Scorched-earth defense
The scorched-earth defense is a form of risk arbitrage and anti-takeover strategy.
Total war
In The American Revolution, also known as the American Revolutionary War, many basic tactics of Total War were created in a modern form, I.E. Scorched Earth. in 1779, The Sullivan Expedition began, marching through Western Pennsylvania and up through New York, burning Iroquois villages to the ground, leaving nothing behind but smoldering ruin and dead bodies. In the Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War, The British and American Militia did similar campaigns of Extermination, but to their neighbors. Whole towns where depopulated. The British Cavalry led by Banastre Tarleton join the militia in the creation of the inferno called "South Carolina".