If the US has suicide bombers would they use them?

Since the USA has yet to sign treaties against use of chemical /biological weapons, nuclear weapons, and land mines,I’m inclined to think they would use any means ‘necessary ’ to defeat their enemies.

But this strategy seems far less feasible than using drones in similar fashion.

@MrGrimm888 But this strategy seems far less feasible than using drones in similar fashion.
With drones you need to buzz around and get lucky, or have boots on the ground or spies to locate the target, and then it is only getting who is IDed, a captured suicide bomber would be like having the rats take the poison bait back to the nest. Some you never see will be there and never see an attack coming so they can’t hide as or they seen or heard a drone.

Do they do bomb vests in XXXX?

never rule anything out, but my guess is that the US government does not have suicide bombers and that the US government and societal norms would rule against it. We’re not nihilistic fundamentalists.

That said, it would not surprise me if some of the disaffected population groups (militias, survivalists, people like Tim McVeigh) had them and were not afraid to use them if the perceived grievance were large enough.

I don’t think the US would, but the US has sent soldiers on “suicide missions” with the slim hope the person will make it through.

I would ask why it would even have to be an option?

People improvise when they do not have the weapons they want. What is the difference between the aftereffects of a cluster bomb and a bomb in a baby carriage?

The US can bomb the hell out of whomever gives offense without having to use a human delivery system.

Why would you depend on an emotionally unstable terminally ill human when you can have a top gamer sitting in air conditioned comfort in Nebraska do the same thing with a drone?

We know where most of the camps are. Unfortunately, the extremists are smart enough to put them close to hospitals, schools and other taboo areas. You’ll notice that Russia and Syria are bombing the hell out of hospitals because, I believe, that’s where the enemy is camped. It’s war, without regard for the press releases.

“They” use them all time. Only we’ve renamed them “special ops”, “navy seals”, etc. Every service branch has its own “specialists” as does each intelligence agency.

Since the US military’s strings are pulled by international big money which has other strings it can pull, and it likes to maintain the illusion for some people that the US is fighting a “war on terror”, I don’t think it would choose to encourage the US military to do that. Nor would the various layers of culture and sensibility go that way. The closest they go so far is to try to lure people who want to become US citizens into the infantry. The US is hardly wanting for techniques for blowing things up. While a human bomb has some advantages in some situations, they seem relatively content with a flying drone force bombing (mostly unrelated civilians) from the air.

Lot’s of luck getting volunteers for that. Suicide bombers need to be very fanatical. The Japanese Kamikaze’s were fanatical and so are the terrorists. Being fanatical they are a bit less stable consequently less focused. Terrorists don’t care if they blow up early or late as long as they get someone it doesn’t matter who. Your plan would require too much discipline to be effective. As general Patton once said, “the idea is not to die for your country but to make the other guy die for his”.

HC. I understand the theory. But this reminds me too much of the exploding bats from WW2.

If the strategy is to blow up suspected terrorists, drones are more effective. I don’t support the drone’s current role, but it is a lesser evil to me than having US troops there…

How do you know they haven’t, as you said someone terminally ill and want to go out with a bang thinking they might be a hero.
I doubt you could get someone who wasn’t to sign up.

@rojo I would ask why it would even have to be an option?
It would be an option if someone volunteered to make it. If you were Uncle Sam, and say, 15 terminally ill people showed up and said they wanted to do that because they know they are going to die anyhow and they want to make their death mean something by going over there, insulting Allah, being taken to the ”den of thieves” so they can detonate their implanted ordinance taking out the bad guys hiding deep in a bunker, you would not do it? It would not matter if it were next to a school or hospital as it would be more of a ’surgical strike” than a drone could do. If you were Uncle Sam, you would not explore any way to make it hap’n cap’n, and tell them to go back to hospice and pass away?

Of course they would.

Seems unnecessary when you have the largest, most technologically advanced military the world has ever seen. Terrorists use suicide bombers because they don’t have the capability to wage conventional warfare. Beyond that the kind of fanaticism required for suicide attacks just doesn’t exist in the western psyche.

@Darth Algar, of note. I know 3 people who claimed that they would kill themselves in a mosque with explosives. This was right after 9/11. Stupid ,yes. But some westerners DO possess whatever idiocy it takes to be suicide bombers.

As you and I both mentioned though. They don’t fit our need.

@MrGrimm888

Saying it is one thing. Doing it is quite another.

^^Correct DA

They tried to train Sharks to deliver bombs heavy enough to damage a naval ship. Unlike dolphins, sharks got distracted and short tempered- but it might’ve been the electric shocks given them to teach them to stay in line and on target. No kidding.
Would the US or Allies do such things? Since when did they not?