Dollars as weapons, a modest proposal for a strategy in Iraq, and the War on Terror in General.

Quite a while back I was reading this article on Strategy Page about the price of AK-47 ammunition going up as a result of our purchasing it for the Iraqi and Afghan Armies. So, I'd like to suggest why stop with AK-47 bullets? I'm fairly certain we could do the same thing with IED's and RPG-7 rockets. It would a simple thing for our side to establish a front terrorist organization with the express purpose of out bidding the real terrorists organizations of the munitions they need to wage warefare. We could also work our way up the supply chain, buying out every link until all munitions produced come straight to us. Any thoughts?

Even with all the expense, it might well still be a cheaper than blowing terrorists and insurgents up ourselves, at that.

Completely impossible. first of all those weapons are made much of the time from scavenged weapon systems and or by third parties that wish to see us harmed. It's in far more of their best interest to do so than have us pay them for their scavenged home made bombs.

Nice in theory but it's fundamentally flawed.

Damn you and your newfound voice of reason!

Yes Zarth not only am I the voice of reason suddenly, but it's the voice of reason talking about guns.

Welcome to the Twilight Zone bizarro SG where conservatives speak with reason and logic and liberals have crackpot ideas.

*laughs evilly*

Well, sdhubbard isn't a liberal, at least. The last crackpot idea a genuine liberal on SG had was this, and that was awhile ago.

Otherwise I'd agree - the sky would be falling.

Quite a large number of weapons and equipment used by the terrorists is stuff that has to bought from a party whose pretty much in it for the money. Most insurgent groups are too small an outfit to make their own stuff. Freedom isn't free and neither is terrorism, it costs money.

True, but lets be honest here there are several groups out there that are not in it for the money, Hamas is a good one it may be about ideology and power for them, but lets face it they won't have that power without weapons and they have the backing to buy those weapons. Ammo is extremely easy to manufacture if you can buy the right parts, and there is no sure way for the US to simply buy ALL of the ammo out there, terrorist organizations will simply go directly to a country that shares their same view and set up a purchasing network to buy what they need in the middle east Iran supplies the necessary equipment to it's groups. If all terrorists had to shop at Terror Mart for their stuff and that was the only place to get it then yes we could theoretically choke off the supply however thats not the case.

I'm sure there will be organizations with plenty of weapons and ammunition they're willing to sell that would be more than happy to provide them at a discount should the buying party promise to kill all of the infidels.

But the idea of waging an economic war right along with a physical war is interesting.

It only backfires and ends up feeding more hatred into the warmachine you are trying to kill. Unless you decide to go all out and carpet bomb the enemy back into the stone age. The wars were fighting now don't allow that sort of thing so this type of warfare is almost useless.

of course the government wouldn't be stupid enought to try to do the buying straight up as the US government, right?

*thinks*

ok, they probably would. but there might be something to think on when using a properly set up "dummy insurgency," perhaps.

But the dummy insurgency would you know have to actually do something to be credible or else people would question why the islamic uber terror group of doom buys all these weapons and never kills anyone. Fuck we might as well just form Cobra to be the terrorist group and get it over with then.

Yeah, the Saudis who are backing them are really short on cash.

Now hopefully Zarth is sitting down in a stable chair because he may in fact hit the floor in shock, unless he has gotten used to me being all reasonable and all. But the money proposed would be far better spent as economic aid to poor affected regions that spawn terror. If your only choice is be a poor dirt farmer and die of disease, OR get paid cash by a terrorist organization to kill people you don't know or don't care two shits about then I think the easy choice is to take the money and fuck shit up. I'm not saying that you would get rid of all terrorism however as with any crime the economic part comes in when people are poor enough and hungry enough, you can get them to do anything for money and food. Nothing buys loyalty faster than filling an empty belly or letting someone provide for their family.

Who replaced Colinism with a Bolshevik?

What the hell just happened here?

well, what I was thinking was that part of the goods bought could be shuffled off to some of the governments in the area who'd work with us. the dummy groups set up like they're going to operate out of those countries, then they get "raided" or some such, with all the confiscated goods going to them, since they helped pay for the stuff. countries involved get to look tough on insurgency, the guns are out of the hands of real terrorists. win.

honestly, though, I think were the idea actually breaks down is the overall economics, like bald_eagle suggests.

good in theory but again, it would quickly break down as the supply shifted from ineffective groups to ones that could actually do something. Any governments that would work with us already are and the ones that wont are supplying our enemies with weapons that we can't find till it's too late. history has shown time and again that you can do far more damage to your enemy by simply giving hungry people food and something to believe in than by simply killing them. We need to readopt this strategy. It won't work 100% to be honest but cause enough good will and the people who we don't turn to our side will find they have alot less places to hide and allies to protect them.

Well, if some one tries to under sell use, we can always put them out of business by sending in the troops, or else pre-emptively buying one step above them in the supply chain. "Sell to me only, and I'll pay double what they're paying." That kind of thing. Basically using the dirty business tricks that were out lawed in the US in the 19th Century.

As far as suppliers motivated by pure political ideology, if we take care of those who are just in it for the money, we can devote more resources to searching and destroying their supply lines the old fashioned way.

Wait did you just advocate using the US military to force a country to sell only to us? what happens when the country in question is say China, Russia, North Korea, or hell France? and they decide to tell us to Fuck off. What then?

Did I wake up in an alternate dimension this morning?

We'd NUKE 'EM.

Duhh did you not see the sideways picture of me laughing evilly?

Thats a fucking dead giveaway dude. The picture is even leaning left.

Barry Goldwater, actually. Or maybe Tamerlane. It's hard to tell the difference.

I think he was kind of the Ron Paul of his day. My father, an anti-war (at least in retrospect) beatnik, also volunteered for his campaign.