Scorched Earth Diplomacy

[Lerkfish]

Not just the most recent conflict in Lebanon, but all recent actions by a variety of countries and entities have, in my mind, been tending towards what I call "Scorched Earth Diplomacy".

Scorched Earth Diplomacy are actions or strategies that not only attack an opponent, but go out of their way to destroy infrastructure. I'm not going to get into "collateral damage" or civilian deaths for this thread, though that certainly is consistent. My point is that we seem to have an increase in warfare waged not so much to bring a people to surrender, not so much to bring about regime change, or what have you. Instead, it appears to be attacks specifically targeting the ability of the people to survive after the conflict ends.
A recent story from people on the ground in Lebanon was making estimates of billions and billions of dollars in damage, just to restore damaged infrastructure. Airports destroyed, factories demolished, communication companies eliminated.
And in Iraq, we see a similar result: civlians cannot get water or electricity, bridges are destroyed, and basic infrastructure will take years and billions just to restore.
The financial burden this will place on the vanquished, even when the dust settles, is so catastrophic in nature, it serves to hamstring any ability that country might have had to survive on the same level it once enjoyed. "Bombing them back to the stone age", a saying that has been around for a while, meant metaphorically, is coming to realistic fruition as we watch.

Scorched Earth Diplomacy can be explained this way: Not only will we beat you, we will make darn sure nothing arises out of the ashes, even in peace, that will ever make you a target of my concern for the foreseeable future.

The main problem with this policy is long term, obviously. Eventually, there will only be a few powerful states standing relatively intact. All the rest of the world will be demoted from first world to second world, and from second world to third world, etc.

I'm pointing out that these strategies appear, under the surface, to be far removed from mere victory in the current conflict. They appear to be a strategy of permanently crippling financially and logistically those states which are vanquished.

[Lerkfish]

1. self-kick

thanks to whoever voted this up.

[Pepper32]

2. I agree, great post! n/t

[Lerkfish]

3. oh well, another self-kcik

sorry.

[Lerkfish]

4. ok, last self kick...geez, i thought this was an important point.

[MGD]

5. I call it, "machine gun diplomacy".

Others just call it war. It's just another form of negotiating that occurs when peaceful diplomacy has failed. It's nothing new. I don't really disagree with anything you said however, just in your analysis that it is something new.

[Lerkfish]

6. one last kick before bed...

thanks for those who replied to the thread.