# How come the world's 6th most powerful army can't eradicate a terrorist group? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 7, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214 "2012-05-07T19:44:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![gvozd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gvozd/32/7301_2.png) [@gvozd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gvozd)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/1 "2012-05-07T19:44:44Z")
> **[Kurdistan Workers' Party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PKK)** > > The Kurdistan Workers' Party\[a\] or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement which historically operated throughout Kurdistan but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq. Since 1984, the PKK has utilized asymmetric warfare in the Kurdish–Turkish conflict (with several ceasefires between 1993 and 2013–2015). Although the PKK initially sought an independent Kurdish state, in the 1990s its goal... > **[2023 Turkiye Military Strength](https://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.php?country_id=Turkey)** > > Detailing the current military strength of Turkiye including air force, army, navy, financials and manpower. They also have the biggest land forces in Middle East. It’s very interesting that they haven’t managed to get rid of a terrorist group for more than 30 years. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/2 "2012-05-07T19:54:39Z")
> [@gvozd](#): > > [Kurdistan Workers' Party - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PKK) > [2025 Turkiye Military Strength](http://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.asp?country_id=Turkey) > > They also have the biggest land forces in Middle East. It’s very interesting that they haven’t managed to get rid of a terrorist group for more than 30 years. Terrorist groups are, by design, meant to fight a force that they could not possibly face in a straight-up battle and win. They will never line up across a field from the military and have at it. Their purpose is to terrorize to hopefully force some political change. They cause little real damage relatively speaking. Even toppling the World Trade centers, as big as that was, is a relative pin prick in the bigger picture of the US economy and population. First, terrorist groups need not be large. They can be a relative handful of people who can cause disproportionate damage. It is not all that hard to sneak a bomb here and there and blow things up at random. Hiding among the population is not difficult. They, for obvious reasons, do not advertise themselves for who they are. Second, the groups are intentionally decentralized. Each cell knows nothing of the other cells so if one is caught they cannot compromise much if anything of the whole operation. In some cases there is literally no one who knows it all for precisely this reason. Not even the main leadership. The leadership issues general orders and goals then the individual cells do what they can to carry those wishes out. As such they are notoriously difficult to root out. Almost impossible really. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/3 "2012-05-07T19:55:26Z")
Moved to Great Debates from GQ. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/4 "2012-05-07T20:01:26Z")
In addition to what **Whack-a-Mole** , we should also note that big militaries are not necessarily good militaries. In a big military you get an enormous bureaucracy and the leadership is often most interested in defending its own turf, which means opposing any new ways of doing things. The United States military would be much more effective at a fraction of its current size. ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/5 "2012-05-07T20:15:36Z")
The Kurds, like the Taliban, have a mountain range to retreat to. It’s VERY difficult to root out mountain-dwelling militants. Eric Robert Rudolph evaded the FBI for several years in the mountains, as an example. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/6 "2012-05-07T20:17:29Z")
Can anyone “eradicate” a militant group? To try, you might have to be worse than they are, and who wants a cure worse than the disease? ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/7 "2012-05-07T20:19:59Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > In addition to what **Whack-a-Mole** , we should also note that big militaries are not necessarily good militaries. In a big military you get an enormous bureaucracy and the leadership is often most interested in defending its own turf, which means opposing any new ways of doing things. **The United States military would be much more effective at a fraction of its current size**. Bolding mine. I would like to hear arguments to support that statement. At what fraction? 1/2? 1/4? Does ‘current size’ apply to the number of members, or to budget expenditures? Effective at what mission: counter-terrorism or conventional conflict, or both? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Man_With_The_Golden_Gun)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/8 "2012-05-07T20:55:43Z")
OP, if you’re in Turkey, don’t feel bad. My country has _the_ most powerful military on Earth and we still can’t eradicate most of our terrorist groups. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/9 "2012-05-07T21:18:50Z")
> [@The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](#): > > OP, if you’re in Turkey, don’t feel bad. My country has _the_ most powerful military on Earth and we still can’t eradicate most of our terrorist groups. That’s because so many of us are terrorists, apparently. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/10 "2012-05-07T21:19:16Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Can anyone “eradicate” a militant group? To try, you might have to be worse than they are, and who wants a cure worse than the disease? Sure you can, just ask the [Sri Lankans](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_Tigers). Of course they had a significant advantage - Sri Lanka’s an island so it’s relatively easy to stop the militants you’re after slipping over the border. The Sri Lankan army basically swept everyone (including civilians) in the area onto a small peninsula and then shelled them until the final militants surrendered. Whether this makes the Sri Lankan government worse than the Tigers is a matter of opinion. Personally I don’t think so (take a look at the Human rights violations part of the wikipedia page) but YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2012, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/11 "2012-05-08T06:48:42Z")
There’s also the possibility of collusion between the Kurdish and Government forces, see Susurluk scandal. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2012, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/12 "2012-05-08T06:59:27Z")
I see the CIA claims it stopped an al-Qaida plot yesterday. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2012, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/13 "2012-05-08T10:56:42Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Terrorist groups are, by design, meant to fight a force that they could not possibly face in a straight-up battle and win. They will never line up across a field from the military and have at it. Their purpose is to terrorize to hopefully force some political change. They cause little real damage relatively speaking. Even toppling the World Trade centers, as big as that was, is a relative pin prick in the bigger picture of the US economy and population. > > First, terrorist groups need not be large. They can be a relative handful of people who can cause disproportionate damage. It is not all that hard to sneak a bomb here and there and blow things up at random. Hiding among the population is not difficult. They, for obvious reasons, do not advertise themselves for who they are. > > Second, the groups are intentionally decentralized. Each cell knows nothing of the other cells so if one is caught they cannot compromise much if anything of the whole operation. In some cases there is literally no one who knows it all for precisely this reason. Not even the main leadership. The leadership issues general orders and goals then the individual cells do what they can to carry those wishes out. > > As such they are notoriously difficult to root out. Almost impossible really. Note also that people may be joining and forming new cells at the same rate as you’re wiping them out. Essentially making the fight against terror something like whack-a-mole (and I actually wanted to use that phrase prior to seeing the name of the poster I was replying to…). ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/14 "2012-05-09T19:06:32Z")
> [@gvozd](#): > > How come the world’s 6th most powerful army can’t eradicate a terrorist group? The world’s largest military couldn’t stop the Viet Cong from taking over South Viet Nam. A good description I heard for that war was “trying to kill mosquitoes with a sledge hammer”. An army’s dependence on heavy weapons and machinery makes it cumbersome, slower and less manoeuverable than peasants on foot, especially in mountain ranges and thick jungle. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/15 "2012-05-09T19:15:37Z")
> [@Esox\_Lucius](#): > > The world’s largest military couldn’t stop the Viet Cong from taking over South Viet Nam. A good description I heard for that war was “trying to kill mosquitoes with a sledge hammer”. An army’s dependence on heavy weapons and machinery makes it cumbersome, slower and less manoeuverable than peasants on foot, especially in mountain ranges and thick jungle. The Viet Cong were pretty much decimated after the Tet offensive of 1968. It was the NVA that marched into Saigon and took control of the country. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/16 "2012-05-09T19:18:09Z")
The military is funded, trains and plans to defeat states, not ideas. The fact that we try to use the military to accomplish political goals is a case of “when all you have is a hammer” The law of the instrument. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/17 "2012-05-10T04:25:54Z")
> [@lisiate](#): > > Sure you can, just ask the [Sri Lankans](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_Tigers). Of course they had a significant advantage - Sri Lanka’s an island so it’s relatively easy to stop the militants you’re after slipping over the border. The Sri Lankan army basically swept everyone (including civilians) in the area onto a small peninsula and then shelled them until the final militants surrendered. > > Whether this makes the Sri Lankan government worse than the Tigers is a matter of opinion. Personally I don’t think so (take a look at the Human rights violations part of the wikipedia page) but YMMV. It took 26 years and a damn near genocidal final campaign. Not that I blame the Lankans. ---
**Author:** ![Imasquare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Imasquare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imasquare)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/18 "2012-05-10T06:57:01Z")
> [@Esox\_Lucius](#): > > The world’s largest military couldn’t stop the Viet Cong from taking over South Viet Nam. A good description I heard for that war was “trying to kill mosquitoes with a sledge hammer”. An army’s dependence on heavy weapons and machinery makes it cumbersome, slower and less manoeuverable than peasants on foot, especially in mountain ranges and thick jungle. I don’t think the US Army is the world’s largest. At least not in terms of numbers of soldiers. It is likely the most powerful though. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/19 "2012-05-10T17:09:13Z")
This thread is very relevant. For 10 years now, the US Army (and NATO nation’s armies) have been trying to defeat the Afghan Taliban. It seems likely thet we will lose. Part of the reason: the enemy (Taliban) is liked and viewed as friendly by a large part of the population. Second: we have proven that we can make ourselves unloved and even hated -(Karzai once referred to US soldiers as “demons”). We cannot make ourselves loved by the people. So we must ask the question: if we are not prepared to wage “Total War” in Afghanistan, it is certain that we will lose. Personally, I’m for an immediate exit. ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214/20 "2012-05-10T19:05:03Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > The Viet Cong were pretty much decimated after the Tet offensive of 1968. It was the NVA that marched into Saigon and took control of the country. Thanks for the correction. More accurately, the U.S. couldn’t stop the Viet Cong when they were in the jungle. When the VC entered the cities en masse, they played into the military strengths of the Vietnamese and American forces. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-the-worlds-6th-most-powerful-army-cant-eradicate-a-terrorist-group/621214.md?page=2)