There is strategy and there is retaliation. Shockingly, retaliation usually results in a prolonged war and long term rebellion.
But if your goal is to hurt them for hurting you?
As for recent wars where soldiers commit horrific crimes against civillian populaces. Off the top of my head:
EVERY army in WW2. Japan took it down to a science but The Allies and the rest of The Axis were no saints
Vietnam with US soldiers commiting horrific atrocities against the Vietnamese people
Pretty much every civil war in Africa
The Yugoslav Wars
Russia’s actions in Ukraine (every time they invade)
It is mostly that the US shockingly went hard on stopping troops from those kinds of massacres during the various invasions of the Middle East. That isn’t to say we didn’t find OTHER horrible shit to do but…
As for logistics and resupplies: Gaza is literally within Israel’s borders. Supply chains won’t be an issue.
I don’t think you can call My Lai ‘sanctioned’ or official even though it was done by a commissioned officer who was court martialed (but got off). Even then they gave the heli pilot that landed between US troops and a group of civilians about to get murdered a silver star – https://www.britannica.com/event/My-Lai-Massacre
Japan wwII definitely tactical and sanctioned but that one is weird because all of the military operated so independently.
I don’t know enough about your other examples. It makes sense though and I like the word you use ‘retaliation’
A good modern war planner isn’t going to waste energy on retaliation but when you get onto the ground and have a bunch of killers that don’t think of the enemy as all the way human (so you can convince them to do so much killing) retaliation would come up often. Also if you have some crazy strong man dictator, he may need retaliation to keep the image or drive his paranoia.
There is strategy and there is retaliation. Shockingly, retaliation usually results in a prolonged war and long term rebellion.
But if your goal is to hurt them for hurting you?
As for recent wars where soldiers commit horrific crimes against civillian populaces. Off the top of my head:
It is mostly that the US shockingly went hard on stopping troops from those kinds of massacres during the various invasions of the Middle East. That isn’t to say we didn’t find OTHER horrible shit to do but…
As for logistics and resupplies: Gaza is literally within Israel’s borders. Supply chains won’t be an issue.
I don’t think you can call My Lai ‘sanctioned’ or official even though it was done by a commissioned officer who was court martialed (but got off). Even then they gave the heli pilot that landed between US troops and a group of civilians about to get murdered a silver star – https://www.britannica.com/event/My-Lai-Massacre
Japan wwII definitely tactical and sanctioned but that one is weird because all of the military operated so independently.
I don’t know enough about your other examples. It makes sense though and I like the word you use ‘retaliation’
A good modern war planner isn’t going to waste energy on retaliation but when you get onto the ground and have a bunch of killers that don’t think of the enemy as all the way human (so you can convince them to do so much killing) retaliation would come up often. Also if you have some crazy strong man dictator, he may need retaliation to keep the image or drive his paranoia.