"Hearts and Minds" policies scaled down?

[ThePest179]

What if the US military scales down "Hearts and Minds" policies in response to insurgencies? Would it be plausible at all or is it ASB? Let me know if this is plausible or not, I'm unsure.

 

[ThePest179]

Gonna bump just once.

 

[theman from the ministery]

You'd probably need a few ridiculously early post-war examples of using brute force in interventions.

 

[ThePest179]

You'd probably need a few ridiculously early post-war examples of using brute force in interventions.

Like Germany 1944/1945?

 

[theman from the ministery]

Like Germany 1944/1945?

Yes like that.

 

[ThePest179]

Yes like that.

Well, do you think the US would ever keep that kind of thinking post WW2? I just don't want to get shouted down as having ASB thinking.

 

[theman from the ministery]

Well, do you think the US would ever keep that kind of thinking post WW2? I just don't want to get shouted down as having ASB thinking.

Basically the answer is that you're going to need either wars where hearts and minds isn't a massive issue or you're going to need really brutal colonialism to remain a acceptable thing.

 

[ThePest179]

Basically the answer is that you're going to need either wars where hearts and minds isn't a massive issue or you're going to need really brutal colonialism to remain a acceptable thing.

Then I guess this has a degree of impossibility to it, because I was thinking about these policies in places like Vietnam and Afghanistan.

 

[theman from the ministery]

Then I guess this has a degree of impossibility to it, because I was thinking about these policies in places like Vietnam and Afghanistan.

Well there's always this.

 

[ThePest179]

Well there's always this.

That's more a case of total war instead of say, cutting off food as punishment and sooting people as part of "reprisals".

 

[President Farrakhan]

Remember - for all his faults, Bush II consistently went out of his way to NOT demonize Muslims & Islam as a whole. Looking at the Right now, I can tell that I'm only going to become more nostalgic for that in the coming years.

Replace Dubya with another Fundamentalist Christian type who isn't so nice in this regard and that should do the trick. We already had a mini-GULAG system and a war of aggression launched under false pretenses IOTL. You just have to push that a little bit further. "scaled down" doesn't mean the U.S Army suddenly becomes the Einsatzgruppen.

 

[ThePest179]

Replace Dubya with another Fundamentalist Christian type who isn't so nice in this regard and that should do the trick.

Cheney? Rumsfeld?

 

[Alex1guy]

Like Germany 1944/1945?

Japan could be an even easier candidate? Perhaps the Emperor is killed and martyred by the Japanese people who conduct werewolf style operations forcing a heavy heanded response from the US?

 

[ThePest179]

Japan could be an even easier candidate? Perhaps the Emperor is killed and martyred by the Japanese people who conduct werewolf style operations forcing a heavy heanded response from the US?

No, I'm thinking the "hearts and minds" policy employed by the US army is scaled back in favor of harsher methods in historical conflicts, not alternate ones.

 

[President Farrakhan]

Cheney? Rumsfeld?

Rumsfeld worshiped (and ultimately perished) at the altar of smaller, "smarter" militaries. You need some semblance of a "Hearts & Minds" strategy to make that feasible.

Cheney..............well if nothing else you're getting a MASSIVE expansion of the torture system............and he probably wouldn't worry much about- okay sure, Cheney. Probably as close as you're gonna get without President Pamela Geller or something.