"Vietnam proved conclusively that no modern war of occupation will ever be won."

Where does it go from here? The nightmare misadventure in Iraq is over,
beyond the reach of any reasonable argument, though many more body bags
will be filled. In Washington, chicken hawks will still be squawking about "digging in"
and winning, but Vietnam proved conclusively that no modern war of occupation
will ever be won. Every occupation is doomed. The only way you "win" a war of
occupation is the old-fashioned way, the way Rome finally defeated the
Carthaginians: kill all the fighters, enslave everyone else, raze the cities
and sow the fields with salt.

- Hal Crowther, 2004

http://www.thegiganticheartlessmultinationalcorporation.com/

We successfully occupied Germany and Japan after WWII. The key was that we first destroyed their countries, and broke their will to fight. For example, the firebombing of Dresden (and many other cities) was specifically to destroy the populations will to fight.

(Note that I'm not endorsing this kind of thing in general - just saying that it's necessary for a successful occupation.)

Yeah, we have bases in Germany. But they were scared shit that Russia would take over so I expect they were quite pleased to be in American hands. Russia was holding a bit of a grudge.

In Japan, we were stunningly careful of the people and their customs. We taught them baseball and went home.

late 19th century -- the Black Ships and whatnot.


As for being stunningly careful of their culture - well, we did take that into account in not lynching the Emporer and writing their constitution, but US servicemen did run wild for a long time. Ginza in the 40s and 50s was pretty wide open for servicemen.

Fascists never do.

Case in point: The Khmer Rouge. While the regeime did not last, their tactics were as brutal as those employed by the Romans and others.

But Crowther's point is well taken.

... history shows that no occupation was successfull UNLESS you mixed your population witht their population to the point where you can't tell who's who anymore. Which is where rape, and the killing of the young male population fits in.

Successfull occupations in that sense were:
- Rome occupying Romania (who were a people living to the east with plenty of gold and who were totally wiped out and assimilated)
- Spain, Portugal, England and France occupying North and South America and mixing with the (few surviving) indian population, specially in South America.

Amazing how our corporate media no longer screams the right wing meme "nation building" when it comes to the misadventures this regime has attempted in Iraq. Appropriately, this term, no matter how you try to benevolently frame it, is rarely successful when an outside force attempts to impose a political system on another. The only people who make it work are those who want it to...no amount of arms or sanctions or other games can be played.

Also, how does one define a "democracy"? Is it one that uses our model or is it one that's bred on the history and culture of the people employing it? Is Iran less of a "democracy" than we are despite them having elected representatives? Is a parlimentary system superior to a bi-cameral one? There is no textbook definition...no template that can be imposed on every culture and no military can force a politcal system that isn't indigenous by the people who must operate under it.

One last point...those civilizations you cite that were "successful occupations" were IMHO more like assimilations as both cultures, over years of contact, adopted traits from the others.

Cheers....

I thought the US revolution proved that. This country was so big and diverse that England couldn't possibly control all of it at one time, even with thousands of Loyalists rooting and working for an English victory. England's biggest fear was that the rebels (us) would just play defense and wait them out, because England knew that there was no way to completely win without massive military victories.

Unless an invading country is willing to blow the living S--T out of a country, it is notoriously difficult to occupy a country and claim victory.

there are strategies that would have worked in vietnam as there are now in iraq.
the problem is separating truth from wishful thinking.

there were those who knew how to analyze these situations and devise what could have been sucessful plans -
but they could not fit them to the political agenda of those in power.
these harbingers of ill news were fired, replaced with sycophants and the politicians followed their own flawed agenda.