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You are always armed, and trained and ready to use those arms if necessary.
If some 10 yr old Pashtun kid grabs a flashlight, despite being told to fuck off, do I stab him?
If we're evacuating citizens from Haiti, and my section/platoon/whatever is holding a line at the embassy entrance, letting passport-carriers in and keeping a group of desperate people out, do I go immediately between politely asking the refugees to stop pushing, to emptying a mag? Or would it benefit me and the other troops to have some rudimentary controlling techniques in our skill set.
If two of my guys need to detain and search a suspicious traveller near the wire who refused to stop walking away, would it be more advisable to huck grenades at him or just high-low tackle him?
It's technically legal for me to bayonet the dirty hippy who tries to grab the Regimental Colours during that parade in downtown Toronto, but how well is that going to play on the CBC? Wouldn't it be better if I, or another soldier, just clinched him, dumped him on his ass, or walked him back to the police?
There's a lot of room in between the various sorts of armed response a soldier might face, and not all situations call for immediate deadly response.
Edit; as to the riot control question, you will be issued the kit appropriate for the situation whenever you have forewarning that the situation will develop, and the time and logistical readiness to get you that kit, which is to say, almost fucking never.
In all those situation, if you try non-deadly force, and something goes wrong you would have to escalate and possibly fight for your life right.
I did not think of trying to restrain or hold people at bay when they are not actually threatening or meaning to do harm as part of H2H/defensive tactics. I thought H2H was strictly combat against deadly enemy.
If you need to restrain someone or capture someone, yet this someone responds with deadly force, what could unarmed, less lethal empty hand options can you possibly have?