Lerk's observation: scorched earth diplomacy

[Lerkfish]

Scorched Earth Diplomacy

Many 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.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. "Carthago delenda est."-Cato

Yeah, we're pouring salt on the ground so nothing will grow there again. Nothing new about it, though. As in so many things these days, the Roman imperialists are a couple of millenia ahead of us.

[bemildred]

3. Let us not forget Genghis, Timur the Lame, and a host of others.

Hadrian did what he could in Jerusalem. The Greeks, our esteemed forbears, were prone to this sort of thing too when they got pissed off. Troy comes to mind, for example.

[Chulanowa]

4. As far as your examples go...

Genghis was pretty civilized. He engaged in diplomacy of the normal sort. That is, he had power, and wanted a protection racket going.

[Ezlivin]

6. Instead of "pouring salt on the ground" we're pouring depleted uranium

Iraq will be a nightmare for generations to come because of the widespread use of this toxic metal in our munitions.

[Lilith Velkor]

2. Gunboat diplomacy

on meth.

[conspirator]

5. Add genocide to that nt