032

Because that’s war, enemies aren’t gonna wait for you in plain field. Guess what happens to cities and towns taken by Russia, Ukrainians shell them. Because war. I presume it’s not as bad as it could be though maybe because both sides hope to have these cities at the end, so wouldn’t be productive to obliterate them. Maybe that’s why Russia is working its way to Azovstal house by house instead of bombing everything into oblivion.

1033

Yeah, my point exactly, actually, but you are the one totally closing your ears to history, facts and data 
 I even have military training and you are like “so what?” which is quite amusing.
You constantly resort to childish snide remarks like these with posts that contain nothing but derogatory comments. Quite an odd behaviour for a moderator, but hey.

So, would you like me to present some knowledge and research on the matter or that would not be enough either? :slight_smile:
Let’s see who the “brick wall” is here :wink:

There you go:
https://web.mit.edu/~dcltdw/AOW/3.html

“The general rule for use of the military is that it is better to keep a nation intact than to destroy it. It is better to keep an army intact than to destroy it, better to keep a division intact than to destroy it, better to keep a battalion intact than to destroy it, better to keep a unit intact than to destroy it.”

“To plunder a locality, divide up your troops. to expand your territory, divide the spoils.”

" Do not stop an army on its way home. (I wonder why? :thinking: )
A surrounded army must be given a way out. ( hmmm. So causing despair is not a good idea?)
Do not press a desperate enemy. ( what creates more desperation than danger to the life of their families? :thinking:)
These are rules of military operations."

“Put them in a spot where they have no place to go, and they will die before fleeing. If they are to die there, what can they not do? Warriors exert their full strength. When warriors are in great danger, then they have no fear. When there is nowhere to go they are firm, when they are deeply involved they stick to it. If they have no choice, they will fight.”

Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger, they are then able to strive for victory.

But Sun Tzu is old news, eh? :stuck_out_tongue:
More:
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/jns/files/felter_and_shapiro.pdf

“In asymmetric conflicts, such as most counterinsurgencies, information
flows, collaboration, and ultimately the support of the local population can be key to achieving strategic objectives. Thus, limiting casualties to noncombatants and other actions that alienate the population in these types of conflicts is a key part of a winning strategy.”

More!

“he U.S. military takes significant precautions in its training and planning for operations to minimize civilian casualties. The Department of Defense (DoD) has shown willingness to examine civilian casualties reports closely and adjust planning and targeting procedures, while preserving operational security. However, there are at least three compelling reasons why greater transparency and accountability is needed. First, in the truest sense, it is an absolute tragedy when a civilian is mistakenly killed during a military operation. Second, operations that end in civilian casualties serve as a recruiting tool for those that would wish to harm the United States or its coalition partners. Finally, failure—or perceptions of failure due to lack of transparency—to address gaps in intelligence and operational procedures that lead to civilian casualties damages U.S. leadership credibility.”

More? MORE! :slight_smile:

“The impact of air raids on civilian morale during the Second World War has been the subject of much dispute. Official histories concluded that the mental health of the nation may have improved, while panic was a rare phenomenon.”

“In the event, civilians proved more resilient than planners had predicted, largely because they had underestimated their adaptability and resourcefulness, and because the lengthy conflict had involved so many in constructive participant roles.”

oh, yes indeed, some more:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13669870500289005

“The effect of aerial bombing on the public’s morale during the Second World War and the incidence of psychiatric casualties have been explored to provide reference points for the current terrorist threat. Systematic study of restricted government investigations and intelligence reports into the effect of air‐raids on major British towns and contemporary medical publications have shown that panic was a rare phenomenon and arose in defined circumstances. Morale fluctuated according to the intensity of attacks, preparedness and popular perceptions of how successfully the war was being conducted. Resilience was in part a function of the active involvement of the public in its own defence but also reflected the inability of German bombers to deliver a concentrated attack over a wide area. Most civilians, by their very numbers, were likely to survive. Inappropriate or excessive precautionary measures may serve to weaken society’s natural bonds and, in turn, create anxious and avoidant behaviour. Weapons that tap into contemporary health fears have the greatest psychological impact. Efforts by government to engage the public not only build trust but may also make an effective contribution to the campaign against terrorism.”

Had enough? I have more if you’d like 
 and that’s just the modern stuff :wink:
You do not want me to open books like this and this and start digging for historical examples.
To be honest, I don’t either. I do not want to open the crates of old books and dig through that for something that is on the “common knowledge” level.

So, “brick wall” or maybe I know what I am talking about and you don’t, hmm?

Oh, I would accept that this happens every day of the week :slight_smile:
I have no problem at all with your sentence that is a bad idea, that people and commanders should have known better, yet, it does happen against the better knowledge and wisdom. That makes perfect sense.

The problem is that Vstovep’s argument/point here was that it IS actually a good and effective idea that reduces morale.
Thank God, it is not.
It does happen (no argument there - I even mentioned Kalavryta, didn’t I?), but it is not a good idea. (also proven by Kalavryta)
And military people noted that it was not a good idea, exactly because it did happen and it never ever worked towards reducing morale. That was my point.

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1034

I just meant to say that discussing with you is too time-consuming, honestly quite boring and I don’t enjoy reading your book-length point-by-point rebuttals and personal anecdotes. I’m happy to change my mind, but your approach of floods and floods of text is not going to do that.

As far as snide remarks go, your first response to mine was basically ridiculing my point of view. If you don’t want snide remarks, don’t ridicule your conversation partners either.

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1035

I believe you misinterpreted @Vsotvep’s words.
As I read it, @Vsotvep does NOT mean that targeting civilians actually WOULD break the morale of the people, rather that targeting civilians is an ATTEMPT to break the morale of the people.

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1036
1037

Also, mostly the morale of the leaders of those people

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1038

Honestly if this is what you wanted to say, then this is what you should’ve said. It would probably help the discussion on further, and I’m not sure the people you were addressing needed you to link to a bunch of websites and pdfs to support your point. Maybe someone will find it useful, but it certainly burys the point you were trying to make.

However, I don’t know if this is what Vsotvep was trying to say though, I don’t think I read them saying “bombing civilians is a good idea because
”.

I believe they just tried to provide some rational for why Russia or whoever might bomb civilians.

The phrase “bomb them into submission” is thrown around a lot in the media for example when looking up why Facing resistance in Ukraine, Putin turns to a familiar playbook: Bombing civilians, or https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/world/europe/russia-military-strategy-bombing-cities.html ( “Its experience in a string of wars led to the conclusion that attacking civilian populations was not only acceptable but militarily sound.”)

We can argue about whether the west media is biased, or whether they really understand Russias motivations and tactics etc, but certainly the media try to portray that this type of bombing is supposed to be intentional to (a) win quickly and (b) avoid their own casualties in close combat fighting.

It doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s a good or effective idea by any western standard, historical military ideology or current.

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1040

I think you’re missing one other important reason: that it’s often (at least in parts) just unorganized rage and behavior of individuals. There is not always a bigger plan.

content warning for abstract mentioning of violence; Bucha

Well, it’s surely usually an order from the top when it’s about bombings and drone strikes, but it’s often not when it comes to things like shooting and raping people and running them over with tanks, as was discovered now in Bucha.

Soldiers don’t always do that because of orders, but because a) they are frustrated and angry and their empathetic feelings were numbed by stress and fear, and b) in the vast majority, they are young and male, which is a risk factor for violence by itself, and c) their government depicted the other country’s citizens as evil/dangerous in whatever ways.
So those of them who commit violent acts against civilians feel like it’s justified and they are “the good ones”. They have been in their “own world” for weeks (in other cases even much longer), almost without access to other experiences and information outside the war and without access to an outside view of the war.
So this is basically the inevitable result of the whole war situation.

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1041

Really?

Do you have limited access to the internet?

Here’s a map of civillian damage.
https://ukraine.bellingcat.com/

There is also a Wikipedia article:

There have been countless reports of atrocities committed by the Russian army against civilians as part of the invasion of Ukraine. Here is a recent one.

https://twitter.com/BowenBBC/status/1510015814937706496?t=lU7L-I6P14YbLrW7E1gQiw&s=19

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1042

If this was inevitable then everything is inevitable, everything is deterministic. I prefer to believe in free will. Sure, there was a chain of events and some way down that chain some outcomes might have become inevitable, but at many points in the chain there were options and choices were made. Those responsible for war crimes and other human rights abuses need to be punished.

Ni perdĂłn ni olvido = no forgiving, no forgetting.

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1043

Because apparently I will have to spell it out, posting this doesn’t mean I support Russia invading Ukraine.

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