It’s often been said that the U.S. committed far too few troops to Iraq to accomplish the task of rebuilding the nation. Many have said that the insurgency and its fervor were not taken into account.
For this question, I am assuming the above to be true. There’s no need for a political debate here – it seems hard to argue against the position that more troops would have helped.
Now for the hypothetical:
Imagine that for some reason, both China and India decided to join the Coalition of the Willing in invading Iraq. And for some reason, both nations has bugs up their backsides, and were willing to commit some ludicrous number of warm bodies from their immense populations to the fray.
Imagine also that the U.S. and Great Britain were willing to supply as many vehicles and munitions – and as much training – to these Chinese and Indian troops as feasible, in order to make these troops as effective as possible (I am assuming British and American equipment is, at minimum, more reliable and sophisticated than Chinese and Indian equipment).
Now then: let’s imagine that the Coalition were able to put ten or twenty (or more) times more troops on the ground than were actually there in March 2003. How might the war have gone differently? Could a functioning Iraqi insurgency have taken shape?
A further unanswerable what-if – just how many troops would have to commited to stymie (or make irrelvant) the insurgency that currently exists in Iraq?
Is an insurgency the type of thing you can just throw numbers at?
It’s not really a mater of how many troops, it’s how far the troops are willing to go. It’s a horrifying notion, but the truth is that the only surefire way to suppress an insurgency is through brutality against the civilian population. That’s not to say that rebellions can’t be stopped without mass murder; it’s just that history doesn’t show us many examples of that happening.
The Russians and Chinese have some experierience in these. I’m pretty sure they’d be able to do much better in Iraq than the U.S., even without a “ludicrous” amount of men in the field. Which is one good reason they’re not there.
Even brutality doesn’t always do the trick. The Nazis – no shrinking violets when it came to brutality, torture and mass murder – had insurgencies to contend with in quite a few conquered territories.
I know of the insurgencies in France and in Germany itself … but what of nations that history paints as having rolled over silently (i.e. Poland and Czechoslovakia)?
Also – have accounts of insurgencies in far-fling territories held by the medieval Mongols ever come to light? What were the tactics used by the Mongols to keep hold of their territory? Obviously, brutality played a part … probably a large part. But as the Nazis showed, brutality alone isn’t enough. What else did the Mongols have going for them?
ATTN: This line of discussion is in no way an implication that the U.S. forces in Iraq should go “Mongol” on the insurgency. AFAIC, this is strictly a discussion of military tactics. To wit – if the insurgency had to be beaten back at any and all costs, how would it be accomplished? Through numbers? A modification of tactics (obviously)? Something else? A combination of several things?
The American Civil War? Spanish Civil War? Lots of folks dies, of course – but did those deaths qualify as wanton murder against civilians. as opposed to strategic targeting of civilians (there is a difference – essentially, planned versus unplanned)?
Did Alexander the Great resort to wholesale mass murder in building his empire? Heck, that question goes for every pre-Industrial Revolution empire.
I think I see the difference you’re trying to make between wanton murder of versus strategic targeting of civilians, but it’s not really relevant: both work equally well. You can’t suppress an insurgency without directly attacking the civilian base. I don’t really see the U.S. doing that in Iraq, which is IMHO for the best.
Note, though, that not every conquest involves an insurgency. A rebellion comes from the bottom up, and very often conquerers - such as Alexander - eliminates the military and the ruling class, without the populace making much of an objection. In pre-modern times, the citizenry was usually so divorced from its rulers that it didn’t really care who was in charge. The few instances where they did care - like in the case of the Scots and the Welsh - their occupier often had to resort to extreme violence in order to quell the rebellions.
Yes, there was resistance in those and other countries, particularly Denmark and Italy. Italian partisans are credited with tying down 7 Nazi divisions during the Allied invasion of Italy in WWII.
The Mongols wiped out whole populations. No people, no resistance. A lovely solution.
Sure. All you do is stay in power for a generation or two and treat your captive populace well. Worked in Germany and Japan.
