Genocide is usually not an efficient way to wage war. Even ancient armies usually did not slaughter entire towns, not because of ethics, but because fighting sucks and if you slaughter everybody you come across, nobody is going to surrender and every person you come across will fight you to the death.

I say usually, because there are some exceptions and nukes are one of them, they make genocide a viable war strategy. But even nuking Vietnam would not have worked, cause you will simply get nuked back.

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WarmWash a day ago | parent [-]

Its more that you make it clear that you will kill anyone who doesn't surrender. Then most people end up surrendering.

In modern militaries though, the expectation is that you will just leave civilians alone.

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surgical_fire 13 hours ago | parent [-]

There are some terrorist states that indiscriminately kill civilians though, such as Israel and the USA.

The worst thing people would do is surrendering in those cases.

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twirldat 10 hours ago | parent [-]

As opposed to who? Iran fired missiles at Israeli (and Arab) civilian areas, so did Hezbollah and Hamas when they used to have that capability.

	▲	surgical_fire 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's precisely what I expected. That people would pop up defending US atrocities by equating them with the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah. And you know what? You're right. Those are all terrorist organizations.