3. THE STRATEGIC LOGIC
OF MASS KILLING
To identify societies at high risk for mass killing, I have suggested, we
must Wrst understand the speciWc goals, ideas, and beliefs of powerful
groups and leaders, not necessarily the broad social structures or systems
of government of the societies over which these leaders preside. A few
leaders cannot implement mass killing alone, but perpetrators do not
need widespread social support in order to carry it out. A tiny minority,
well armed and well organized, can generate an appalling amount of
bloodshed when unleashed upon unarmed and unorganized victims.
Levels of hatred, discrimination, or ideological commitment common to
many societies are suYcient to recruit the relatively small number of active
supporters needed to carry out mass killing and to encourage the passivity
of the rest of society.
These conclusions suggest that we will best understand the causes of
mass killing when we study the phenomenon from a “strategic” perspective.
Rather than focusing on the social structures or psychological mechanisms
that might facilitate public support for mass killing, a strategic
approach seeks to identify the speciWc situations, goals, and conditions
that give leaders incentives to consider this kind of violence. I contend
that mass killing occurs when powerful groups come to believe it is the
best available means to accomplish certain radical goals, counter speciWc
types of threats, or solve diYcult military problems. From this perspecValentino,
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tive, mass killing should be viewed as an instrumental policy calculated to
achieve important political and military objectives with respect to other
groups—a “Wnal solution” to its perpetrators’ most urgent problems.
Because mass killing is a means to an end, it is rarely a policy of Wrst resort.
Perpetrators commonly experiment with other, less violent or even
conciliatory means in the attempt to achieve their ends. When these
means fail or are deemed too costly or demanding, however, leaders are
forced to choose between compromising their most important goals and
interests or resorting to more violent methods to achieve them. Regardless
of perpetrators’ original intentions or attitudes toward their victims,
the failure or frustration of other means can make mass killing a more attractive
option.
It is important to emphasize that a strategic understanding of mass
killing does not imply that perpetrators always evaluate objectively the
problems they face in their environment, nor that they accurately assess
the ability of mass killing to resolve these problems. Human beings act
on the basis of their subjective perceptions and beliefs, not objective reality.
Indeed, the powerful role that small groups and individuals play in
the conception and implementation of policies of mass killing can amplify
the inXuence of misperceptions in promoting such violence. The often
misguided and sometimes outrightly bizarre ideas and beliefs of perpetrator
groups can persist at least in part because they usually are shielded
from the critical scrutiny of a wider audience. A profound obsession with
secrecy, frequently engendered by years spent in political or military opposition,
is common in perpetrator organizations and tends to exacerbate
misperceptions.
A strategic approach to mass killing, therefore, suggests only that perpetrators
are likely to employ mass killing when they perceive it to be both
necessary and eVective, not when it is actually so. In many cases, the threat
posed by the victims of mass killing is more imagined than real. The Jews
of Europe, after all, posed no conceivable threat to Germany in the 1930s.
This reality mattered little, however, since Germany’s leaders were steadfastly
convinced of the contrary, and they possessed the power to act on
their convictions. Perpetrators also frequently have overestimated the capacity
of mass killing to achieve their goals, especially in the long term.
While mass killing can be a powerful political or military strategy, it also
can be decidedly counterproductive, even from the point of view of those
who instigate it. In practice, the use of massive violence has often backWred,
diverting scarce resources away from real threats, provoking increased
resistance from victim groups, mobilizing third parties on behalf
of the victims, or discrediting the ideologies in the service of which it has
been employed.
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Mass killing failed to achieve its perpetrators’ objectives, at least in the
long run, in all of the cases examined in this book. In the Soviet Union,
China, and Cambodia communist leaders resorted to mass killing in an
eVort to force peasants to accept new, supposedly more productive means
of agriculture. While the violence succeeded in coercing the peasantry, it
also resulted in massive starvation, the near collapse of the economy, and
eventually contributed to the decision to abandon radical communist
agricultural methods. In Turkey, Nazi Germany, and Rwanda perpetrators
used mass killing to eliminate perceived threats from ethnic
minorities. In each case, the task of murdering defenseless civilians drew
resources away from ongoing wars, contributing to major military defeats.
During the civil war in Guatemala and the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan, mass killing was intended to destroy civilian support for insurgent
movements. In Afghanistan, the violence simply drove millions
to support the rebels and provoked increased international opposition to
the Soviet occupation. In Guatemala, the tactic was more successful in
the short run, but popular resentment of the military government remained
high and the regime ultimately was forced to negotiate with the
rebels and implement democratic reforms.
A Typology of Mass Killing
Rationality and Mass Killing
Many scholars have noted that mass killing and genocide can often appear
rational from the perspective of the perpetrator. Peter du Preez, for
example, contends that “there is a ‘rationality of genocide’ just as there is
a rationality of business or athletics or war or science.”1 Likewise, Roger
Smith writes that “genocide is a rational instrument to achieve an end.”2
More speciWcally, a number of scholars have pointed out that genocide
can sometimes be motivated by the rational calculation that systematic violence
will serve to counter real or perceived threats posed by victims or
help to implement speciWc kinds of ideologies.3
Unfortunately, few scholars have gone beyond simply suggesting the
potential rationality of genocide and mass killing to identify the speciWc
conditions under which mass killing is most likely to appear necessary and
eVective to its perpetrators. Why, in other words, is mass killing a rational
way to respond to some threats and implement some ideologies but
not others? Helen Fein, for example, argues that many cases of genocide
result from the violent repression of victim groups rebelling against severe
discrimination.4 Rebellion, however, is a far more common phenomenon
than mass killing. Fein does not attempt to explain why mass
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killing is used to repress some rebellious groups and not others.5 Without
this knowledge, we can neither fully understand the “rationality” of
genocidal repression nor anticipate with conWdence where and when it is
most likely to occur.
My research, like these authors’, also suggests that perpetrators may
view mass killing as a rational way to counter threats or implement certain
types of ideologies. I argue, however, that perpetrators are likely to
perceive mass killing as an attractive means to achieve these and other
ends only in very speciWc circumstances and under very speciWc conditions.
I have identiWed six speciWc motives—corresponding to six “types”
of mass killing—that, under certain speciWc conditions, appear to generate
strong incentives for leaders to initiate mass killing.
These six motives can be grouped into two general categories. First,
when leaders’ plans result in the near-complete material disenfranchisement
of large groups of people, leaders are likely to conclude that mass
killing is necessary to overcome resistance by these groups or, more radically,
that mass killing is the only practical way to physically remove these
groups or their inXuence from society. I refer to this general class as “dispossessive”
mass killings. Second, mass killing can become an attractive
solution in military conXicts in which leaders perceive conventional military
tactics to be hopeless or unacceptably costly. When leaders’ eVorts
to defeat their enemies’ military forces directly are frustrated, they face
powerful incentives to target the civilian populations they suspect of supporting
those forces. I refer to this class of mass killing as “coercive” mass
killings.
The speciWc real-world scenarios in which each type of mass killing occurs,
as well as several selected historical examples of each scenario, are
presented in table 1. I will brieXy describe each of the types of mass killing
in this table in subsequent sections of this chapter.
Of the six types mass killing, three have accounted for the majority of
episodes of mass killing as well as the greatest number of victims in the
twentieth century: communist mass killings, ethnic mass killings, and
counterguerrilla mass killings. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 describe the general
causes of these types of mass killing in greater detail and apply the strategic
perspective to explain several prominent historical episodes of each
type.
Conditionality
Although the scenarios described in this chapter generate powerful incentives
for mass killing, they do not invariably provoke it. A variety of
intervening variables may act to increase or decrease leaders’ incentives or
capabilities to launch mass killing and, consequently, the likelihood that
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70 F I N A L S O L U T I O N S
table 1
A Typology of Mass Killing
Motive/Type Scenario Examples*
dispossessive mass killing
Communist Agricultural Soviet Union (1917–53)
collectivization and China (1950–76)
political terror Cambodia (1975–79)
Turkish Armenia (1915–18)
Ethnic Ethnic cleansing The Holocaust (1939–45)
Rwanda (1994)
Colonial enlargement European colonies in North
and South America
Genocide of the Herero in
Territorial German South-West
Africa (1904–7)
Expansionist wars German annexation of western
Poland (1939–45)
coercive mass killing
Counterguerrilla Guerrilla wars Algerian war of independence
from France (1954–62)
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
(1979–88)
Ethiopian civil war (1970s and
1980s)
Guatemalan civil war (1980s)
Terror bombing Allied bombings of Germany
and Japan (1940–45)
Starvation blockades/siege Allied naval blockade of
warfare Germany (1914–19)
Terrorist Nigerian land blockade of
Biafra (1967–70)
Sub-state/insurgent FLN terrorism in Algerian war
terrorism of independence against
France (1954–62)
Viet Cong terrorism in South
Vietnam (1957–75)
RENAMO terrorism in
Mozambique (1976–92)
Imperialist Imperial conquests and German occupation of
rebellions Western Europe (1940–45)
Japan’s empire in East Asia
(1910–45)
Note: This typology does not exhaust the entire universe of motives for mass killing in the twentieth century, but
it does appear to account for the great majority of these episodes. At least two notable cases—the mass killing of
between 250,000 and 1,000,000 people in Indonesia in 1965 and the mass killing of between 100,000 and
500,000 people in Uganda under Idi Amin from 1971 to 1979—do not appear entirely consistent with any of the
motives described in this book.
*Selected examples only, not a complete list of all instances of mass killings within each category. Some examples
combine aspects of more than one motive.
















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mass killing will occur. Although it is not possible to identify all of the
factors and conditions that aVect the likelihood of mass killing, I have attempted
to identify some of the most signiWcant intervening variables by
analyzing the history of a number of less violent examples of the scenarios
listed in table 1. I list these conditions at the end of each section below.
It is important to note that these are not merely ad hoc lists of factors
derived from speciWc historical cases. Rather, these conditions are inXuential
precisely because each of them directly or indirectly inXuences
the speciWc causal mechanisms implicated by the strategic theories described
in this chapter—increasing or decreasing the availability of less violent
strategies, or raising or lowering the impediments to mass killing.
Some of these conditions, such as the perpetrators’ physical capability
to carry out mass killing, the size of the potential victim group, and the
ability of potential victims to Xee to safety, are relevant to all types of mass
killing. Other conditions apply only to speciWc scenarios. Conditions
aVecting the likelihood of communist mass killing, ethnic mass killing,
and counterguerrilla mass killing are described in detail in chapters 4, 5,
and 6.
Dispossessive Mass Killings
Dispossessive mass killings are the result of policies that, by design or by
consequence, suddenly strip large groups of people of their possessions,
their homes, or their way of life. These kinds of policies do not aim at
mass killing as such, but in practice their implementation often leads to
it.
My research identiWes three major types of dispossessive mass killing
in the twentieth century. First, regimes seeking to achieve the radical communization
of their societies have forced vast numbers of people to surrender
their property and abandon their traditional ways of life. Second,
racist or nationalist regimes have forced large groups of people to relinquish
their homes and possessions during the “ethnic cleansing” of certain
territories. Third, the territorial ambitions of colonial or expansionist
powers have often stripped preexisting populations of their land and
means of subsistence.
A Note on the Role of Ideology in Dispossessive Mass Killing
Several of the cases categorized in this book as dispossessive mass killings
have been described as ideological mass killings/genocides by other authors.
Indeed, few scholars who have studied genocide and mass killing
have failed to comment on the central role that ideology has played in
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some of the twentieth century’s bloodiest mass killings. In particular, the
ideology of ruling elites played a central role in the mass killings of communist
states such as the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia and of
explicitly racist states such as Nazi Germany. Various authors have suggested
that the most dangerous ideologies are those that seek national
puriWcation, dehumanize other ethnic groups, place national security
above all other goals, or expound a political formula that excludes victim
groups from the larger community or nation.6
From a strategic perspective, however, what the ideologies that lead to
mass killing share is not their speciWc content but the magnitude, scope,
and speed of the changes they force upon large groups of people. The desire
to implement such radical changes may stem from ideological doctrines
calling for a revolutionary transformation of the economic or
demographic composition of society, but it may also stem from more
“pragmatic” concerns, such as the eVort to eliminate speciWc kinds of political
or military threats, or the attempt to colonize and repopulate territories
already inhabited by large numbers of people. Whatever its
fundamental motivation, the eVort to impose extremely radical changes
on the lives of large numbers of people often results in the near-total material
or political disenfranchisement of existing social groups.
Radical ends, however, require radical means. Leaders attempting to
implement such sweeping agendas soon discover, or simply anticipate,
that members of disenfranchised groups will not cooperate with the implementation
of a new social order in which they stand to loose their
livelihood, their homes, or their very way of life. Massive violence may
be required to force such radical changes upon large numbers of people.
Under these circumstances, leaders may simply decide that the victim
group must be totally annihilated, or that killing large numbers of them
is necessary to enforce compliance from the group and deter surviving
members from mounting further resistance. Even if victim groups can be
forced to submit, the process and aftermath of such radical changes, often
involving the sudden relocation of vast numbers of people or the disruption
of traditional modes of subsistence, can take a staggering toll in
human life.
Despite the deadly consequences of the ideological, political, or territorial
goals that motivate dispossessive mass killings, it is important to
understand that these goals seldom, if ever, seek the killing of victim
groups as an end in itself. This conception of the role of ideology in mass
killing would simply lead to the tautological conclusion that groups engage
in mass killing because they want to engage in mass killing. Rather,
I contend that dispossessive mass killings occur when perpetrators con-
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clude that this kind of violence is the most practical strategy to accomplish
speciWc political or military objectives short of mass killing. These
objectives may call for an open assault on the way of life of victim groups,
for their segregation or even physical removal from society, but they do
not amount to killing for killing’s sake. In fact, as we shall see in chapter
4, mass killings in the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia resulted from
the eVort to implement policies that communist leaders believed would
ultimately improve the lives all citizens, including the social groups
whose existence was most severely disrupted by them. In the eyes of communist
leaders, violence became a necessary expedient because these
groups failed to rise above their narrow “class consciousness” to appreciate
the beneWts of communist society.
Communist Mass Killing
The most deadly mass killings in history have resulted from the eVort to
transform society according to communist doctrine. Radical communist
regimes have proven so exceptionally violent because the changes they
have sought to bring about have resulted in the nearly complete material
dispossession of vast numbers of people. Radical communist policies
have extended well beyond the restriction of personal and political freedoms
characteristic of authoritarian or dictatorial regimes. The most radical
communist regimes have attempted to bring about the wholesale
transformation of their societies, often including the abrupt destruction
of traditional ways of life and means of production, and the subordination
of personal choices and daily activities to the dictates of the state. Not
surprisingly, many people have chosen to resist these drastic changes.
Faced with the choice between moderating their revolutionary goals to
allow for voluntary change and forcing change on society using whatever
means necessary, communist leaders like Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot opted
for mass killing over compromise.
Mass killings associated with the collectivization of agriculture and
other radical communist agricultural policies provide the most striking
examples of this process. Communist agricultural policies like collectivization
have tended to go hand in hand with mass killing because, more
than any other communist program, these policies have stripped vast
numbers of people of their most valued possessions—their homes and
their way of life. The imposition of radical communist agricultural policies
on the peasantry of the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia resulted
in millions of deaths. Many victims were executed outright in the eVort
to crush real or suspected resistance to the socialization of the countryside,
but most died in the massive famines sparked by collectivization.
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Communist leaders did not deliberately engineer these famines, as some
have suggested, but they did use hunger as a weapon by directing the
worst eVects of the famines against individuals and social groups perceived
to oppose collectivization.
In addition to violence associated with communist agricultural policies,
communist mass killings have also taken the form of bloody intraparty
purges and attacks on social and cultural elites, intellectuals, and
members of opposition political parties. The Great Terror in the Soviet
Union and the Cultural Revolution in China represent the most notorious
examples of this kind of communist political terror.
Almost all governments face some form of domestic political opposition,
so what explains the exceptional violence of these communist states?
I argue that, like collectivization, these purges were motivated by the desire
of leaders to eliminate perceived resistance to the communist transformation
of society. Communist leaders feared opposition to their
radical policies not only in the countryside but also among intellectuals
and even members of the communist party itself. Indeed, the most savage
political purges in the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia were
driven in large part by the eVort to eliminate real and perceived opposition
to the regimes’ radical agricultural policies within the communist
party. In the eyes of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, the achievements of communism
remained extremely fragile long after the revolution. Perhaps
even more than they had in the collectivization campaigns in the countryside,
however, communist leaders vastly inXated the extent and inXuence
of their political enemies during the purges. The pseudo-Marxist
belief that resistance to communism was motivated by one’s class consciousness—an
attribute that was diYcult or impossible to change—lead
to the prophylactic targeting of entire social groups and family members
of suspects, a practice that massively expanded the scope of the terror.
Communist mass killing is more likely
• the higher the priority that communist leaders assign to the radical
transformation of society
• the more the communization of society results in the dispossession of
large numbers of people
• the more rapidly communist leaders seek to implement dispossessive
policies
• the greater the physical capabilities for mass killing possessed by the
regime
• the fewer and more diYcult the options for victims of communist
policies to Xee to safety
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Ethnic Mass Killing
Ethnic, national, or religious groups may become preferential targets in
any of the types of mass killing described in this book. In these pages,
however, “ethnic mass killings” are distinguished from the other types of
mass killing by the explicitly racist or nationalist motives of the perpetrators.
Ethnic mass killing, I argue, is not simply the result of perpetrators’
bitter hatred of other ethnic groups, or of a racist ideology that calls for
the extermination of these groups as such. Ethnic mass killing has deeper
roots in perpetrators’ fears than in their hatreds. I Wnd that mass killing is
most likely to occur when perpetrators believe that their ethnic oppoTHE
STRATEGIC LOGIC OF MASS KILLING 75
table 2
Communist Mass Killings in the Twentieth Century
Location-Dates Description Additional Motives Deaths
Soviet Union (1917–23) Russian Civil War and Counterguerrilla 250,000–
Red Terror 2,500,000
Soviet Union and Collectivization, Great Counterguerrilla 10,000,000–
Eastern Europe Terror, occupation/ 20,000,000
(1927–45) communization of Baltic
states and western Poland
China (including Land reform, Great Leap Counterguerrilla 10,000,000–
Tibet) (1949–72) Forward, Cultural 46,000,000
Revolution, and other
political purges
Cambodia (1975–79) Collectivization and political Ethnic 1,000,000–
repression 2,000,000
possible cases*
Bulgaria (1944–?) Agricultural collectivization 50,000–
and political repression 100,000
East Germany Political repression by 80,000–
(1945–?) Soviet Union 100,000
Romania (1945–?) Agricultural collectivization 60,000–
and political repression 300,000
North Korea Agricultural collectivization Counterguerrilla 400,000–
(1945–?) and political repression 1,500,000
North and South Agricultural collectivization 80,000–
Vietnam (1953–?) and political repression 200,000
Note: All figures in this and subsequent tables are author’s estimates based on numerous sources.
* Episodes are listed under the heading “possible cases” in this and subsequent tables when the available evidence
suggests a mass killing may have occurred, but documentation is insufficient to make a definitive judgment
regarding the number of people killed, the intentionality of the killing, or the motives of the perpetrators.
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nents pose a threat that can be countered only by physically removing
them from society, in other words, by implementing a policy of ethnic
cleansing. This perception may be shaped by perpetrators’ ideological beliefs
about other ethnic groups, as it was in Nazi Germany, but it may also
be a reaction to real, if almost always misperceived or exaggerated, threatening
actions of some victim group members, as it was in Rwanda in
1994. In many cases, a combination of ideological beliefs and real-world
conXicts seem to shape perpetrators’ perceptions of victim groups.
The decision to engage in ethnic cleansing, however, is not always a decision
to perpetrate mass killing. Ethnic cleansing and mass killing are often
conXated in popular parlance, but they are not synonymous. Ethnic
cleansing refers to the removal of certain groups from a given territory, a
process that may or may not involve mass killing. Nevertheless, like communist
policies such as collectivization, large-scale ethnic cleansing frequently
has been associated with mass killing because it often results in the
near-complete material dispossession of large groups of people. Violence
is often required to force people to relinquish their homes and their possessions.
Even after victims have been coerced into Xight, the process and
aftermath of large population movements itself can be deadly.
The bloodiest episodes of ethnic mass killing, however, occur when
leaders conclude that they have no practical options for the physical relocation
of victim groups. In such cases, perpetrators may see violent repression
on a massive scale as the only way to meet the perceived threat
posed by their victims. The killing may be designed to deprive the victim
group of its ability to organize politically or militarily by eliminating its
elites, intellectuals, or males of military age. At the most extreme, perpetrators
may conclude that systematic extermination is the only available
means to counter the threat. Ethnic mass killing, therefore, is best seen as
an instrumental strategy that seeks the physical removal or permanent
military or political subjugation of ethnic groups, not the annihilation of
these groups as an end in itself.
Ethnic mass killing is more likely
• the greater the threat that racist or nationalist leaders believe is posed
by their ethnic, national, or religious adversaries
• the fewer and less practical the policies other than ethnic cleansing
that racist or nationalist leaders believe will counter the perceived
threat posed by their victims
• the more rapidly ethnic cleansing is carried out
• the greater the number of people subjected to ethnic cleansing
• the greater the physical capabilities for mass killing possessed by the
racist or nationalist regime
• the fewer and more diYcult the options for victims to Xee to safety
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Territorial Mass Killing
The third general motive for dispossessive mass killing arises when powerful
groups attempt to resettle territories already inhabited by large, preexisting
populations. Unlike the ethnic mass killings described above,
perpetrators of territorial mass killing do not seek to cleanse a given territory
of its inhabitants because they believe these people themselves pose
a threat, but rather because perpetrators want to populate (and usually
cultivate) the land with their own people. As with ethnic mass killings,
however, territorial mass killing occurs because the process and aftermath
of rapidly removing large numbers of people from their homes often involves
considerable violence.
Territorial mass killings have emerged in two closely related scenarios.
First, mass killing can result when settler colonies attempt to expand their
territory into regions already populated by indigenous people.7 This scenario
has occurred primarily in colonial settings, most notably in the European
colonies of North and South America and to a lesser extent in
Africa.
THE STRATEGIC LOGIC OF MASS KILLING 77
table 3
Ethnic Mass Killings in the Twentieth Century
Location-Dates Description Additional Motives Deaths
Turkey (1915–18) Genocide of Armenians Counterguerrilla 500,000–
1,500,000
Soviet Union Deportation of nationalities Counterguerrilla 300,000–
(1941–53) 600,000
Germany Genocide of Jews and other 5,400,000–
(1939–45) Nazi race enemies 6,800,000
Yugoslavia Ustasha violence against Counterguerrilla 350,000–
(1941–45) Serbs 530,000
Eastern Europe Post–WW II expulsion of 2,000,000–
(1945–47) ethnic Germans from 2,300,000
Poland, Czechoslovakia,
Yugoslavia, and elsewhere
India (1947–48) Partition of India 500,000–
1,000,000
Bangladesh (1971) Partition of East Pakistan 500,000–
3,000,000
Burundi (1972) Genocide of Hutu Counterguerrilla 100,000–
200,000
Bosnia-Herzegovina Ethnic cleansing of Counterguerrilla 25,000–
(1990–95) Muslims from Bosnia 155,000
Rwanda (1994) Genocide of Tutsi Counterguerrilla 500,000–
800,000
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Not all colonists, however, have annihilated the indigenous peoples
they encountered. Even states that have engaged in mass killing in some
of their colonies have conducted themselves more humanely in others.
What separates these “peaceful” colonies from the ones that have resorted
to mass killing? The answer often seems to depend upon the nature of the
colonial economy and its relationship to the indigenous population.
In agricultural economies, particularly those with an emphasis on
grain production or herding, land is an extremely valuable asset. The economic
structure of indigenous societies, however, may also depend heavily
on access to large amounts of land. Many colonies do not encompass
enough high-quality land to support both a land-hungry agrarian economy
and the preexisting indigenous population. In such cases, the settlers’
desire for more and more land has tended to push the colony into
conXict with indigenous populations. Indigenous eVorts to resist colonial
expansion have prompted increasingly violent responses from the
settlers, sometimes escalating to mass killing. Where surplus land is available,
colonists have sometimes attempted to relocate indigenous people
to distant or unwanted parts of the colony. Even in these cases, however,
the outcome is often bleak. Violence commonly has been required to
force indigenous people to abandon their homes and traditional territories.
The displacement of large populations has often proved deadly, as
the relocation of the Cherokee Indians in 1838 on the infamous “trail of
tears” powerfully demonstrated.8 Even those who have managed to survive
relocation frequently have faced starvation, disease, and depredation
by other groups in their new territories.
This deadly competition for land played a major role in the destruction
of many indigenous tribes of America.9 According to David Stannard,
“since the colonizing British, and subsequently the Americans, had little
use for Indian servitude, but only wanted Indian land . . . straightforward
mass killing of the Indians was deemed the only thing to do.”10 Not all
economies, however, are so economically dependent upon land. Nonagricultural
forms of production require relatively little land but are often
dependent on a cheap and plentiful source of labor. Indigenous
people have often fulWlled this function. Indigenous people can also provide
important markets for goods and have even provided soldiers for
colonial armies.
Two French colonies in North America provide telling examples of
how the economic relationship between colonists and indigenous peoples
can inXuence the likelihood of mass killing.11 In what is now Canada,
the Huron people became an integral part of France’s fur trade, serving
as guides and skilled trackers for the French. French trappers relied on
Huron villages for supplies and protection from other Indians. The
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French and the Hurons maintained a relatively peaceful relationship until
the Huron were decimated in a war with the Iroquois in 1649. The relationship
between the French and the Natchez people of the lower
Mississippi, on the other hand, ended in the annihilation of the Natchez
by the French colonists. In the lower Mississippi, the French planned a
large colony based on agriculture. They imported slaves from Africa for
their servants and laborers. The Natchez people simply stood in the way
of expanding French plantations. When the Natchez would not abandon
their land peacefully, the French decided to remove them by force. By 1731
the Natchez had ceased to exist.12
The second major scenario of territorial mass killing results when states
engaged in wars of expansion seek to resettle areas already densely populated
and developed by others. Perhaps the most horriWc example of this
kind of mass killing occurred during the Second World War as Germany
attempted to expand its territory into Poland, Russia, and other Eastern
European states. This eVort to acquire Lebensraum (living space) for Germany’s
population was one of Hitler’s primary obsessions, rivaled in importance
only by his interrelated campaign to rid Europe of the Jews.
Hitler’s plans called for physically removing many existing populations
and repopulating the land with ethnic German farmers. In some places,
German occupiers temporarily spared the conquered populations for use
as slave labor during the war, but German plans called for the eventual relocation
of tens of millions of Eastern Europeans.
German occupation had its most devastating eVect in occupied Poland
where colonization by German settlers began almost immediately following
the German invasion in 1939.13 Hitler designated vast swaths of
Polish territory for near-total ethnic cleansing (of both Poles and Jews)
and annexation by the Reich. Hitler never planned the systematic murder
of all Poles, but the eVort to subjugate and dispossess the entire nation
nevertheless proved predictably violent. As Walther von Brauchitsch,
the German army commander in chief, explained in a letter to a hesitant
subordinate, “The solution of ethnic-political tasks, necessary for securing
German living space and ordered by the Führer, had necessarily to
lead to otherwise unusual, harsh measures against the Polish population
of the occupied area.”14 Hitler ordered Polish political, military, and cultural
leaders executed for fear that they would organize resistance to the
occupation. At least 750,000 Poles and Jews were forced from the German-annexed
territories of western Poland alone to make room for hundreds
of thousands of German settlers from across Eastern Europe.15 By
the end of the war more than 22 percent of the prewar Polish population
was dead.16
The German occupation of France and the Low Countries, on the
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other hand, reveals how diVerent ends contributed to the utilization of
diVerent means. German military and police forces occupied French territory
with the intention of exploiting its natural resources and labor as
part of the eVort to increase German war production. Hitler, however,
never intended to colonize large portions of Western Europe. German violence
in the west followed the more selective patterns associated with
imperialism and the suppression of guerrilla resistance movements (I describe
these motives for mass killing in subsequent sections). The German
occupation in the west was hardly benevolent. The Nazis deported Jews
and Gypsies to death camps as they did throughout Europe. German
forces executed tens of thousands of non-Jews for resisting the occupation
and deported hundreds of thousands for temporary forced labor in
Germany, where many perished.Yet, compared to the near-complete devastation
wrought by the German occupation in the east, Western European
populations fared considerably better.
Territorial mass killing appears to have become much less common in
the last hundred years than it was in previous centuries. Unfortunately,
this trend is probably not the result of a general moral conversion among
colonial or expansionist powers. Rather, it seems to reXect two historical
trends. First, by the turn of the century, European violence and disease
had already decimated many indigenous populations and European settlement
had already expanded to the territorial limits of most major settler
colonies. Second, especially since the end of the Second World War,
the conquest of territory seems to have become less important for national
security and economic prosperity, providing fewer incentives for
expansionist wars.17
Territorial mass killing is more likely
• the higher the priority perpetrators assign to repopulating new
territories
• the smaller the ratio of usable land per colonist resettled in new
territories
• the greater the number of people already residing in colonized
territories
• the more rapidly perpetrators seek to relocate existing populations
• the greater the physical capabilities for mass killing possessed by the
perpetrators
• the fewer and more diYcult the options for victims to Xee to safety
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Coercive Mass Killings
Sometimes mass killing is simply war by other means. Coercive mass
killings occur in major armed conXicts when combatants lack the capabilities
to defeat their opponents’ military forces with conventional military
techniques. When such conXicts threaten highly important goals,
leaders must search for alternative means to defeat their adversaries. Under
such circumstances, military and political leaders may conclude that
the most eVective way to achieve victory is to target the civilians that they
suspect of providing material and political support to their adversaries’
military forces. Perpetrators of this kind of mass killing usually do not
seek to exterminate entire populations; rather, they use massive violence
and the threat of even greater violence to coerce large numbers of civilians
or their leaders into submission. When more “selective” mass killing
fails to dissuade civilian supporters or induce surrender, however, coercive
mass killing can escalate to the genocidal targeting of suspect ethnic
groups or the enemy populations of entire geographical regions.18
I divide coercive mass killings into three major types: counterguerrilla,
terrorist, and imperialist.
Counterguerrilla warfare
Mass killing can become an attractive strategy for governments engaged
in counterguerrilla warfare. Although many observers have characterized
mass killing in counterguerrilla warfare as the result of the actions of
undisciplined, frustrated, or racist troops, the strategic approach suggests
that counterguerrilla mass killing is a calculated military response to the
unique challenges posed by guerrilla warfare.
Unlike conventional armies, guerrilla forces often depend on the local
civilian population for food, shelter, and supplies. Guerrillas also depend
on the local population to reveal information about enemy outposts and
troop movements and as a form of “human camouXage” into which guerrillas
can blend to avoid detection. Thus, according to Mao Zedong’s faTHE
STRATEGIC LOGIC OF MASS KILLING 81
table 4
Territorial (Colonial and Expansionist) Mass Killings
in the Twentieth Century
Location-Dates Description Additional Motives Deaths
Namibia Genocide of Herero Counterguerrilla 60,000–
(1904–7) and Nama 65,000
Eastern Europe Nazi territorial Counterguerrilla, 10,000,000–
(1939–45) expansion imperialist 15,000,000
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mous analogy, “the guerrillas are as the Wsh and the people the sea in
which they swim.”19
Civilian support can be a major source of strength for guerrilla armies,
but it can also be a weakness. Regimes facing guerrilla opponents either
at home or abroad have sometimes been able to turn the guerrillas’ dependency
on the local population to their own advantage. Unlike the
guerrillas themselves, the civilian support network upon which guerrillas
rely is virtually defenseless and impossible to conceal. Some regimes have
found it easier, therefore, to wage war against a guerrilla army by depriving
it of its base of support in the people than by attempting to target the
guerrillas directly. In the terms of Mao’s analogy, this strategy seeks to
catch the Wsh by draining the sea. Not surprisingly, this strategy of counterinsurgency
has frequently resulted in mass killing.
Theorists of counterguerrilla warfare have often advocated “selective”
violence targeted only against those who provide active support for the
guerrillas. In practice, however, such distinctions have been diYcult to
maintain. As I describe in detail in chapter 6, counterguerrilla warfare has
often been characterized by reliance on indiscriminate tactics such as “freeWre
zones,” the intentional destruction of crops, livestock and dwellings,
massive programs of population resettlement, and the use of torture and
large-scale massacres designed to intimidate guerrilla supporters.
Guerrilla warfare, of course, has been one of the most common forms
of combat in the twentieth century. Although it has seldom spared civilian
populations, in most cases it has not provoked mass killing by counterinsurgent
forces. As I document in chapter 6, when leaders believe that
the guerrillas are not receiving signiWcant support from the local population
or do not pose a threat to the regime’s critical goals or interests, they
have little reason to order the killing of large numbers of civilians.
Counterguerrilla mass killing is more likely
• the greater the threat that perpetrators believe guerrillas pose to vital
interests
• the more signiWcant the support perpetrators believe that guerrillas
receive from the civilian population
• the greater the diYculties the perpetrators encounter in defeating the
guerrillas with less violent means
• the greater the numbers of people who reside in areas of guerrilla
activity
• the greater the physical capabilities for mass killing possessed by the
perpetrators
• the fewer and more diYcult the options for victims to Xee to safety
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THE STRATEGIC LOGIC OF MASS KILLING 83
table 5
Counterguerrilla Mass Killings in the Twentieth Century
Location-Dates Description Additional Motives Deaths
Philippines US occupation of the 100,000–
(1899–1902) Philippines 200,000
China Nationalist repression 6,000,000–
(1927–49) in Chinese civil war 10,000,000
Spain Nationalist violence in Terrorist 185,000–
(1936–43?) Spanish civil war 410,000
Algeria Algerian war of 70,000–
(1954–63) independence from France 570,000
Sudan Suppression of southern Ethnic 250,000–
(1956–71) Sudanese 500,000
Tibet Suppression of Tibetan Communist 65,000–
(1959–60) rebellion 90,000
Iraq (1963–91) Suppression of Kurdish 85,000–
rebellions 265,000
Guatemala Guatemalan civil war 100,000–
(1966–85) 200,000
Ethiopia Ethiopian civil Communist 500,000–
(1974–91) war 1,000,000
Angola Angolan civil war 60,000–
(1975–2002) 375,000
Indonesia Suppression of East 100,000–
(East Timor) Timorese secession 200,000
(1975–99)
Afghanistan Soviet invasion and Communist 950,000–
(1978–89) occupation 1,280,000
El Salvador Salvadoran civil war 40,000–
(1979–92) 70,000
Sudan Suppression of southern Ethnic 1,000,000–
(1983–2002) Sudanese 1,500,000
Somalia Suppression of Isaaq Ethnic 50,000–
(1988–91) clan/SNM 60,000
Burundi Suppression of Hutu Ethnic 100,000–
(1993–98) 200,000
Russia (Chechnya) Suppression of Chechen 55,000–
(1994–2000) secession movement 60,000
possible cases
Tanzania (German Suppression of Maji- 200,000–
Southwest Africa) Maji uprising 300,000
(1905–7)
Vietnam (1945–54) French suppression 60,000–
of Vietminh guerrillas 250,000
continued
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Mass Killing as Mass Terror
A second scenario of coercive mass killing occurs when combatants engaged
in protracted wars of attrition search for means to swiftly end the
war. As in counterguerrilla killings, leaders may choose to target enemy
civilians in the hopes of coercing surrender without having to defeat the
enemy’s military forces directly. During times of war, of course, civilians
often become victims of famine, disease, and exposure or perish in the
crossWre of opposing forces. These deaths, though tragic, do not qualify
as mass killing as deWned above because they are not intended by either
party. Combatants may also target civilians intentionally, however, when
leaders come to believe that bringing the conXict directly to the enemy
civilian population will spread terror, break enemy morale, destroy enemy
economic productivity, or spark rebellions inside enemy territory.
The ultimate goal of this type of mass killing is simple—to speed the end
of the war.
For lack of a better term, I refer to episodes of mass killing motivated
by these kinds of goals as terrorist mass killings. Like most deWnitions of
terrorism, this terminology focuses on the deliberate use of violence
against civilian targets in the eVort to coerce political change.20 Unlike
many conceptions of terrorism, however, this terminology encompasses
terrorist violence conducted by states, and explicitly includes such violence
when it occurs during war.21
The advent of strategic air and missile power in the second half of this
century has rendered the strategy of terror during war an especially at-
84 F I N A L S O L U T I O N S
table 5
continued
possible cases
Colombia “Conservative” violence Terrorist 50,000–
(1948–58) against “Liberals” in 150,000
Colombian civil war
Vietnam U.S. and South 110,000–
(South) Vietnamese suppression 310,000
(1965–75) of NLF
Cambodia U.S. invasion-bombardment Terrorist 30,000–
(1969–73) of Cambodia 150,000
Uganda Suppression of suspected 100,000–
(1979–87) NRA supporters 300,000
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tractive and extremely destructive weapon. During the Second World
War, Britain and the United States intentionally bombed German cities
in an eVort to weaken German public support for the war and force an
early surrender. In the early stages of the war, British civilian and military
leaders considered the possibility of using air power to attack Germany’s
military forces and industrial assets without targeting civilians, but they
soon discovered that these techniques were not technically practical.22
British strategic bombing planners ultimately decided that in order to
crush the German will to Wght, the Allies “must achieve two things: Wrst,
we must make [German towns] physically uninhabitable and, secondly,
we must make the people conscious of constant personal danger. The immediate
aim is therefore two-fold, namely to produce: (i) destruction;
and (ii) the fear of death.”23 By 1942 the British government had directed
the Royal Air Force to abandon its eVorts to conduct precision bombing
of military and industrial targets and stated that “a primary object” of
RAF bombing raids should be “the morale of the enemy civil popula-
tion.”24
In public, of course, the allies were careful to justify their attacks by
claiming that the raids were intended to destroy German war industries
or military targets. The high proportion of incendiary bombs used by the
allies, however, casts doubt on whether military targets were the Wrst priority
of these operations.25 As for industrial targets, while the destruction
of German industry was undoubtedly the primary objective of some attacks,
many cities without signiWcant industrial resources were also destroyed.26
Arthur Harris, the head of the RAF Bomber Command,
admitted in his memoirs that the destruction of several factories in the
devastating 1943 raid on Hamburg—an attack that killed more than forty
thousand people—had been “a bonus.”27 By the end of the war, British
and American bombing probably killed between 300,000 and 600,000
civilians in Europe.28
Long-range bombers and missiles may have perfected the instruments
of terror warfare, but the strategy of targeting enemy civilians in the eVort
to force a military surrender is probably as old as war itself. Military forces
throughout history have relied on the practice of siege warfare and the
use of starvation blockades to achieve the same eVect. Famine is often an
unintended consequence of war, but it too can be used as a military tool,
like the bombing of cities, to induce capitulation without a conventional
military victory.29 During the First World War, for example, more than
250,000 people died of starvation and malnutrition when the British
blockaded Germany and Austria-Hungary in an eVort to starve them into
surrender.30 More recently, at least half a million people died in the late
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1960s when Nigeria blockaded food supplies to the eastern part of the
country, which was attempting to secede.31
In addition to strategic bombing and siege warfare, powerful sub-state
insurgent groups have sometimes used coercive mass killing to terrorize
their enemies, typically colonial governments and their loyalists among
the native population. By killing large numbers of civilians from speciWcally
targeted groups, these insurgents hope to achieve their political
goals without directly engaging the superior military forces of their enemies.
Algerian resistance groups relied heavily on this strategy during
their war for independence from France, killing almost seventy thousand
people—nearly all of them native Algerians.32 Communist guerrillas in
Vietnam also utilized mass terror in their Wght for liberation against
France and the United States.33
The incentives to resort to mass terror probably exist in most major
conXicts, particularly for the weaker side. Yet terrorist mass killing has remained
relatively rare compared to the number of conXicts waged in the
last century. Three main factors seem to account for this pattern. First,
many groups simply lack the physical capabilities needed to implement a
military strategy of mass terror. While I have argued that mass killing does
not require large or highly capable forces in the absence of organized resistance,
terrorist mass killings take place during war and are often directed
against civilian groups protected by substantial military organizations of
their own. Large, expensive, and technologically sophisticated forces are
often required to overcome or bypass enemy military defenses and kill
civilians in large numbers. Few states throughout history, for example,
have possessed the military forces necessary to carry out large-scale strategic
bombing campaigns or to implement eVective starvation blockades
even if they wished to do so.
Sub-state groups, in particular, have seldom been able to muster the
capabilities and organization necessary to carry out violence on the pace
and scale of mass killing as deWned in this book. Sub-state terrorism may
be a “weapon of the weak,” but mass killing through terrorism has eluded
even the most determined international terrorist organizations. The increasing
ease with which weapons of mass destruction, especially biological
weapons, can be produced and delivered to their targets, however,
seems likely to increase the capabilities of sub-state groups to carry out
mass killing in the future.
Second, because mass killing can be a risky and costly strategy, even
groups that possess the means to carry out mass terror have employed it
only rarely. Mass killing can be counterproductive if it draws in concerned
third parties, alienates important allies, or provokes international sanc-
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tions. Policies such as strategic bombing can backWre, stiVening the resolve
of enemy populations and making surrender less likely.34 As a result,
most leaders would prefer to wage war with conventional means if
possible. Combatants see mass killing as necessary and attractive only in
the most desperate conXicts. In most wars, at least one combatant has the
ability to win with means short of mass killing. Coercive mass killing becomes
likely, therefore, only under the unusual circumstances in which
the perpetrators’ military forces are capable of killing large numbers of enemy
civilians but incapable of conventional military victory. Paradoxically,
then, groups that can marshal the forces to carry out a strategy of
mass terror may actually have fewer reasons to utilize it, since groups with
such formidable capabilities will often have the means to win without resorting
to this kind of violence. While the weaker side in any major conXict
may have an incentive to escalate to mass killing, it will seldom have
the capabilities needed to carry it out against a militarily superior oppo-
nent.
Finally, when both parties to a conXict have the capability to wage a
campaign of mass terror against each other, a state of mutual deterrence
may prevail, further limiting the incidence of this kind of violence. Substate
terrorist or guerrilla groups are particularly vulnerable to the threat
of retaliation in kind, since they often lack the capability to defend their
supporters from government repression.35
Terrorist mass killing is more likely
• the more the perpetrators believe the conXict threatens their vital
interests
• the more the perpetrators believe that their enemies cannot be readily
defeated with conventional means
• the greater the number of people who reside in territories engaged in
conXict with the perpetrators
• the greater the physical capabilities for mass killing possessed by the
perpetrators
• the less eVective the capabilities for retaliation the perpetrators
believe that victims possess
• the less the perpetrators believe that mass killing will provoke the
intervention of other powers
• the fewer and more diYcult the options for victims to Xee to safety
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Imperialist Mass Killing
The third scenario of coercive mass killing is closely linked to empire. Imperial
powers have garnered a well-deserved reputation for the brutal
treatment of civilian populations. The Roman empire, the Aztec empire
in Central America, Nazi Germany’s empire in Europe, and Japan’s empire
in China and Korea each perpetrated mass killing against at least
88 F I N A L S O L U T I O N S
table 6
Terrorist Mass Killings in the Twentieth Century
Location-Dates Description Additional Motives Deaths
Germany Allied blockade of 250,000–
(1914–18) Germany in WW I 425,000
China (1927–49) Communist terror in Communist 1,800,000–
Chinese civil war 3,500,000
Spain (1936–39) Republican terrorism in Communist 20,000–
Spanish civil war 55,000
United Kingdom German bombardment 60,000–
(1940–45) of UK in WW II 62,000
Germany Allied bombardment of 300,000–
(1940–45) Germany in WW II 600,000
Japan American bombardment of 268,000–
(1942–45) Japan in WW II 900,000
Algeria FLN terrorism 70,000–
(1954–63) 235,000
Vietnam NLF (Viet-Cong) terrorism Communist 45,000–
(1954–75) in Vietnam war 80,000
Nigeria Suppression of secession Counterguerrilla? 450,000–
(1967–70) of Biafra 2,000,000
Angola UNITA terrorism 125,000–
(1975–2002) 560,000
Mozambique RENAMO terrorism in 100,000–
(1975–1992) Mozambican civil war 700,000
Algeria Civil war/antigovernment 75,000–
(1992–2002) terrorism 150,000
possible cases
North Korea U.S./R.O.K. bombing and Counterguerrilla 500,000–
(1950–54) other killing in Korean War 1,500,000
Colombia Liberal violence against 50,000–
(1948–58) conservatives in Colombian 150,000
civil war
Iraq Economic embargo of Iraq 80,000–
(1990–97) by UN/U.S. (prior to “oil 170,000
for food” program)
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some of their conquests. Like territorial mass killing, however, imperialist
mass killing has declined in frequency in the twentieth century as the
great European empires have steadily dissolved.
Much of the violence associated with imperialism seems to be motivated
by the eVort to diminish the costs of building and administering
large empires.36 The purpose of an empire is to extract wealth from conquests,
but empires would be prohibitively expensive to maintain if each
subject city, state, or province had to be defeated by force and then policed
to a man. Imperial leaders, therefore, have strong incentives to
adopt a strategy of mass killing as a means of deterring rebellions and resistance
within their empire and as a method of intimidating future conquests
into submission. The large-scale killing of rebellious subjects is
intended to demonstrate to all others considering resistance the terrible
fate awaiting those who refuse to accept imperial rule.
The Mongol empire ruled by Genghis Khan and his progeny was one
of the earliest and most eYcient practitioners of this strategy of mass
killing. According to Paul Ratchnevsky, “Genghis Khan used terror as a
strategic weapon in his military plans. . . . Terrible destruction was threatened
in the event of resistance; bloody examples were designed to spread
fear and reduce the populace’s will to resist.”37 Because imperial powers
intend mass killing to deter future resistance throughout the empire, they
frequently employ it even after rebellious states or regions have capitulated.
To ensure the greatest eVect, the violence often is carried out in an
exceptionally grisly and highly public manner. One of the bloodiest examples
of this strategy in recent history occurred during the Japanese
campaign to expand its empire into the Chinese mainland. In December
1937, Japanese troops descended on the city of Nanking in an orgy of rape,
murder, and mutilation that ultimately left between 200,000 and 350,000
people dead.38 Many explanations of the brutality of the Japanese empire
in China have emphasized the racism, indiscipline, and vengefulness of
Japanese troops.39 However, the violence also represented a calculated
strategy designed to terrify China’s vast population into submission without
a Wght.40 Indeed, it is likely that Nanking was singled out for especially
harsh treatment because of the Werce resistance Japanese forces had
encountered as they advanced on the city, and because of Nanking’s symbolic
value as the capital city of Nationalist China.
Of course, not all empires engage in mass killing, and even empires that
have perfected this brutal strategy seldom unleash it against all of their
conquests. The incentives for imperialist mass killing seem to be greatest
when empires are relatively weak or overstretched, or when they make extreme
demands on their subjects. Under these conditions, resistance to
imperial rule is likely to be especially determined, and the empire’s abilTHE
STRATEGIC LOGIC OF MASS KILLING 89
Valentino, Benjamin A.. Final Solutions : Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century, Cornell University Press, 2013. ProQuest
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Created from oculcarleton-ebooks on 2024-01-04 15:40:16.
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ity to police far-Xung territories with conventional means will be heavily
strained.
Imperialist mass killing is more likely
• the more the perpetrators perceive their empire as a vital interest
• the greater the numbers of people residing in areas resisting imperial
rule
• the larger the size of the empire relative to the perpetrators’
capabilities to police it
• the greater the physical capabilities for mass killing possessed by the
perpetrators
• the fewer the capabilities for retaliation the perpetrators believe that
victims possess
• the less the perpetrators believe that mass killing will provoke the
intervention of other powers
• the fewer and more diYcult the options for victims to Xee to safety
90 F I N A L S O L U T I O N S
table 7
Imperialist Mass Killings in the Twentieth Century
Location-Dates Description Additional Motives Deaths
East Asia Japanese occupation of Counterguerrilla 3,000,000–
1937–45 East Asia (especially China) 10,600,000
Western Europe German occupation of Counterguerrilla 425,000–
1940–45 Western Europe 625,000
Valentino, Benjamin A.. Final Solutions : Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century, Cornell University Press, 2013. ProQuest
Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/oculcarleton-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3138425.
Created from oculcarleton-ebooks on 2024-01-04 15:40:16.
Copyright©2013.CornellUniversityPress.Allrightsreserved.