Didn't work out too well for us in Vietnam, nor did it work out for the French in Algeria and Chad; are you really naive enough to think that it would work out that way in Afghanistan if we just tried it one more time?
The French were fine with doing brutality on a small scale. It's just that when they had to execute it on a wider scale, they backed down rather than keep up with a campaign of violence. The US didn't really use reprisal tactics in Vietnam.
I was thinking more like Russia in Chechnya, the Bosnian Serbs in Srebrenica, or Genghis Khan in Afghanistan.
All very successful reprisal and violence-based strategies.
This rather ignores history. The brutality completely backfired on them and mobilized large resistance forces against them that they wouldn't otherwise have to deal with. there is a reason why the military tends to think such ideas such as yours are terrible ones.
I was thinking more like Russia in Chechnya, the Bosnian Serbs in Srebrenica, or Genghis Khan in Afghanistan.
Oh, so Chechnya and Dagestan are pillars of stability now yeah? if that is your ideal outcome, then your goals are pretty low.
Actually, brutality-based, enemy-centric counter-insurgency is pretty much the most effective way of dealing with resistance forces. Indeed, the Russian state has been far more successful in counterinsurgency campaigns than most of the West. Aside from Afghanistan and the First Chechen War, there hasn't been a single example of an insurgent campaign successfully defeating the Soviet or Russian military.
(See here:
http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/zhu...r_PREPRINT.pdf)
Even looking at Western history, the successful counterinsurgency campaigns of the 20th century tended to be nasty and brutal. The British used mustard gas on Iraqi tribesmen. They also relocated Malay peasants to prison villages. They used carpet bombing on Somali towns. Hardly a hearts and minds strategy, is it?
The real reason Western military leaders have low regard for reprisal tactics and collective punishment has absolutely nothing to do with its effectiveness. It's simply not politically possible for Western democracies to use massive firepower on civilian targets (like Grozny) or use directed violence against the population. Any reasonable interpretation of history can point to brutal reprisal campaigns like Germany's destruction of Lidice or massive collective punishment like Stalin's deportation of the Chechens to be the ultimate in counter-insurgency, it's just not something Americans are willing to stomach.
As for Chechnya and Dagestan. The Russian state has effective control of the region. That is far more than can be said about Afghanistan.
