Civvy perspective, to be overlooked at will, all comment gratefully received.
Good god no.
Politicians seem to want a nice clean nintendo war. It is simply unlikely to work. Force has always been the last resort, but it should not be the inevitable resort, once we've accepted we don't have anything else that works. It is necessary to accept that we may not have anything at all that works, including force.
Tend toward the point of view that this sort of enemy is unlikely to accept it's been beaten until it's been subjected to a level of brutality that current western governments are unwilling and now ill-equipped to display. Talking-up of Brimstone on Tornado (despite its cleverness) is obviously for political ends, but I suspect that this sort of precision restraint is likely to be seen as weakness rather than excellence.
Fixing an entire country might be possible given an imperial-style, multi-decade occupation and gradual construction of a functioning society. It would take a generation and I'm not that convinced it would work even then. Even if it's anyone's place but the UN's to do that.
P
Last edited by Phil_R; 30th Nov 2015 at 23:43.