Can anyone tell me if a foreign military, throughout history, has ever been able to stop a civil war & how...?

Question

many insurgencies have been defeated, throughout history, by a foreign military?

From all your answers to my question the only civil wars that have really been stopped by a FOREIGN power have been military totalitarian govts./dicatorships that bascially had no concern whatsoever about collateral damage (innocent civilians). Now I know why the US military can never stop the civil war in Iraq. They have to avoid collateral damage at all costs.

Answer 1

India was able to stop a civil war in Pakisthan in 1971. The civil war stopped and Bangladesh was liberated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_Liberation_War

Answer 2

At no time in History did a country come in like a great referee and split up the warring forces. What did happen is that one side or another would use this new force by making friends with it and slamming the vilified side. Insurgencies have been defeated but only when the local population turns against the insurgents this happens only rarely and requires a lot of diplomatic skill to pull off. Such insurgencies were put down at the turn of the 20th century by the USA in the Philippines,Haiti,Cuba and Panama. The UK put down several Arab,Indian and African revolts these tended to be handled differently in that they would join one side and pound the other side into submission. Since this time insurgencies have changed tactics and now hit the national forces where it's most vulnerable in it's wallet it does this by making occupation too expensive to maintain by stopping all normal economic activity in the occupied country. As of this time no army has come up with a viable solution to this tactic.

Answer 3

Well, Im not great on history, but Britain split india and made it into india and pakistan, its called partision. This was to stop a civil war as far as i remember. There have been suggestions to do this with Iraq but Bush does not want that and actually id agree, as pakistan and india are still close to starting a nuclear war. I assume your asking this question because of Iraq? Well the thing that is really depressing is that Britain tried to conqour Iraq and Afghanistan 100 years ago and it failed, remember Britain once ruled a third of the entire world, so the Brits really knew how to invade and win but not in Iraq or Afghanistan. the soviet union spent 10 years in afghanistan and had to leave, remember back then russia was no push over and far more sophisticated than the afghans, just like now they are almost impossible to beat. Bush and the american people really should have studied their history and learnt from it, but no. The more it changes the more it stays the same. If you go way back the most successful empires were the ones who had superiour technology and were ruthlessly brutal. The mongolian empire ruled by Ghengis Khan was unimaginably brutal to civilians as well as military opposition. They conqured the middle east though. So the truth is you would probably need to be 10 times more evil than saddam to actually subdue iraq, that is ironic, isnt it. .

Answer 4

Well, if you look at the history of civil war/ insurgencies, which in the western tradition started with the Napoleonic invasion of Spain (where the term guerrilla fighter comes from), there have been very few successful counter insurgency operations. European forces put down Chinese insurgents during the Boxer rebellion, but mainly through the use of vastly superior fire power. The British had some effectiveness in Malaysia during the colonial period, primarily through moving in ethnic Chinese. Also, the Boer War was a success for British troops in South Africa. In general, most successful cases of ending foreign wars/insurgencies by foreign powers have resorted to funding proxies or local power to complete the task. The cases of foreign governments funding one side of a civil war or insurgency go almost as far back as their have been civil wars.

Answer 5

Actually, the Union Army of the USA kicked the crap out of the Confederate Army of the Confederate States of America. It took them about four years, but they did it. The CSA was probably the best organized rebel group that ever fought against their own home land. Actually, it was God that defeated the Confederacy, because the Confederates were rebelling against the USA, and rebellience is as the sin of witchcraft.

Answer 6

iraq, saddam killed so many people and caused so much fear it stopped civilians from killing each other.

soviet union, Stalin killed over 23 million people by sending people to siberia, now that the USSR has fallen Chechnya a Russian province fights against the rest of Russia.

Answer 7

i dont know about stopping the war completely but Nazi germany helped stop the Spanish Civil War by siding with general franco. they sent supplies and aircraft to aid the cause