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.
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.