@William_The_Dragonborn @buttered_poasties @Terry That's how it was always understood to be, up until modernity.
The concept of non-combatants is relatively recent, argued first in the late 17th century, and codified into international treaties in the 19th century.
War is, and always was, about logistics and morale.
The enemy is the factory and the farm, as much as it is the airplane carrier and the tank.
@PalePimp @buttered_poasties @Terry @William_The_Dragonborn Not a single war you say?
France might disagree.
Bombing power-plants and factories is a common and reliable strategy.
Less so now, because the factories for most countries are all in China, and you don't want WW3 on your hands.
In some cases, you do it to your own assets to deny the enemy, i.e. scorched earth strategy.
Assuming of course you have assets the enemy wants.
Also, I never said "at random", logistics aren't random.
But since you mention it, random acts of violence is called terrorism, and can be used to demoralize the enemy if sustained and combined with other tactics.
Get your agents / subversives / opposition in the enemy country blame the ruling government for their failures to protect public spaces.
Political turmoil is wasteful and destabilizing.
@PalePimp @buttered_poasties @Terry @William_The_Dragonborn jewish or not, it works, don't deflect.
I don't disagree that attacking the population galvanizes it, I'm saying sometimes that's the strategically correct approach.
The bombing of Dresden wasn't an act of war, but rather something more personal and vile.
Japan did not surrender for the same reason at all, their capitol wasn't nuked, their leadership was fooled into believing the US had more nukes.
In both cases, it was the leadership (or lack of it) that made the decision, while the population was not routed.
That isn't always the case though.
Afghanistan, Vietnam, and even Russia at times, showed that they just don't surrender, even absent of leadership.
When waging war, you must account for cultural differences.
It depends on your goal too.
Dominate, or exterminate?
Genghis Khan and his children waged war very differently, the war of unification of China was also very different.
The war against the feather-indians was just total war against the entire population.
@PalePimp @buttered_poasties @Terry @William_The_Dragonborn@poa.stThe image is specifically in response to "attacking the civilian population has never lead anybody to win a single war".
Did France win?
No, they didn't.
The people doing the bombing did.
Many people argue that the Germans did it with less damage, but they also used different tactics, exploiting French culture and military tactics, and a fair bit of luck.
>>The enemy is the factory and the farm, as much as it is the airplane carrier and the tank.
This is modern thinking yes, and attacking the civilian population has never lead anybody to win a single war, all it does is galvanise the populace around the government.
You win wars defeating the enemy's army via a decent strategy, bombing civilians at random doesn't achieve anything militarily in 99% of situations.
And before you say Iran and bombing infrastructure on the ME's kingdoms aligned with USRael this is a tactical own goal caused by Zionist hubris.