# Rules of War, should there be any? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 13, 2009, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079 "2009-01-13T13:25:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/41 "2009-01-14T19:52:08Z")
**Sapo** I appreciate that you’re fighting your ignorance here. I think a lot of people resist fighting their ignorance about anything controversial at the SDMB because they don’t have a clear and well-formed position themselves and know they’ll get torn to bits in GD. You’re still confusing your legal and moral arguments. You don’t believe that Israel’s attacks on Gaza cross a moral line. A lot of people disagree with you. Those people may cite international law to show that there is a moral consensus or to add legal weight to their argument or to point out Israel’s hypocrisy but I don’t think many people think that Israel’s actions are immoral _simply because_ they break international law. If international law didn’t exist you’d have the same people arguing that the Gazans don’t deserve what they’re getting for the same - moral - reasons. A lot of people, BTW, agree with you, including the US government, but they don’t argue that proportionality is itself a flawed standard, just that killing hundreds of innocent civilians is not disproportional against an existential threat to Israel when the enemy combatants are deliberately using civilians to shield themselves. Everyone, including you, agree that some things _would_ be disproportionate, such as genocide or nuclear war - even if we all agreed that was what it would take for Israel to be permanently safe. Your legal claim is that we don’t need international law to tell us that some things _are_ beyond the pale. But while you might not, the world does. Genocide was long considered a purely internal affair between a country and its minorities. (See Armenian genocide.) The idea that genocide is always and everywhere wrong and that other nations have a right and a responsibility to intervene is an idea that was promulgated through international law. And then what about things like nuclear weapons? We dropped a nuclear weapon (two of them) on a country, when we arguably didn’t have to. You may think it is clearly a wrong thing to do, but people still argue today about how we ended WWII. But now we have countries like Britain and France and Israel and India and Pakistan and Russia who all have nuclear weapons. We’re on more-or-less friendly relations with all of them, but we don’t want to trust the limitation of nuclear war to our current diplomatic friendships. So we get India and Pakistan to agree not to use nuclear weapons in a conventional war. And agree to the same thing, and we get all the other nuclear countries to go along with it, partly to pressure India and Pakistan (of course these weren’t the countries we were worried about when this happened, but it makes the point), and partly to make sure that if one of them breaks the treaty they don’t have any allies because all those countries agree that nuclear weapons are wrong in a conventional conflict, and partly because we really don’t want Britain or France or Israel using nuclear weapons either. And maybe we have to give up something, like using biological weapons, in order to get those countries to go along. Of course if we can’t use biological weapons, we don’t want anyone else to either, and the country making the demand wants everyone else to agree as well, so that we won’t have any allies if we break the treaty. And pretty soon everyone has agreed to certain rules of warfare - not based on some abstract moral principle and not because the UN came and made us, but because everyone benefits, even if some things get banned that no rational actor would do anyway and some things get banned that would end wars more quickly. And that gives _moral_ weight to people who argue against things like genocide and chemical weapons and torture, but it also puts up practical barriers to using those things because it galvanizes international opinion and isolates countries diplomatically who don’t follow the rules. So from a legal perspective, what is it about this system that you think should be changed and what should replace it? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/42 "2009-01-14T20:03:21Z")
> [@Sapo](#): > > You are not unpredictable if you wear a t-shirt that says “I will kill and burn the house of those who punch me in the face” (with a picture of your gun and your can of gasoline). You’re still somewhat antisocial 😉 > [@](#): > > In most cases, if the guy who is tempted to kill the fist one soldier knows that the other will indeed kill his 100 and that he cannot really retaliate by killing 10K, then they might consider not killing that first one. Or try, kill one, have his 100 killed and then start killing and run out of bullets at 237, only to have 23.700 of him killed in retaliation and not being able to respond. Don’t think that really applies re. Israël and its many enemies. > [@](#): > > The nuclear threat is ineffective because people know that you will not use it as it is likely to hurt you as much as your target. > > But exotic weapons are indeed an effective deterrent if the other only has regular guns to respond. And by exotic I don’t mean plasma needlers, something as simple as the ability to bomb at night is scary stuff against someone who cannot. > > You could argue that the US was using overwhelming force against Iraq when they had complete aerial supremacy and the ability to attack at all times under all weather while Iraq only had some medium artillery. Did the US say “hey, we will use only foot soldiers to make this fair”? Of course not. In fact they even named it “shock and awe”. Not that it worked so well against guerrilla fighters, but hey. Not the same thing to use overwhelming force against soldiers whose job it is to risk death, and overwhelming force that could result in civilian casualties, ecological disaster etc… Note also, that overwhelming force restricted itself to conventional armaments and followed the rules of war, even though Saddam didn’t. > [@](#): > > I think that the ability to retaliate quickly and massively is a valid form of deterrence and that (again, only for the sake of the example) Israel is unfairly handicapped when they cannot hit back in full force for fear of international reproach. What full force ? What exactly do you think Israël should do that it’s not doing ? > [@](#): > > As for guns and explosives being more humane than other weapons, I am lucky to not know for a fact. But the soldiers with faces shredded by shrapnel usually don’t look particularly happy about the whole ordeal. I already admitted it was debatable, but thems be the terms of the Geneva convention and similar treaties, which Israël has signed. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/43 "2009-01-15T02:03:03Z")
I realize I am arguing what is mostly a moot point since the rules are already there and going against them is so costly in terms of a country’s standing in front of the international community that it probably wipes out any advantage that could be earned from going against them. This is more of a hypothetical about whether those rules should be there while we know they won’t go away. Also, the point is also moot since most modern wars will be fought in urban environments where the issue of proximity to civilians makes all “creative” war fighting impossible. Still, the fact that wars are now fought among civilians does force the introduction of new weapons such as pain rays, tasers, better flash grenades, chemical incapacitants (tear gas, retching gas, etc), etc. I would hate to see the development of alternatives to bullets and bombs hampered by esoteric rules from a bygone era. What would Israel do differently were it not for the existing rules of war? I don’t know, of course, but I presume that most countries with advanced armies would rather fight their wars from a distance without getting boots on the ground. Doing this in an urban environment without high collateral damage is hard/impossible and this is why they need to send their kids to die in the front. ETA: Kobal2, what’s up with the diaeresis diacritic mark on Israel? I know it does signal the correct pronunciation but I have never seen it used before. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/44 "2009-01-15T10:01:07Z")
> [@Sapo](#): > > ETA: Kobal2, what’s up with the diaeresis diacritic mark on Israel? I know it does signal the correct pronunciation but I have never seen it used before. It’s how it’s spelled in French, so I’m used to spelling it that way :smack:. Same reason I’ll spell Iraq Irak half of the time. Now that you’ve pointed the mistake, I’ll try to keep it in mind. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/45 "2009-01-15T10:30:55Z")
Since I mentioned it before: > **[Israel Accused of 'War Crimes' for Phosphorus Shells](https://www.wired.com/2009/01/white-phosphoru/)** > > International watchdogs are calling the Israeli use of white phosphorus shells in Gaza a "war crime." Could they be right? Calls for an international war crimes investigation in Gaza are getting louder, especially over the issue of white phosphorus... ETA: and this: [http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/01/israeli-combat.html](http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/01/israeli-combat.html) Having to risk someone to videotape a war for your lawyers? ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/46 "2009-01-15T10:51:17Z")
Jackie Fisher said (in relation to rules of warfare) “You may as well try and regulate Hell!” ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/47 "2009-01-15T13:20:46Z")
It seems to me that the advent of asymmetric warfare fundamentally changes the notion of civilian. No longer can a conqueror expect a conquered population which is not isolated to submit and get on with their lives. Anyone can suddenly produce a weapon. Look at the various Resistance movements in WW2. Vietnam. Northern Ireland in the 70s and 80s. Or Iraq and Afghanistan today. So, if you’re going to war to grab land, or to stop it being grabbed, it’s strategically better to not have that problem: you kill or expel the entire population - or an entire problem group thereof. Ethnic Cleansing. ☹ Mass slaughter is nothing new - but that doesn’t make it right either. :mad: The second lesson is that when you invade but are not interested in keeping the land, you should restrict yourself to a short term goal and get out as soon as possible after achieving your goal. Iraq should have been an example of this, but we stayed and it’s cost us dearly. Instead of simply getting out after getting rid of Saddam, we stayed to try and ‘promote democracy’. Laudable, but misguided. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/48 "2009-01-15T14:00:46Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > It seems to me that the advent of asymmetric warfare fundamentally changes the notion of civilian. No longer can a conqueror expect a conquered population which is not isolated to submit and get on with their lives. Anyone can suddenly produce a weapon. Look at the various Resistance movements in WW2. Vietnam. Northern Ireland in the 70s and 80s. Or Iraq and Afghanistan today. So, if you’re going to war to grab land, or to stop it being grabbed, it’s strategically better to not have that problem: you kill or expel the entire population - or an entire problem group thereof. Ethnic Cleansing. ☹ Mass slaughter is nothing new - but that doesn’t make it right either. :mad: > > The second lesson is that when you invade but are not interested in keeping the land, you should restrict yourself to a short term goal and get out as soon as possible after achieving your goal. Iraq should have been an example of this, but we stayed and it’s cost us dearly. Instead of simply getting out after getting rid of Saddam, we stayed to try and ‘promote democracy’. Laudable, but misguided. I don’t see that it’s really any different from events of the past. I’m sure the crusaders or the Romans were faced with similar problems in occupied lands\*. Of course, they were less bound by treaties and international laws, so there’s that. But my point is : I’m quite sure the notion of asymetric warfare wasn’t unknown to the people who drafted and signed the treaties protecting civilians, even if they didn’t call it that at the time. - Jewish revolts in the Levant were quite common for instance. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten “What have the Romans ever done for us, besides aqueducts, roads, sanitation etc… ?!” ? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/49 "2009-01-15T17:37:51Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > I don’t see that it’s really any different from events of the past. I’m sure the crusaders or the Romans were faced with similar problems in occupied lands\*. True, and revolts were brutally suppressed. That’s not the ‘done thing’ these days. ---
**Author:** ![wsbenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b38774/32.png) [@wsbenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wsbenge)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2009, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/50 "2009-01-18T15:45:52Z")
There can be no rules for war, since the winner writes the rules. War is about one group of people vs. another. People are really stupid, when it comes to war. We have the ability to exterminate ourselves, by war. I doubt we will be allowed to, but … There are no rules, in war. Trials for war crimes are just a continuation of the war. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2009, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/51 "2009-01-18T16:34:38Z")
> [@Sapo](#): > > I am asking here and not in GD because I don’t want a heady debate, just a general feel for what other people think. > > The current example, of course, is the Israel-Gaza thing going on (and please, let us not make this thread about that), but the topic has come up every single time country A throws a stone at country B. “The stone was too big”, “You should only use rounded stones”, “Why use stones when they only have sticks”. > > I say bullshit the whole lot of it. Once a country decides that there is no other way than to wage war against another, war means beating the shit out of that other country until they can no longer threaten you. If that means a single bomb with pinpoint accuracy, big savings to you. If that means razing the whole country to a dust bowl, tough luck to all. > > Isn’t the whole thing of a “clean” war a ridiculously hypocritical oxymoron? > > - FTR, I am strongly anti-war and very strongly against what Israel is doing in Gaza. I don’t want either of these two particular facts to color this thread, though. I can assure you that the concept of “Rules” as it applies to war is entirely artificial and oxymoronic,–I suspect that’s what you are instinctively questioning. Individuals and societies are driven by two diametrically opposed core values. The first is self interest and the second is altruism. When a society has a conflict with another it must choose a path for resolution. When “war”–let’s define that as physical antagonistic engagement–is pursued as an option, that society has already placed self-interest above altruism toward the enemy. That position, _a priori_, by ranking the society’s self-interest as its highest value, renders the idea of adhering to any third-party rules nonsensical–or, at the least, voluntary (in which case they are not “rules,” are they? They are voluntary guidelines). It is from this observation that the notion that “All is fair in (love and) war” derives. This is not to say that civilized societies do not pursue internal guidelines for physical conflicts, or that they do not attempt to meet larger international standards. It does mean the term Rules is a little misleading. If Rules actually existed, Rule 1 would be “No War.” Once that Rule is violated, there aren’t any other Rules, which is why the real battle for the hearts of third-party observers is so often fought over who started it. It’s also why no country with WMD is going to unilaterally disarm despite the typical convention being that WMDs violate the Rules. Once war starts, there are no Rules. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/52 "2009-01-19T04:29:46Z")
Well put. As has been mentioned, adherence to the rules of war is mostly voluntary and with the purpose of making life easier for oneself. It is not a matter of morals but of economy. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/53 "2009-01-19T05:02:13Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > And you don’t think one of the locals is going to, I don’t know, warn them ? > > Also, you can drop any amount of TNT on a mountain - when the smoke clears, it’ll still be a mountain 🙂 > FWIW, by the end of the Viet-Nam war, America had dropped 6 tons of bombs per inhabitant. 6. Tons. Per. Man. I’ll let you do the kaboom math. That should have cleared and flattened the jungle and wiped everybody out, right ? Except it didn’t. Not even close. See, once you’re dug in deep enough (as the North Vietnamese were, and the Taliban are), you’re pretty much safe from anything. The only way to eradicate you is to come inside the caves (“smoking 'em out” doesn’t work, as it were). > Ask the Marines at Iwo Jima how fun it is to clear mazes of caverns and tunnels. Ask former tunnel rats who went down Viet Cong holes with a flashlight and a handgun how easy the job is. Not that it really matters because again, unless they intend to stay for you (in which case you should be very, very worried) they’ll be long gone by the time you’ve secured the place. > > And finally, the whole point of asymetric warfare is to \*not _let you know who you’re looking for. The don’t have Al Qaeda decoder rings. They’ll cooperate while you’re watching, and resume the fight once you’ve done your blasting to smithereens. They’ll hide sleeper agents everywhere to watch your every move. They’ll know where your going and by which route before you do. > The fact of the matter is : you can’t win a war like this one. You can’t defeat a guerilla when it has the support of the local people. Not on the field of battle anyway. You could possibly if they were starved for food, and ammo, and troops. Oil and drug money see to the first and second, American occupation more than sees to the third. Hitler couldn’t deal with it, the Soviets couldn’t, the Columbian government can’t, you couldn’t in the 60’s, and you still can’t today. Hell, the British couldn’t deal with yours when you took your country back by force._ > > ## I’ll say it again : you can’t expect to defeat them through force of arms alone - it’s just a colossal waste of money and men. The only way to not lose is either not to play (which is a smidge too late), or win the proverbial hearts and minds. And those hearts will be damned hard to win over, I can guarantee you that much. > > - Yes, I am aware the role of the Minutemen and other skirmishers has been exaggerated. They still wreaked havoc on morale. So, remove the support of the local people, via removing the local people? I mean, if we’d just started dropping the TNT on anywhere we saw people, destroying all areas of even the most remote civilization, patrolling the borders with kill-on-sight orders and willingness to cause collateral damage to any nearby nationals or lost American troops, and basically turned North Vietnam into an area that could not support long-term local human habitation, that would be a victory through force of arms, yes? There’d probably be a subsequent loss through force of arms when the rest of the civilized world said “You’re going away now.”, yes, but there are surprisingly few problems in war that can’t be solved by killing enough people. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/54 "2009-01-19T05:34:41Z")
> [@Sapo](#): > > Well put. As has been mentioned, adherence to the rules of war is mostly voluntary and with the purpose of making life easier for oneself. It is not a matter of morals but of economy. Nobody’s claimed otherwise. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t moral issues that overlap with legal ones. That’s no different than internal law - I don’t have to obey the law and sometimes don’t (speeding, e.g.). That doesn’t mean we should do away with the law, or that because some illegal things are moral that any given lawbreaker is necessarily moral. Again, what about the current system would you change? ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/55 "2009-01-19T05:42:34Z")
I am certainly not at the level where I can propose changes. I am still at the level where I wonder if this works. As I said, my objections are mostly about proportionality and allowing or disallowing types of weapons. I have to come to realize from this thread that I am about 60 years late in asking this question since modern wars are no longer army A vs army B conducted out of range of civilians, and that my questions are mostly moot points. This besides the point that history and practicality make the moral question somewhat irrelevant since the system is already in place and challenging it makes the challenger look bad. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/56 "2009-01-19T06:03:21Z")
> [@Sapo](#): > > This besides the point that history and practicality make the moral question somewhat irrelevant since the system is already in place and challenging it makes the challenger look bad. Not at all. Israel/Gaza is a perfect case in point. Proportionality doesn’t mean that one side can’t kill more people than the other side does. It means that the action taken can’t be greater that what is necessary to achieve a legitimate military aim. You seem to want to acknowledge that Israel’s attacks on Gaza are disproportionate but to claim that disproportionality doesn’t matter. This isn’t the argument that I think you’re making, however - that Israel is killing people just for jollies or to terrorize civilians and that you’re hunky-dory with it. What I think you are arguing is that Israel’s attacks on Gaza, while brutal, are necessary to put a swift and certain end to the attacks on Israel from Gaza, and that Israel is potentially being hamstrung by critics who want a simple tit-for-tat - in other words, you are arguing that Israel’s attacks are NOT disproportionate. I think you agree that if Israel _were_ killing people merely to extract revenge or to get Israeli citizens cheering, rather than in order to disable its enemy, that Israel would be acting beyond the pale. Conventions on proportionality in warfare merely enshrine that belief in international agreements. Some people may _claim_ that Israel is acting disproportionately, but that doesn’t make them right morally _or_ legally. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/57 "2009-01-19T06:18:25Z")
Indeed, I don’t think Israel attacks are disproportionate (as opposed to being ok with disproportionate response), but I cannot be deaf to the noise of those claiming they are. Tit for tat, eye for an eye is not proportionality. More like half-assery. I might go a little bit further down the slippery slope, though, and say that an overwhelming response as a deterrent for further attacks is a legitimate military goal (and allow me for now to ignore the discussion on whether this is effective). This might be an attack that goes beyond destroying verified launch sites and much more likely to be labeled as disproportionate. Being labeled by the international community as disproportionate might not make it morally wrong, but it does make life harder after the war. Having a failed standard enshrined as law makes life harder for a country forced into war. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/58 "2009-01-19T06:22:36Z")
But you’ve yet to show that it _is_ a failed standard. Or is any criticism of Israel, even unsupported by international jurisprudence, worth wiping out 100 years of treaties over? ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/59 "2009-01-19T06:38:02Z")
Israel is, to me at least, just the latest example. The US is more likely to be on that seat than any other country. I think that modern war under current laws (or my haphazard understanding of them, at any rate) is terribly unfair to countries with modern armies. I would avoid sending foot soldiers at any cost. Bombing from a distance might not be as precise and might produce more collateral damage, but I find my people more valuable to me than, well, anything really. And once I felt forced into sending them, any advantage I could give them would be fine. Cover of night, advanced ammo, unorthodox weapons (tasers et al), psychological warfare, the whole enchilada. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2009, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079/60 "2009-01-21T09:37:31Z")
Well the idea of having rules in war does seem a bit silly (especially the way troops used to line up in an orderly fashion and people would come out with a picnic to watch). But: 1. If you have to have a war, any mutual agreements to lessen certain atrocities that either aren’t helpful in a military sense (raping women, destroying libraries), or cause long lasting problems (long term poisoning of the land) are a welcome thing. 2. Even if there isn’t an agreement, a country can take a higher moral high ground by not doing certain things, and by sticking to military targets. 3. Most modern fighting doesn’t qualify as ‘war’ in the traditional sense, which was often about entirely conquering another country. A lot of it is either ongoing skirmishes, internal conflicts, or tit for tat retribution. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rules-of-war-should-there-be-any/481079.md?page=4)