Occupy or devastate

(See 'Standing army vs. Fourth Generation forces' below.)

We do not have long-term commitment from citizens or from politicians.

So, occupation is out of the question.

‘Fundamental Concepts - Winning at War [Weirddave]’

Devastation “is a sure thing, but it's surely a godawful bloody thing. First of all, you have to realize that in any population of humans, the majority of the people just want to get along and live their lives. This means a small, dedicated group of committed people can drive the entire population in whatever direction they want. We're like schools of fish, swimming along, when suddenly a couple of fish turn and dart in a different direction and immediately everyone else does the same. If the people leading the population are bent on war, these people will be the firebrands and the warriors. Look at Germany leading up to WWII. The Nazis never numbered more than 10% of the population, and look at the whirlwind they reaped (Most estimates of the percentage of "radical" Muslims put them at 20-25% of the worldwide Muslim population. Chow on the implications of THAT for a while). The war faction in Imperial Japan was similarly composed of only a small percentage of all Japanese, and the same thing happened there.

“So how do you defeat an enemy thusly comprised? You kill them. You kill them, and kill them, and kill them some more, and you keep on killing them, not just the armies in the field but also the civilians back home, until the entire population cries out "enough!". You have to kill the firebrands, utterly defeat the warriors, and get the civilian population to the point where anything, literally anything, even surrender to an enemy that they've been told will annihilate them, is better than one more day of war. It's bloody and brutal and closer to hell on earth than anything mankind has yet devised, but it's the only way. Please don't misunderstand me. I am not bloodthirsty, I'm not being flippant, I am not cavalierly calling for war. I am horrified beyond belief at the reality of the words that I'm typing, but my horror doesn't make them any less true.

“And then.....

“And then you help them up. They'll have been told that they have no future after losing the war, so you give them one. You rush in men and money and machines and you rebuild. You give them a future of peace and prosperity and joy. WWII ended in 1945. Within 20 years Western Germany and Japan were peaceful and rich. Eastern Europe (where the Soviets acted as conquerors) was not. It's not perfect, and hatreds will linger, but man is mortal and generations born to wealth and comfort tend to be less and less susceptible to them.”

http://ace.mu.nu/#354660