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Originally Posted by SeattleUte
The very reason the North won the American Civil War is that there was no resovle on the South's part to fight a guerilla war. Had the southerners taken cudgel in hand fought house to house and in the bayous and the awful, deadly southern southern weather with the murderous commitment that, say, the Russians defended their homeland against Napoleon or the Nazis, the outcome would have been different, and the death toll would have been many times higher. Today the South would be an independent, third-world country. As I understand, the prevailing view among historians today, based on the absense of guerilla war by the South, is that the Southern cause was not committed at the grass-roots level, and from the South's perspective the Civil War was primarily of interest to the aristocracy, who are not the greatest candidates for leading a guerilla war, partly because of their limited numbers.
I'm not aware of a committed guerilla war ever failing.
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Maybe we should nail this down for any future President who ever desires to fight guerillas. It can't be done, unless you're wiling to annihilate an entire population, or displace and enslave that population.
The US should rarely if ever anticipate becoming an occupying force. Hit and run should be the only policy ever envisaged, given our limited political resolve.