zraver,
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As a nation the US has forgotten how to win. The only way to win any war is to break your enemies will to resist. The simplest and easiest method is to kill him, kill his neighbors, smash his cities and lay waste to his country side. And then when he raises his hands in surrender beucase fighting is costing him more than defeat establish order and begin the rebuilding process. Every empire in history has followed this model in COIN ops for a reason, it works.
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this is no longer as tenable as it was in the past. the individual in this age of technology has far more power than he did in the past, and unless you can kill every single individual, you risk just ONE individual doing terrific damage in revenge. thus we talk about winning hearts and minds, because inducement to fear a la machiavelli is less useful against today's individual than it was against feudal peasants, uneducated, isolated, and powerless.