Rules of War, should there be any?

Great Debates
21

You can’t forget that the Geneva conventions weren’t dreamed up by starry-eyed pacifists. They were dreamed up by hard-headed militarists who wanted to win wars, but didn’t see any point in causing any more suffering than was neccesary to win the war.

And so we have rules about such things as treatment of prisoners. Why not just shoot enemy prisoners? But what does that accomplish? It just makes the enemy fight harder and refuse to surrender. The whole point of the war is to make the enemy surrender. Offering decent surrender terms isn’t idealistic, it actually makes it easier to win the war if you allow enemy troops to surrender.

The purpose of war isn’t to kill the enemy. The purpose of war is to force the enemy to give you what you want. Killing enemy soldiers is just one way to accomplish that. Allowing enemy soldiers to surrender is another, better way to accomplish it.

22

Please remember that I am arguing from ignorance, so don’t shoot too hard.

Say Afghanistan. We seem to think that Al-Qaeda is hiding in some barren mountains. You make an honest effort to tell every man, woman and child in those areas “listen, this whole area is gonna be a very bad place to be between these dates. We want you to go to this place and check in with this office”. You provide them with reasonable accommodations and once the date comes, you blast that area to little pieces (I have no idea how feasible this blasting is, btw). Then you rebuild whatever you damaged (Which I understand shouldn’t be so much), and send everybody home (and by everybody I mean everybody you were not looking for).
I understand that this is not terribly different from what Israel is doing in Gaza right now. They call and say “Hey, we are bombing your block tonight. Go out for dinner” and then they do (I don’t know if they plan to rebuild afterwards).

Those who cooperate are safe, those who don’t were the ones you were looking for.

Please note that I am not advocating for prisoner mistreatment, nuclear attacks for every minor infraction or anything over the top. All I am saying is that if what you need is to level an area, then you do. If you need incendiaries, then you use them. Shooting paratroopers in the air?, by all means. Assassination of leaders? of course.

And the reality is that international opinion is a very weak force. Ask the US, Israel, Hugo Chavez or the whole long list of African dictators. If you are either big or small enough, nobody really cares or does anything about it.

23

Would you actually view this as morally acceptable? Isn’t it worse to wipe out an entire country full of people, most of whom are harmless, than to fail at stopping all the suicide bombers?

I am not sure we need rules of war, but we do need to acknowledge the cost that others bear for our actions. If that cost is high enough, we should prefer to lose the fight than to exact it. (Remember that very few wars involve an actual “existential threat” to a nation.)

24

It depends on how you look at Government.

Some look at the role of government to protect their citizenry. For instance, the Military/Government of Hubaland has a responsibility to protect all of the citizens of Hubaland at all costs.

Some look at the role of government to protect all people, regardless of their citizen-status.

25

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 :slight_smile:
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.
26

My disagreement here is that if the Rules of War made straight military sense, they wouldn’t be needed, as they would be voluntarily followed. I think they make sense, but only if both sides follow them. As stated above, often one side can gain a temporary advantage by not following them if their opponent does.

Certainly the rules of war cover situations such as the ones you have mentioned. But they become necessary and important when they can, to whatever extent, impose self restraint over actions that military minds WANT to take, not those which don’t make military sense in the first place.

27

I kind of see government’s role as somewhere between those two poles. Governments should focus on protecting the rights of their citizens, but must not forget to treat other people benevolently.

Today’s governments seem to be having trouble understanding the asymmetry of goals that occurs in asymmetric warfare. It may be that the World Wars convinced too many people that the aims of war should be grand and transformative. This has led to confusion about what constitutes victory. A group such as Hamas or Hezbollah makes some small but persistent attacks on Israel; Israel launches a huge counterattack, killing a large percentage of the enemy while suffering few casualties; yet Israel trudges home in defeat!

Governments’ belief that they have not won until they have squashed every last terrorist or guerrilla makes victory impossible for them, and encourages them to abandon not only rules of war, but all decency and morality, in their desperation.

28

I find the whole business of each side in a conflict wearing easily identifiable uniforms, almost laughable. Who thought that one up?

29

If both sides don’t wear identifiable uniforms, how are you going to tell enemy soldiers from enemy civilians, or from your own soldiers, even?

30

The ancient Egyptians? Hittites? Whatever ancient civilization created uniforms, I guess.

The advantages are consistent with the intentions of the Geneva Convention, I would think.

31

In Ye Olden Days, soldiers mainly needed uniforms so their own comrades wouldn’t shoot them.

32

Certainly not morally acceptable and, more importantly, probably not possible at all. Unless we are talking about a very small country (This may be why people from Lichtenstein are so nice to other nations).
In any case, I feel I have painted myself into a corner here with my chosen examples, and have gone way too wide in the topic including too many things.

My main point is that I find it just ridiculous when people whine about Israel using disproportionate force against Hamas (to use the most recent example). The only reason Israel can use disproportionate force is because Hamas cannot get their hands on bigger weapons. If they could, they would use them.

I say that once Israel saw themselves forced into having to mobilize their armed forces, they are well in their right to use whatever means they have available to defeat their enemy. People with opinions about what is good or not to use is people who is not under fire.

Intelligent leaders will find a way to resolve the conflict with the minimum of violence for a whole host of reasons (economy, morals, international opinion, strategy, etc). Still, if that minimum is still higher than what uninterested observers deem acceptable, then tough luck to those observers.

Does this make sense?

33

I agree with this. In a very real sense; we’ve already won Iraq and Afghanistan. Saddam Hussein is dead, and Osama & crew are hiding in caves while we’re here in America, at worst being forced to leave one extravagant (by global standards) house for a less extravagant one. At the same time, though, we messed the place up, which I believe gives a duty to put it back together in a way that at least has a decent chance of eventually becoming a liberal democracy. I also think that the U.S. has the moral *right *to declare war on any dictator, just that it is in most cases very, very unwise. And with regard to actually fighting terrorists and insurgents; unless you’re willing to break out the Cyclon B and get to work, you must convince their potential recruits that they’ll have better lives working with you than against you, and that working with you won’t deprive them of their basic dignity.

And as for following the rules of war, it depends. Obviously the rules of war make sense in a lot of situations, e.g. in WWII we didn’t execute Nazi soldiers because we didn’t want the Nazis executing our guys (and vice versa). On the other hand, terrorists don’t follow the rules, so there’s no particular moral duty to apply the rules to them, but again, you must always consider the effect of not doing so on the people you’re trying to protect. And if you don’t care about those people at all (which I have experienced many, although certainly not all, anti-Iraq/Afghanistan people to be), then why are you there in the first place?

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

34

So you’ve basically taken out everything that the rules of war are actually about and are now arguing about what is basically a matter of opinion? (I am aware that proportionality is a concept enshrined in the conventions of war, but I don’t think most reasonable people think that Israel’s attacks are so disproportionate as to constitute violations of international law - though other things Israel does [and nearly all the things Hamas does] are clearly violations.)

Surely you agree that some things are inappropriately disproportionate. Israel dropping nukes on Gaza is one example (the obvious foolishness of such an act notwithstanding). You’ve already admitted as much. So what are you objecting to? People having opinions? International state-level actors having opinions? Or are you simply disagreeing with those opinions and claiming that Israel’s actions are not disproportionate?

35

I’m with Ivan Astikov on this. Now, bear in mind I have never been over there, and have a straching_surface knowledge of the conflict, but in my mind, the whole thing is a Sicilian vendetta - they fight because they fight. They fight because they fought. One side probably started it all at some point, but now it doesn’t really matters which or why, as every aggressive action by one side is vindication for the aggressivity of the other. Certainly it’s very hard to tell who are the “good guys” by now. And arguing that one of the sides should go all out and be even more aggressive, on a grander scale, will not end the war - it’ll just chip even more shoulders.
As to what should be done, I don’t know. Sicilian vendettas usually end when both sides are too bloodied to go on, or one side has been totally erradicated, but they never really vanish either. The right move could be to enforce peace, which is a very difficult proposition. Witness Rwanda, or Bosnia, or Ireland.

36

Sorry if it looks like I am moving the goal posts, but I am not trying to win anything or convince anyone of anything. I am trying to fight my own ignorance and that is indeed a moving target.

I just want to gather the argument a little bit since my title says “rules of war” and that includes too many things that I find too obvious and that I didn’t consider when I chose that title. Nuking whole countries at the slightest provocation, pillaging civilians, torturing prisoners are, to me, obvious evils and I don’t need the rules of war to tell me that.

I meant specifically the matter of proportionality and the existence of allowed and prohibited weapons (and I am sure there are other issues that are not jumping at me right now).

There was a recent snafu about someone (the US, Israel) using white phosphorus. Some hair splitting went on about how those are incendiaries in some cases but have some other legitimate uses. If they are really evil, then don’t have them. If they are ok, then use them as needed and screw the gray areas.

Ditto for the new [non/less] lethal weapons such as tasers, pain rays, sonic disruptors, etc. I understand that in some cases they may produce injuries or death and are not perfectly safe. I think that is a chance I am willing to take if that means a significant advantage to my troops.
Heck, even chemical weapons if they could be somehow contained would be fair game. If a battle is in an area with no civilians and I can gas the entire enemy from above, why should I risk my soldiers? How is it different killing someone with a hole in the head or poisoned? They are dead anyways (and assuming the poison does not leave half of them alive and suffering hell)

Collateral damage is unfortunate and must be avoided, but not at all costs. Not at my own cost, for sure.

On the matter of proportionality, I say not only tit for tat, but 100 tits for tat. You shoot at me, that whole block is turned to dust. You kill one of my men, I kill 100 of yours. If that sounds too high, you shouldn’t have messed with me. If a disproportionate response is a way to bring the war to quick end, then I am all for it.
And yes, of course I understand the matters of international reproach and enemy responding in kind. Those are not moral issues though. They are practical decisions for one to balance as costs against the value of winning the war.

37

Well, from what I can gather, the objection to Willy Pete (and chem weapons, among others) is that there’s not really a clear line between them and the use of torture, from the victim’s point of view. WP is something that burns incredibly hot, clings to everything and can’t be extinguished. A single drop of it will burn clean through a tank, let alone an arm, or a face.
Now, of course one could debate on the existence of ethical weapons at all, whether it’s better to feel hydrostatic shock or bleed to death compared to burning alive, and would smooth rocks be any better. I’m not sure where I would draw the line myself. But I’ve read accounts and seen pictures of victims of napalm, and WP, and nukes, and sarin gas or mustard gas, and they’re definitely horrific.

So maybe I’m desensitized to gun and explosive violence, or maybe I just assume they kill faster, and with less pain. I don’t know. But I would definitely rise against my government if it advocated their use in any situation. And that includes “they used it on us first”.

The objection to tasers and pain rays is a different matter - the problem is that they tend to make their use the first reaction to problems that could be solved without resorting to violence - thus planting the seeds of further violence. And having been tased myself, I can tell you they’re not happy funtime, either ;).

And the thing about ditching proportionality alltogether is that, essentialy, it *is *advocating nuke on slightest provocation. Where do you draw the line ? When is an unproportionate reponse really out of proportions, if that makes sense ?

38

No it isn’t, that’s argument to the extreme.

Arguments against proportionate responses are that people know exactly what you’ll do.

You shoot one of my planes out of their, and you know I’m going to destroy a similarly valued target. So, you prepare 10 or 20 similarly valued targets, and start shooting my planes out of the air.

39

But that’s not argument to the extreme if the extreme is the logical outcome. We’ve already established that one side breaking the rules means the other doesn’t have to follow them either.

So if for 1 dead you kill 100, then the other side goes “oh you’ll kill 100 of mine ? Then I’ll kill 10.000 of yours !”. This kind of back-and-forth quickly turns into “I’ll kill all of yours”. See : Mutually Assured Destruction.

Think about it this way : you and your neighbour have a quarrel. He punches you in the face. In retaliation, you kill him, and burn down his house. Now, what do you think the neighbours think ?

a) Better not punch this guy in the future.
or
b) That guy is nuts, I don’t want him anywhere near me ! Lock him up !

Point is : it’s not safe to be around someone unpredictable.

40

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).

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.

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.

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.
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.

The fact is that war is ugly and when people get into it, they should know they are in for an ugly time. People who start them should be ready for whatever hell is rained on them, and people who have to defend should be able to rain all kind of hell on their aggressors if that spares their own from injury.

Maybe war is not ugly enough and that’s why people keep thinking of it as a solution to their disputes.

That weapons might be abused or used on civilians should only mean that more severe punishments are needed for those who do, not that restrictions should be imposed on those who don’t.