Firstly, The reasons why Rhodesia actually lost the war;
Everyone knows that the world sanctioned Rhodesia to undermine it. Most people know that South Africa also betrayed them, though fewer understand why.
Now that the basics are out of the way, there are darker reasons why Rhodesians lost the war.
Simply put, they lost the war because they were weak, because they were selfish, and because they were infected with liberalism.
Any rational person who looks at the Rhodesian conflict objectively will understand that the blacks did not give two shits about communism or capitalism. They were interested in one thing and one thing only; black power in a country they thought was theirs. (whether this is true is irrelevant)
Thus, we can state that this conflict was not an ideological struggle but a racial war. An ethnic conflict of black vs White.
But this is not how the Rhodesians saw it. I have watched hours and hours worth of interviews, personal stories, and archive footage from Rhodesians both during and after the conflict. And literally every single one of them claimed that they actually believed that they were in some sort of ideological debate against the merits of communism. They believed that most blacks were noble and "lovely" people who were their good friends. That the problem was the "bad blacks" who were being fooled by communist propaganda and that communism was bad for blacks. They actually thought that claiming that something is bad for blacks is an argument that anyone other than a White Rhodesian gave a shit about.
It was a race war but only one side understood what was going on. Embarrassingly for the Whites, the niggers were playing chess while the Rhodesians were trying to play checkers.
How familiar does this sound? It sounds identical to the conservative Americans who insist that the Democrats are the real racists and that despite overwhelming numbers of blacks who vote for the Democrats, that somehow they will win the niggers over to the "party of Linkun" by presenting niggers with rational arguments against liberalism. But niggers do not care about liberalism. They understand that liberalism is just a code word for "fuck the Crakkas". They are voting based on the racial war in which they are engaged against Whites.
This obsession with communism is what doomed the Rhodesians. Instead of engaging the actual problem which was blacks, they went out of their way to help blacks under the false hope that somehow this would win them over to the Rhodesian "cause," which was nothing more than not being communist.
Rhodesian store owners who went out of their way to help blacks were stunned that their kindness was repaid by arson.
In literally every single interview a Rhodesian gave to a journalist that waddled up to him, the Rhodesian would insist over and over that they were not racist. Then he would begin the typical conservative powerpoint presentation on why they are not racists. And the journalists would smile and nod and say, "Yes, but you are racists. And racism is bad. You are bad."
Liberalism is the obfuscation of reality through wordism. A liberal refuses to address any issue or problem directly, but instead chooses to view everything through multiple filters of wordist idealism. The Rhodesians were so obsessed with the word communist that they failed to see the race war they were in. They fell completely for the trick.
Communism is a spook word. It means nothing. ONLY White people take it seriously. Every other race on the planet intuitively understands that "communism" is just a code word for "Get money from the USSR to get rid of Whites."
The Rhodesians had a race problem that would not be solved by combating communist ideology but by combating the source of the problem; blacks.
The Rhodesians refused to solve their demographic problem by reducing the number of blacks.
The Rhodesians won the debate on the merits of communism. But no one was arguing about the merits of communism. They were killing White people so that blacks could take their land and homes.
The last days of Rhodesia
This set the stage for the death of Rhodesia. And let's not kid ourselves. The Rhodesians lost the war.
They did not win the war.
They did not draw the war.
They lost.
Badly.
More completely than almost any war in history. They lost so badly that they are now extinct as a nation.
Even Germany survived WW2 as a nation.
>But wait, what about that one time that 20 Rhodesian Short Shorts Bois kill 4 million blacks?
>Didn't America kill 99 billion vietnamese during the Vietnamese war? Doesn't that mean that we win?
>"The story of the Rhodesian armed forces during the civil war is one of tactical brilliance and strategic ineptitude."
It does not matter how many enemies you kill if you surrender the next day.
By 1979, the Rhodesians were losing 1000 Whites to emigration every single month. That is because the blacks practiced an actually intelligent strategy of racial terrorism against the Whites. They wanted to make it clear that staying here would lead to a brutal death along with your entire family. So they left.
Every White who left took with him his economic productivity and manpower. Since the Rhodesian military was built upon the backs of Whites, this sapped their ability to wage war while sapping Smith's ability to fund the war.
By 1979, the Rhodesian security forces had lost effective control over up to 80% of the country. The roads were mined and only the White settled areas were fully under control. Even these would be attacked by mortars with increasing frequency.
By 1979, the Rhodesian economy had lost thousands of tons of fuel due to the 1978 attack on the Salisbury fuel depot. With no fuel, they could barely maintain their small airforce, which was their only military advantage by this point. The blacks had better vehicles, better guns, and anti-aircraft technology. They even had tanks, poised to invade from Zambia. Which, btw, was now the launching point of a united front between the two rival black forces; ZANLA and ZIPRA.
The Rhodesian army, sapped of White manpower, had now been forced to rely on black recruits which were likely to defect to the conventional black force. They probably would have killed tens of thousands of blacks. But eventually, the dwindling Rhodesian army would be driven back to Salisbury by both the enemy force and whatever black units defected. It would have been like the Turner Diaries in reverse.
For videogamy people, Rhodesia was like playing HOI4 and getting into a war as a country on 0 manpower and then losing your fuel.
How Rhodesia could have survived and won
Rhodesia was betrayed consistently by every single entity which it placed trust in. The British, the American capitalists, South Africa, their Christian churches, and the "good blacks."
To be frank, Rhodesia was utterly doomed because they were weak, selfish liberals. Rhodesians were stuck up conservatives who would scoff at the harsh, realpolitik acts they would need to do to survive.
However, here is how they might have been saved if the Rhodesians could overcome their obstinate liberalism and embrace truly radical solutions to the race problem.
Ideally, they should have exterminated the blacks during WW1 or something, then offered refugee status to any right wing Whites willing to serve on the front lines against the Zulus. Germans, anti-communist Russians, Hungarians, even French people! Everyone being dispossessed by the collapse of the old order should have been given land in Rhodesia and a gun.
But failing this, the year is 197x and the military establishment meets with Smith and explains how things are going to go down.
>"We can win many battles, but so long as the demographic, and that is to say black problem remains unresolved, we will lose this war eventually. But if we try to remove them, America may invade us to stop us from resolving the problem."
>"I see..."
Smith sends a prestigious, secret diplomatic mission to the USSR.
>We are prepared to negotiate a very beneficial agreement with you.
>We would like to become communist. We are prepared to offer you incentives which even your most loathsome puppet states will be hard pressed to beat. But there are a few requirements which we must have from you. If you do not agree to our terms, there will be serious consequences for you.
>Firstly, we will invite your military to be stationed in Rhodesia. You may set up as many nuclear missiles as you please. In fact, the more the better.
>Secondly, we will nationalize ALL mineral wealth extraction and sign the mining rights directly to Soviet "companies" or whatever you communists call them. You will have unlimited extraction rights for 10 years and we will renegotiate every 10 years thereafter.
>In exchange, you will give us x-billion dollars a year for the rights. But 70% of the money you give us, we will use to buy weapons from Soviet manufacturers. As I said, you will benefit immensely from our deals. We aim to be your staunchest little ally.
>You will supply us with scientists to help us develop nuclear weapons, which we will only use in our defense.
>You will recognize us as a sovereign communist state and we will redesign our government to reflect the "dictatorship of the proletariat" thing you have going on (basically, the flag changes colours and several government positions get new communisty sounding names)
>We will vote for whatever policies you ask us to in the UN. The world is irrelevant to us. Consider us a second USSR vote.
>But... you will leave us to handle our internal matters. You will no longer push for black rule in Rhodesia. And you will cover for what we are about to do; What you did to the Ukrainians and the Poles and the Germans and the Finns and the Chechens and the Crimean Greeks
>Since you covered for this, I'm sure you can bring yourself to cover for what we are about to do to resolve the threat to our national survival.
>If you refuse this offer, then we will fight the blacks but we will focus almost exclusively on USSR backed rebels so that if we do lose, China will gain and you will not.
>Before we lose, we will invite the Americans in and grant THEM exclusive mining rights and allow them to "democratize" us.
>If you reject our generous offer, the communist backed blacks may still win, but they will be your rivals. Every single bullet you send to the blacks will be an irrevocable waste.
When the Soviets arrive, the announcement is made. Rhodesia chances its flag, changes its party name, and changes what they call things that already exist. The Rhodesian media makes the new order clear; Dollar signs are bad now. Hammers and sickles are in vogue.
While it may be confusing for the lemmings, if the Rhodesian elite were made of sterner stuff, they would understand what is going on and switch out their support of one meaningless wordism for idiots for a different wordism for idiots.
Then they begin resolving the black problem.
There is already a state of emergency in effect. This means that all regions are military districts. Given that communist... now reactionary terrorists are threatening the security of the state, new measures are imposed to prevent counter-revolutionaries from sabotaging the worker revolution. Namely, blacks living near the border areas are moved into camps deeper within the country. What happens is up to debate. These camps, which exist for the protection of blacks, are a tricky institution to run. Blacks riot over nothing so soldiers would need to put down the violence by force. Maybe they could be marched out of the country, resettled into Mozambique. I'm sure they will love having hundreds of thousands of potential doctors and rocket scientists dumped into their country. Who wouldn't?
Maybe terrorists might detonate a series of bombs in the resettlement camp. Personally, I am skeptical of mass slaughter and would try dumping them on enemy neighbors instead. But whatever happens, happens.
This process could take many years, targeting the blacks one district at a time. Resistance would be treated the same way that the Soviets treated ethnic resistance.
Communist Rhodesia would be hypocritical if it did not invite all the dispossessed (vetted) White workers from the world in and, in accordance with Rhodesian communism, give each man a plot of land to farm and more when he has a family and children. When Portugal collapses, Rhodesia offers citizenship to all Portuguese political refugees. Since they were fascists in all but name, this only further affirms Rhodesia's defacto third positionism. By 1990, Rhodesia will be a White island in Africa. They will be armed with soviet weapons and embracing an ideology of racial socialism thinly disguised as communism. They will be a nuclear armed nation. And when the USSR collapses, they will offer refugee status for all soviet troops. But regardless, the weapons will remain right here for safe keeping.
As South Africa is betrayed by its "friends" the instant it was no longer useful, Rhodesia invites all the dispossessed Whites shelter in Rhodesia. After all, Rhodesia has a LOT of land that was suddenly vacated by the Africans.
Sadly, now Communist Rhodesia is a rogue nation, like North Korea. Fortunately, they have nuclear weapons and the assurance to the world that they will use every single one before they go down. The first two decades would be rough. But with the USSR gone, the soviet mining corporations would revert back to Rhodesian control. And once Russia regained its footing, there would be strong contacts between the two nations which might allow for a renewed cooperation in Africa.