I dunno - the general seems to at least have a certain amount of pragmaticism on his side? Someone less patient and less pragmatic could easily respond with immediate and excessive force and light the fuse leading to the powder keg.

Letting the repressed population blow off a little steam is better (smarter at least) than feeding them reasons to rally more strongly.

Makes you wonder if similar methods wouldn't be better for current riot issues in the States.

Fighting fire with fire sometimes just makes more fire.

Ironically the thing that arguably works best to damp down riots is the weather, for example rain. So arguably if they had weather modification technology making it rain would be fairly effective.

Anecdotally I've heard crime generaly drops off if it's raining too.

Also sometimes the most effective way to implement a security state is to get the people to demand and support it - the US (and a few other nations) being choice examples today. Scare the population, then offer them security in exchange for freedoms, knowing most of them are unable to understand objectively how scared they ought to be (ie not very in most cases).

Agreed on all points.

It depends on the reason for rioting, I think. Case and point, the Ferguson/Baltimore riots. Regardless of what actually happened with the police/etc to spark the riots (I won't get into speculation) the rioters were specifically angry about militarized police.
So what do the police do? Show up with faceless, military style, angry looking riot police and armored vehicles... giving rioters a perfect symbol of oppression to rage against.

It's a propaganda war that the police, in my opinion, handed poorly. Instead of coming across as the protectors of the people, they really fed into the motif of 'police cracking down on freedom loving citizens'.

Again, regardless of who's right and wrong, that's the way it tends to play out on TV.

I agree on using force and riot gear to crack down on riots caused by silly things such as sports victories/losses (we had a riot here in Vancouver a few years back due to a hockey game). But when the whole POINT of the riot is anti-police sentiment... you have to be careful how you handle it.

Thank you for summing up my views on the matter quite nicely. There is anger in these communities, and rather than try to address the source of it, the police are just addressing the expression of it. Repressed anger/rage is a very bad thing.

Well, you can't have an effective police force without the tacit consent of the people (however misguided and uninformed or coerced that consent might be), simple numbers speaks (at least while law enforcement is human based) plus you have nothing to rule without people in any event (is Atropos worth anything without a population?).

That's the key there though - to get tacit consent, I think in cases where the police are the trigger you should hold back and let the rioters upset enough other people that they want the police involved. Worst case then people complain the police were too slow to respond (per the UK riots a few years ago, also started from a police shooting) and best case if you time it right you come in as heroes restoring public order (because no matter what ideals people like Alice might espouse, few truly want to live in unfettered anarchy either, in practice there is no true freedom, you merely alter the currency of power).

It isn't the nuanced response the US is very good at in my opinion (speaking as an outsider, sort of). I had a discussion with someone not so long ago about this sort of thing in relation to ISIS - pointing out that the offensive actions the US was taking were providing a focal point, an enemy to rally the cause behind - and that the greatest good might actually be met by simply letting them be and waiting for their own people (in the conquered territority) to become disillusioned with their logistical inabilities and internal corruptions. As an American he was dogmatically insisting that one must try to act at least, where I argued that sometimes the most effective action was in fact inaction.

I suspect he was overlooking the strategic and resource driven aspects of that particular conflict. As indeed most are when they look at recent riots in the US - the trigger that drives the riot is not necessarily the ultimate cause, just as the Arab spring was about a bit more than a vegetable seller who self immolated, so the riots in the US are actually being driven by much deeper more fundamental problems than the actions of the police...

I couldn't agree more.

It's so hard to balance freedom and security (and sometimes even more difficult to tell the difference)... or defeat an enemy that thrives on fighting (or at least, will use any attack to rally more to a cause).

A win-at-any-cost doesn't really work when you obliterate the very thing you're fighting for (peace. freedom. whatever) Like you say in regards to Atropos - it's not very useful if you have no population in the end.

In the comic, Kate and Alice are both rather short sighted, and opposite sides of the security/do-whatever-you-want coin. The Major's had more time to observe long term consequences to actions... but even with knowledge and experience, it's impossible to draw a correct line about what's right and wrong all the time. Who's to say, for instance, how many innocent lives should be sacrificed to avoid a breach of one's rights?

Haha if you guys only knew how much I ramble on about this all the time. My girlfriend gets an earful on a regular basis, haha. She's a trooper for putting up with me, no doubt!

It's House of Cards : Yesterdaybound edition!

You can't casually light a cigar without looking like a cunning, ahead-of-the-curve schemer. That's my theory.