Genocide

The earliest recorded genocide, which supposedly took place at Jericho under the leadership of Joshua, may be a fiction. It makes a good story and a better song if you can overlook the part about grandmothers and children being hacked to death with swords. 

The Roman obliteration of Carthage in 146 BCE is a documented early genocide (genocide is the deliberate destruction, in whole or in part, of a racial, religious or national group).

In World War Two, both sides deliberately bombed civilian neighborhoods. That is genocide. The British had pioneered civilian bombing in the 1920s against the Kurds in the Middle East. They defeated the Kurds, who fought on horseback.

The most recent genocides are taking place in Yemen and Ukraine. Putin used genocidal attacks, including lethal gas on civilians, as a tactic in several earlier wars.The general idea is that if your military kills enough grandparents, mothers and children, the other side will lose heart. It's an old idea, and sometimes it works. 

Don Trump argued that NATO no longer has a useful function. Apparently the 30 NATO countries today disagree. I have to wonder how long NATO will stand around and watch Ukraine die. I do applaud prudence, but. . . .