Show of Force
The term Show of Force (English for "demonstration of strength" or "demonstration of power") means the demonstration of one's own military strengths or offensive forces. Examples of this are a large number of soldiers as well as a tank at a checkpoint, the flying over of supposedly hostile forces with combat bombers without bombing or a task force unit with an aircraft carrier in a strategically important position during a maneuver .
Other examples are demonstrative actions with no direct strategic benefit, such as B. the Doolittle Raid as the first bombing of mainland Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor .
The intention is to show a potential enemy and / or the civilian population their strengths and thereby deter them. This method is often used in peacetime at military checkpoints. In this way, sabotage or terrorist attacks on important targets can perhaps be prevented, since showing the weapons or the number of soldiers prevents the attacker from making a loss-making attack.
Showing one's strengths is of little use against suicide attacks . Only the number of victims can be smaller as a result.