Asymmetric.

This is coolbert:

“Kill them all - - let GOD sort them out!!”

“The purpose of terror is to terrorize!!” - - V.I. Lenin.

From the wiki entry on Fourth Generational Warfare [4GW]:

"Ways for a state military to cope with fourth generation warfare"

It has been noted by many observers [Roger Trinquier the foremost?] that conventional military units, using conventional military tactics, have historically been generally unable to successfully combat an opponent who employs partisan/irregular/insurgent/guerrilla warfare as THEIR [the opponent] preferred means of combat.

Exceptional means can be used to combat the partisan/irregular/insurgent/guerrilla. Tactics and methods requiring massive violence quite often directed against UNARMED persons!

"There are few examples of the state being effective in a 4GW conflict . . . the state is to use overwhelming force to generate large amounts of casualties and do so fast enough that the objectives are achieved"

Tactics and methods [exceptional means] that most conquerors/occupiers are loathe to implement. Requires a level of destruction and killing on such a massive scale that, as a rule, normally even the WORST rulers/”military men” are hesitant to proceed.

Historically, there are of course exceptions. Some “military men”/rulers/conquerors/occupiers ARE WILLING to apply scorched earth measures on a massive scale. Murder, rape, pillage, arson. What is left of the victimized population is too terrified, dispirited, and cowed to respond. The will to resist no longer exists.

THE PURPOSE OF TERROR IS TO TERRORIZE!!

[we must be clear here. We are not talking about "things got carried away" or "things got out of control". We are talking about merciless slaughter for the most part done with pre-meditation and cold-bloodedness. Utter ruthlessness, normal restraints not applying!!!]

Within the historical record we find such as exceptions as:

* The chevauchee of the Black Prince.

* Destruction of Hama by Assad of Syria. [the Hama model is derived from this “incident”.]

"It is called the Hama (named after the Syrian city of the same name that was eradicated by the Syrian army under the leadership of Hafez el Assad) model"

* Liquidation of the Polish Home Army, Battle of Warsaw [1944].

[Greatly facilitated by the atrocious behavior of the Derliwanger.]

* Dispersals of conquered peoples by Tiglath-Pilesar. [Assyrian Empire, 700 B.C.]

With regard to the latter:

Entire populations of peoples, such as the Hebrews of ancient Judea, would be taken from their homeland and dispersed into small groups. Political and cultural continuity would be destroyed and with it, the will to resist the conqueror/occupier.

"The mighty Assyrian monarch Tiglath Pilesar III [r. 745-727 B.C. was the inventor of a new method of breaking the will of conquered populations . . Tiglath Pilesar's genial idea, therefore, was to sever the primary lifelines of attachment to the soil by transferring conquered populations to lands distant from their own . . . until not a vestige of the earlier, ground-rooted sense of a national continuity remained."

Tiglath was one hard and cold ruler who exercised POWER!!

coolbert.