Why Militaries Destroy Cities to Save Them

Re:Why Militaries Destroy Cities to Save Them by goldcd on Monday November 12, 2018 @03:56AM (#18431392)

Islamic State (or Viet Cong) didn't have to raze the same cities to the ground in able to 'occupy' them. Putting myself in the position of a civilian in these scenarios, I always bemused how "please leave your home, whilst we convert it and anybody left behind to rubble" as liberation like to win the hearts and minds of me and my family. My take on the article is that it's the reasonable analysis of how to do what you've been ordered to, whilst minimizing your own casualties. Fair enough. The writers job. Still, strikes me as if it were the instructions of how to "best remove a screw when you've been given a hammer" (without any consideration of why the screw needs to be removed).

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Re:Why Militaries Destroy Cities to Save Them by SiempreViernes on Monday November 12, 2018 @05:10AM (#18431630)

You are comparing two different things, occupying a lightly defended city, and taking an enemy stronghold that happens to be built out of a city.

The author does leave out the most traditional way of taking a city in face of opposition: starving it to submission. I think a fundamental blind spot in the article is that it doesn't explain why US forces employ high explosives so much more than other armies

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Re:Why Militaries Destroy Cities to Save Them by illys on Monday November 12, 2018 @04:40AM (#18431537)

About "Islamic State (or Viet Cong) didn't have to raze the same cities to the ground in able to 'occupy' them":

Those forces do not face an army when they take a city: they face a collapsing civilian state. When the restoring state or a foreign country sends a "liberation" army, the situation is very different: two armies are facing each other.

It was the same with nazis in the first phase of WWII: a prepared, determined and fanatic army faced unprepared troops. They took large chunks of Europe with little combats and destructions (Central Europe, France, Belgium...).

Then it took a hellfire to get them out.

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Re:Why Militaries Destroy Cities to Save Them by baud147258 on Monday November 12, 2018 @04:46AM (#18431560)

> They took large chunks of Europe with little combats

The amount of casualties taken by the French army in 1940 seem to indicate that there were some fighting. And the French army tried to counterattack multiple times (Arras, Stonne), even if they lost each time. The Polish lost also a lot of men.

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Re:Why Militaries Destroy Cities to Save Them by baud147258 on Monday November 12, 2018 @04:48AM (#18431566)

I don't think it's the role of the army to consider why the screw needs to be removed, that's the job of the politicians.

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Re:Why Militaries Destroy Cities to Save Them by goldcd on Monday November 12, 2018 @01:31PM (#18434520)

That was my point, I could have made it clearer.

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Re:Why Militaries Destroy Cities to Save Them by PavlovsCat on Monday November 12, 2018 @07:26AM (#18432177)

It's the job of citizens to consider it, and it's the job of politicians to represent and serve them.

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