[MannoFr]

Scattergood

Thanks for your response but let me remind you a couple of the qualifications that I made in my first post. First: I didn't say that terrorism cannot ever be defeated, I said that "I don't know of too many instances where the terrorists/guerillas/ were not the eventual victors". Second: I emphasised that: "This is especially true when they fight against armies whose society is on the whole humane and values human life".

Both your examples are valid instances where terrorism in fact was defeated by (as it happens) British armies and their allies. But let's just look at the tactics that they used. Clearly, against the Boers, the Brits employed non humane tactics and they got away with it because their parent societies were either not informed about the tactics or didn't care or both. Although the Malayan campaign involved more a carrot and stick approach, it was still pretty ruthless and barbaric (one could argue) and most importantly, again, the parent societies were unaware about the details of the campaign at the time. So, those campaigns were successful but unfortunately neither Israel nor the USA seems to be given the same opportunity to shield what happens from the media. Moreover, both societies have vocal constituents who seem to be able to pressure their governments to relent and be lenient or to even give up ....(especially so in the case of the US).

Now, I am not saying that it's impossible to defeat terrorists under these circumstances. I am saying though that it's much...much....much harder! So, what could they do better? I say that they need to do more to infiltrate the terrorist hierarchy, they need to improve their intelligence gathering....they then need to use those to do more covert (pinpoint) operations to target and kill the terrorist leadership....maybe even some of their loved ones, similarly, they need to target the financiers of terrorism. The more pain that they cause to the terrorist hierarchy, the better. But at the same time they also need to give them carrots....and yes, to some extent even face saving ways for them to back off.....I don't think they should be put into a corner, they shouldn't be made to feel like cornered animals who have no way out...