Widespread starvation
"Strikes at population targets (per se) are likely not only to create a counter-productive wave of revulsion abroad and at home, but greatly to increase the risk of enlarging the war with China and the Soviet Union. Destruction of locks and dams, however - if handled right - might offer promise. It should be studied. Such destruction does not kill or drown people. By shallow-flooding the rice, it leads after time to widespread starvation (more than a million) unless food is provided - which we could offer to do 'at the conference table'."
[John McNaughton, US State Department Vietnam policy, as quoted in 'The Mentality of the Backroom Boys.' Article by Noam Chomsky, 1973]