4chan Debates Whether Counterinsurgency Kills Are Inevitable, Blames Command

A discussion on 4chan’s /k/ board deteriorated into a sprawling debate about counterinsurgency doctrine, civilian casualties, and military accountability, prompted by an original post asking whether killing noncombatants is “inevitable” in asymmetric warfare.

The OP allegedly posed the question: “If you’re fighting a counter-insurgency against guerillas, who flash in and out of civilian posturing at the drop of a hat, isn’t dropping the odd cunt inevitable?”

One respondent initially conceded the point, writing that “Expecting human beings to act like perfect robots in any situation, let alone conflict, is an idiotic delusion.” However, the same user pivoted to argue that the Australian Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) scandal was not an example of unavoidable wartime friction but rather “a result of allowing all safeguards to be subverted.”

Users extensively discussed the SASR alleged misconduct in Afghanistan, citing what they claimed was a toxic unit culture insulated from oversight. One commenter wrote: “By 2011 at the latest it was reasonably common knowledge…that Ben Roberts-Smith was a titanic thundercunt and a loose cannon,” allegedly referring to the decorated soldier later involved in war crimes investigations. Another user reported anecdotal evidence of SASR misconduct, including one story in which “an AUSINT private…got new intelligence which indicated the Taliban…was going to ambush an incoming raid” and was supposedly “beaten the living shit out of” by a commanding officer for pulling the mission.

The thread pivoted into broader historical discussions of counterinsurgency. Multiple commenters invoked the Malayan Emergency as a model of successful COIN achieved through what one called “Hearts and Minds” strategy, resettlement, infrastructure investment, and local cooperation, rather than escalating brutality. One user noted that the British “gave them modern houses, sewerage system, clean piped water, electricity and food rations,” which allegedly reduced civilian support for communist insurgents.

Other commenters rejected this framing, arguing that modern insurgents have “fleshed out guerilla tactics” and actively subvert good-faith counterinsurgency efforts by infiltrating security forces and murdering cooperative locals.

A particularly caustic respondent attacked senior Australian military leadership, writing of one general: “you spent every day of your worthless fucking tenure walking past a slew of war crimes” while “lecturing the Army on the tenets of postmodern morality.”

The thread suggested broad consensus that institutional accountability failures, rather than combat conditions, enabled the worst abuses, though users remained sharply divided on whether effective counterinsurgency is even possible without atrocities.