Are New Technologies Undermining the Laws of War?

Lasrick writes "This is a great read — from the article: 'Today, emerging military technologies — including unmanned aerial vehicles, directed-energy weapons, lethal autonomous robots, and cyber weapons — raise the prospect of upheavals in military practice so fundamental that they challenge assumptions underlying long-established international laws of war, particularly those relating to the primacy of the state and the geographic bounds of warfare. But the laws of war have been developed over a long period, with commentary and input from many cultures. What would seem appropriate in this age of extraordinary technological change, the author concludes, is a reconsideration of the laws of war in a deliberate and focused international dialogue that includes a range of cultural and institutional perspectives.'"

Comments

As the old adage says...

[x0ra]

"All is fair in love and war"

Re:As the old adage says...

[Thanshin]

If your lovemaking includes unmanned aerial vehicles, directed-energy weapons, lethal autonomous robots and cyber weapons... You're probably doing it very right and should do online tutorials.

Re:As the old adage says...

[Taco Cowboy]

The TFA asks:

Are New Technologies Undermining the Laws of War?

You sez:

"All is fair in love and war"

Well, let's see

Another adage puts it this way ...

" To the victor goes the spoils "

There is absolutely *NO* fairness in WAR.

As for the "Laws of War", no matter if it came from Machiavelli or from Sun Zi, psy ops are as important as ever.

No matter if it's MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) or killer drones, no matter if it's a symmetrical warfare or if it's asymmetrical (such as terrorism), human beings are _still_ human beings.

For example: NSA is fighting a war against the citizens of the United States of America, and NSA has applied plenty of lessons it learned from both Machiavelli and Sun Zi.

Re:As the old adage says...

[msauve]

The first rule of Fight Club...

Re:As the old adage says...

[Anonymous Coward]

Granted, the US has a long history of completely ignoring such laws but blatantly dismissing the Geneva conventions as well as WMD accords is a wasp's nest.

Yet the US got away with relabeling prisoners of war from Afghanistan to "enemy combatants" so they could break Geneva conventions at Guantanamo prison as they see fit without generating any buzz at all from the UN.

Re:As the old adage says...

[turp182]

And this is why American society is so against sex/boobs in movies and such. When you combine sex with a very common social thread, war (War on INSERT_TERM_HERE, or on other countries, we're always at war here or there), you end up with some very bad comedy.

In America, sex happens behind closed doors, opening the doors is offensive and prohibited. But we do see war and terror almost constantly, it seems to be what we do best (we certainly spend a lot on it, we better be good at it; and is conflict not a return on such spending? at least as the public may perceive it).

Since the kids are going to see the war aspect no matter what, we must shield them from sex. Or else terrible comedy will ensue...

I wish there was less war of all types. And on topic, I would appreciate some of those tutorials as well.

Re:As the old adage says...

[Kjella]

You don't fight fair in life or death situations and war is the life and death of nations. Creating rules of war is like trying to settle conflicts with knuckle fights which can be mutually beneficial as both are less likely to end up dead or crippled, but either side can and will abandon them when it serves them. For example it's in the spirit of the conventions to shoot at other military personnel and leave civilians alone, while coming up with the wildest logic to defend the nuking of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki because it ended the war. By the same logic, we should applaud the Nazis for their bombing of London in their attempt to make Britain capitulate, if it wasn't for that "I've got nothing to offer you but blood, sweat and tears" guy who refused to surrender. Same logic isn't it? Kill the civilians, end the war, the end justifies the means.

Re:As the old adage says...

[operagost]

In America, sex happens behind closed doors, opening the doors is offensive and prohibited.

And sex happens in the streets in Europe? Sign me up!

Re:As the old adage says...

[Jane Q. Public]

"If your lovemaking includes unmanned aerial vehicles, directed-energy weapons, lethal autonomous robots and cyber weapons... You're probably doing it very right and should do online tutorials."

Well, I disagree with OP. You don't make bad things better by changing the rules to make them okay. That's not fixing a problem, that's endorsing it.

Re:As the old adage says...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your examples point out the bilateral nature of the laws of war. Hitler targeted civilians in Britain. That had to have made the decision to be indiscriminate when bombing Germany a lot easier. Japan had a bloody record of killing civilians, wounded, whatever wherever they went. The decision to bomb Japan surely wasn't that hard either.

Other examples of this are found in WWII. Japanese killed or mistreated American soldiers. Pretty soon American soldiers weren't taking very many Japanese prisoners. When the Germans were fighting the Americans and British, both sides took prisoners and they were treated pretty well (look up the survival rates of POW camps in WWII by nationality sometime). On the other hand, the Germans and Russians hardly took any prisoners. It was still the German army, but they behaved very differently when facing enemies who behaved differently.

Your point about doing what it takes to end the war has some sense to it because ending the war ends the bloodshed. But on the other hand some actions do more to end the war than others on a per death basis. And some actions are more likely to invite similar bloody response than others. You manage to capture a foreign army's hospital. You can waste your own resources trying to finish healing the patients and then use even more of your resources keeping them in a prison. Or you can kill the whole lot of them at the cost of a few cheap bullets and your own troops humanity. Clearly the latter can help you win the war. But if you do that, the other side may respond in the same way, killing your wounded soldiers when they get the chance. So it all ends up pretty equal. It might help just a tiny bit in winning the war, but it does so a terrible cost even when compared to the pains going on all around.

Nanjing, Bataan, the Phillippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, Saipan... They may have each helped further the Japanese war effort in some tiny way, but they ultimately lead to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Or we could just stop starting wars...

[hawks5999]

and use technology for accomplishing things like ending hunger.

Re:Or we could just stop starting wars...

[Tim12s]

I'm not sure Kim shares your sentiment...

Re:Or we could just stop starting wars...

[Anonymous Coward]

And let the hungry poor people win? How will overfed Americans stay overfed if poor people have more than enough to eat too? You must be some kind of crazy person. Next you'll be claiming that technology can transform losers into winners.

Re:Or we could just stop starting wars...

[Thanshin]

and use technology for accomplishing things like ending hunger.

Hunger is not a problem, it's a consequence of inequality. Ending inequality shouldn't start with the difference between those who have 0% of the total and those who have 0.1% (the separation made by "hunger").

You might consider advocating for the end of massive accumulation of riches. That way you'll tackle a difference of several tens%

Re:Or we could just stop starting wars...

[thesupraman]

Fair enough, perhaps then you would like to list the wars he has started lately?
Or perhaps just listing the top 10 countries to start wars in the last 20 years would be a good start?

Or is desperate sabre (even if its a wooden sword..) rattling somehow worse than actual killing of people?

Its called perspective, and it is desperately needed.

Re:Or we could just stop starting wars...

[Chrisq]

and use technology for accomplishing things like ending hunger.

Hunger is not a problem, it's a consequence of inequality. Ending inequality shouldn't start with the difference between those who have 0% of the total and those who have 0.1% (the separation made by "hunger").

You might consider advocating for the end of massive accumulation of riches. That way you'll tackle a difference of several tens%

Pragmatically speaking we should deal with the difference between those with 0% and 0.1% first. This is what feeding centres do in famine zones. You can look at inequalities later, but unless this acute need is dealt with people will die now!

Re:Or we could just stop starting wars...

[Sarten-X]

I spent some time volunteering in Africa, and I've seen the problems of hunger firsthand.

There is enough food overall... not much excess, but often enough for everyone to survive. The problem is that, for example, the food is over on the fertile side of a mountain ridge, while the starving people are on the other side. The only pass is controlled by a local oppressor who charges high tolls to use "his" road, and he's able to bribe the government agents and local police into letting him stay.

One option is to just keep paying the tolls, and those starving people keep starving... but it's easy, and offends nobody.

Someone with wealth could pay the toll or use a different route, and bring ample food to support the locals, but then they're dependent on those gifts, and the oppressor could start using force to maintain his rule. The money used for support is also a drain on the provider's economy, so the future stability of such a supply is questionable.

The reliance on the pass could be removed, but that means improving local production. It's a long process, at best, and requires a large start-up cost.

Finally, we could just use force. Send in a squad of trained soldiers to forcibly allow traffic through the pass, even if that means killing the armed guards enforcing the tolls. Through overwhelming force, ensure that no replacements will be able to oppress traffic again.

Of course, force is never easy. There's always the risk that the oppressor will fight back, or that a new oppressor will patiently wait until the squad leaves to take over again. There will be some locals who oppose the intrusion, especially since they have been told (often by the oppressor himself) that the greatest embarrassment they could have is to accept help from outsiders. There will also be those who don't understand the connection between the tolls, the food supply, and standard of living - they just think they're poor because God is punishing them (and the church's leaders don't understand well enough to change that, either).

Going from that 0% to a sustained 0.1% is the hardest step, because it means removing the long-term limits that have already exhausted the local ability to provide for themselves. Once those barriers are gone and food is available at reasonable prices, going to 0.2% or higher is just a matter of doing the same thing more... move more trucks of tubers, make more salable products, and so forth. It's an upward spiral, but starting the process isn't easy.

Re:Or we could just stop starting wars...

[Connie_Lingus]

in other words...(as Clausewitz so accurately said )...

"war is politics by other means"

everything you mention in you post has to do with the local politics of the area, not the economics or logistics.

people in control want to get paid...and are willing to starve those they have control of to achieve that goal.

trying to negotiate will have little to no effect, unless of course the negotiations quietly contain a hefty "aid" package of payola.

this is why those commenting on this thread who say "war is never justifiable" seem, to me at least, to be living in a world of butterflies and free cable. it may not be "justifiable" but it is, given human nature, inevitable, and wishing that weren't so is a pipe dream.

Re:Or we could just stop starting wars...

[daem0n1x]

Of course, we should fight the problems, not the causes. That's a very effective approach to solving everything. Why should we vaccinate people if we can treat them when they're sick?

Re:Or we could just stop starting wars...

[stdarg]

Or perhaps just listing the top 10 countries to start wars in the last 20 years would be a good start?

Do you have such a list? Glancing at 1990-2002 and 2003-2010 I would guess Iraq as the #1 country. Possibly tied with or followed by Hamas (since those pages are about groups involved with wars, not just official countries).

Of course who "started" a war can be pretty subjective.

Nothing new in essence

[Camembert]

Newer technology applied by one side in a conflict have cause important victories before throughout history. The ability to totally outclass an adversary is from a military point of view desirable. I did skim the linked article, one issue is that of proportionality, but still, those who win do not really care.

Re:Nothing new in essence

[rmdingler]

There are still multitudes of Vietnam era soldiers who will die swearing the proportionality used by America is the reason the war was lost.

The U.S. nearly lost the taste for war after that debacle, and was relegated to Paper Tiger for a generation.

The unbridled ability of humankind to forget any lesson, given enough time, is astonishing.

Re:Nothing new in essence

[Anonymous Coward]

There are still multitudes of Vietnam era soldiers who will die swearing the proportionality used by America is the reason the war was lost.

The Vietnam war was lost because the U.S. media undermined the will of the U.S. to fight. As has been said many times by many people, the U.S. didn't lose any major battles during the Vietnam war, but the U.S. media was cooperating with political agitators in the U.S. who were undermining the morale of the U.S. military, were promoting hostility toward the military on college campuses and were trying to convince the public that the Vietnam war was somehow immoral. The pampered kids of the 60s latched onto the "Vietnam war is immoral" meme as a cover for their own reluctance to go fight in a war. It was all a brilliant piece of agitprop on the part of Soviet agents in the U.S. Military technology had nothing to do with it.

Re:Nothing new in essence

[cusco]

By all the gods, there are still people who spout this nonsense? Good grief. Vietnam was unwillable from the moment the French originally invaded. It's impossible to permanently hold a territory where the population hates you, and the day they organize is the day you start to lose. Why do you think that Cuba is still free? Even the morons in the Pentagon don't want to touch that one.

Re:Nothing new in essence

[stdarg]

It's impossible to permanently hold a territory where the population hates you

Two problems:
1. Straw man -- the US didn't want to permanently hold territory in Vietnam, we wanted to help the South Vietnamese
2. Historically incorrect -- e.g. Americans vs Native Americans.

Re:Nothing new in essence

[cusco]

1) Help? Setting up a military dictatorship and fraudulent elections, secret police with torture camps, massacring entire villages, and poisoning thousands of square kilometers of cropland is "help"??? I'd hate to see what your definition of "oppression" is. Damn.

2) The Indians were outnumbered by whites, so the whites became "the population" and the Indians could not hold on to the territory.

Re:Nothing new in essence

[stdarg]

1. I'm not pro-Vietnam war by any stretch, but the fact remains nothing you said indicates that the US wanted to permanently control the land. In fact why would you do that stuff if you did want to stay?? Poison all the cropland -> "OH yes please, I think I'll retire here!"

2. Indians far outnumbered whites at the beginning. And they went to war with us many, many times. The small white population eventually grew and became "the population" like you said, but of course that's what happens when you permanently hold a territory where the population hates you.

Re:Nothing new in essence

[Jonner]

Newer technology applied by one side in a conflict have cause important victories before throughout history.
The ability to totally outclass an adversary is from a military point of view desirable.

I did skim the linked article, one issue is that of proportionality, but still, those who win do not really care.

That's exactly why the idea of rules for war has always been a bit silly. At most, they should be thought of as suggestions.

Re:Nothing new in essence

[AK Marc]

The US wanted to permanently hold Vietnam in the sense they wanted to permanently prevent an unfriendly government from taking charge. That's permanent.

Re:Nothing new in essence

[stdarg]

Yeah I agree with that. Like I said, we didn't want to take control of Vietnam, we wanted to help the South Vietnamese. And we did lose Vietnam in that sense, but it's more nebulous than a military loss.

And then we can all drink from the rootbeer stream

[Anonymous Coward]

in the land of rainbows and happiness.

what's a war?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody declares war anymore! Everything is a peacekeeping operation, drone strike, or terrorist attack, these days.

Re:what's a war?

[Sique]

A war is when the majority of actors in it agree it's a war.

the geographic bounds of warfare

[dbIII]

the geographic bounds of warfare

Cambodia, Laos - and now these days Pakistan. The rule only applies if someone you really don't want to piss off is on the other side of the line.

Re:the geographic bounds of warfare

[dkleinsc]

Or before that, Belgium and the Netherlands. Or more recently, Syria and Lebanon and Turkey. It's not like wars stay neatly on one side of a border. And it's not always the US expanding them.

Ignorance

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Ignorance is undermining the laws of war, the laws of commerce, and every other law our society used to have. This is what happens when you allow the world to be run by frat-echnocrats in suits.

Re:Ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

Your statement is correct. For example it is illegal under the rules of war to act in a battlefield and to not wear a uniform. If you are captured on a battlefield and you are not in uniform and you do not disclose your military ID data, (Name rank serial number) you are under the Geneva conventions a Spy and subject to summary execution. Every prisoner we took in Afghanistan and most in Iraq would have fit in this category. All Al Qaeda prisoners fit this category. Oh by the way, spies may be tortured under these conventions.

Re:Ignorance

[Qzukk]

All Al Qaeda prisoners fit this category

Except that Al Qaeda is not recognized as a State, so it's just some guy running around with a bomb strapped to his dick, not a spy. That's how we can bomb Pakistan without actually bombing Pakistan as an act of war.

The laws do need updating to deal with the fact that rogue extremists are who we're fighting wars against now.

Re:Ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

And under the Hague conventions it is a violation of neutrality to allow a belligerent force to recruit in your country. Having an al-Qaeda presence in your country, be it Afghanistan, Yemen, or Switzerland, makes your country a belligerent party lawfully subject to invasion and bombing. And the invader can keep your country when they're done because the war is your fault. /different AC

Re:Ignorance

[jafac]

The existing laws were fine for "rogue extremists".. Treat them as organized crime.

Arbitrary.

[betterprimate]

International laws? what? They only arose after the nuclear arms race and have never been abided by. There is only one justified cause for warfare and that's self defense, and even then it raises moral objections.

Re:Arbitrary.

[oodaloop]

Um, no. There have laws regarding armed conflict loooong before the nuclear age, and many have been abided by.

Re:Arbitrary.

[Sique]

International laws have existed since we have the idea of nations. After the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, there was the Congress of Vienna (1814/15), which effectively created a codex of international law in Europe. Then we have the founding of the International Red Cross after the Battle of Solferino 1859, which in turn was recognized subsequently by all warwaging countries and led to the first treaty about the Geneva Convention in 1864. And even before, there were multisided agreements between different powers which could also be viewed as international law -- think about the flagging rules of battle ships, merchant ships and pirate ships during the Age of the European Expansion between the 15th and the 18th century.

And yes, like every law, also international laws are often and constantly broken, and enforcing those laws is even more complicated than national law.

Re:Arbitrary.

[oodaloop]

How many wars since WWI saw chemical warfare? How many countries use fragmenting bullets? Sure, the laws have been broken, but it hasn't been widespread or universal.

Also,

[smittyoneeach]

Those barbarians with the bows & arrows are completely dishonorable, unmanly, and don't know how to fight with coura--UGHH! [thump]

Re:Also,

[DarkOx]

Yes history repeats itself. I come back to the only justifiable war is one where you are willing to do what is required to win. If the issue is important enough to engage in massive property destructions and to kill or maim people, than it should never be done in vain, an obligation exists to see it thru and secure the intended outcome. "What is required" May vary if you posses an outsized military advantage you have the luxury not using certain forms of brutality and less des descriminating targeting practice and you should so long as it does not jepordise victory. If you are disadvantaged than asymmetric and "terror" tactics are probably a must.

Societies not just soldiers go to war. It does not matter if you have a gun in hand or a garden hoe you are supporting the war fighting capability and so be considered a target if need be.

Re:Also,

[AdamColley]

There are no justifiable wars.

What we have now are invasions of sovereign nations which happen to be chock full of resources and blind eyes turned to genocide elsewhere.

Iraq and Afghanistan are about to fall to the taliban (mission accomplished claims notwithstanding) so after more than ten years, trillions of pounds and millions of lives lost (yes, brown people count) we have precisely nothing to show for it.

Iraq was working better under Saddam than it is now, it's a joke (or would be if it hadn't cost so many lives)

How about we start putting our trillions into solving problems at home instead of attacking people elsewhere and let other nations govern themselves.

I'll leave you with this well known Einstein quote:

“He who joyfully marches to music rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”

Re:Also,

[CrimsonAvenger]

There are no justifiable wars.

The US Civil War?

World War II?

Two of the most obvious examples of a justifiable war. There are others.

Re:Also,

[PseudonymousBlowhard]

Was Kuwait working better under Saddam? Is Afghanistan falling to the Taliban really a case of letting "other nations govern themselves"? The problem with this kind of unconditional pacifism is that it requires everyone else to be a pacifist as well.

Re:Also,

[rioki]

Got news, the Geneva and Hague Convention only apply to regular military. So the moment you are either facing or are irregular combatants everything goes. But then you need to remember by who when the treaties where singed. At the time generals would send thousand men to their deaths and then congratulate each other over their victories over a cup of tee.

Your assertions are correct and have lead to the impression of "clean" wars. But every war is dirty and bloody. I think each congressman and general should be required to send their brother, child or brother into the field in a war they authorize. If after that the war still seems like a good idea (e.g. destroying Nazi Germany*) then it worth fighting.

(* I am part German and still think it was a necessary and good idea... in general)

Re:Also,

[dkleinsc]

Actually, that is sort of the point of these invasions... to make sure that the governments are in some form representative of the people.

That is pure unadulterated nonsense.

For example, Hamid Karzai is no more representative of his people than Mohammed Omar: The difference is that Karzai is doing the bidding of the US and US-based oil companies instead of doing the bidding of Al Qaida and Iran. Karzai was not elected, he was selected by a meeting of the regional leaders of Afghanistan where the US Army was standing right outside the door (arguably in case the decision went differently).

When the people of the Middle East have overthrown dictators and replaced them with democratically elected leaders, the US does their best to put a stop to it. Egypt is the prime example of this: The elected president Mohammed Morsi, though certainly far from a perfect bastion of freedom and democracy, was ousted in a military coup, and the military of Egypt has close ties to the US.

Re:Also,

[Muad'Dave]

There was a sci-fi book I once read (for the life of me I can't remember the title) that had an alien society where if their governing body declared war, they'd fight the battle, and then all members of the governing body that voted for the war were put to death. You had to believe so strongly that the war was just that you were willing to give your own life.

I think that's a grand idea.

Re: Also,

[Anonymous Coward]

"The trouble with quotes on the internet is that they are often misattributed" - Abraham Lincoln

Re: Also,

[TheloniousToady]

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and Internet quotes" - Mark Twain

Re:Also,

[umghhh]

army standing behind the walls of the building where law making is done has a long traditions among civilized nations. You can consider this as another circumstance of life that is limiting your choices as it is when no army stands there but could have stood if wrong decision had been made. The 'no war' idea is a noble one but it does not consider the fact that not all people appreciate it and some of those are armed very well indeed. Why do we have to discuss this nonsense again and again? Wars were ever there and will be as long as some humans feel it worthwhile and if so the rest would do best to get prepared for such eventuality.

Re:Also,

[RabidReindeer]

The US Civil War? The South seceded from the North because their American Dream was based on States' Rights. Especially the right of States to ensure legal slavery. It wasn't like the North declared a jihad on the morally-bankrupt South. The two regions had been negotiating on the issue for decades. But when the South split, the more fundamental issue of whether it was the United States of America or the United States of America took over. Whether that justified a full-scale war or not is debatable.

World War II? Hitler was the one that "justified" that war. But the responsibility of putting that monster in power is in large part laid to blame to the powers that ended WWI. If they hadn't been so blindly determined to punish Germany and so uncaring of the consequences, Hitler would not have been able to gain the power he did.

In both cases, the "justifications" came after the fact, and had people spent more effort beforehand, it's unlikely that war would have happened. At least in Germany. In the USA, as mentioned, a lot of effort was expended, but they decided war was "justified" anyway.

Traditionally, the "laws" of war exempted civilians. That's because in older times, states were non-democratic, the people had little say in the decision, and in many cases, the goal was to annex territory, so it wasn't good policy to alienate or exterminate people who would - if you won - become your newest citizens.

The WTC incident (to take one example) was "justified" in that the USA, being an (alleged) democracy, had the implicit approval of the majority of the American people on the policies to which Al-Qaeda objected. Where their justification fails is that "majority" isn't totality and that in fact, there was a virtual certainty that not only were some of the victims willing to vote in the other direction, but that there was no "keep out" sign on the building that excluded Moslems. Many of which were likely to be more observant than the terrorists themselves, as the hijackers weren't exactly role models for the faith, even excluding their willingness to commit murder.

There are "Laws of War" in constructs such as the Geneva Conventions, but there are also "Rules of War", which are the precepts from which the Laws of War are constructed. They include minimizing the destruction to the goals at hand, sparing the innocent, treating captured enemies according to the same standards as you would wish for your own forces, and so forth. Those rules have remained largely invariant despite the ever-increasing ability over history to remove the opposing forces from direct physical and emotional contact with each other.

Re:Also,

[guises]

Morsi isn't a great example, he was ousted for slipping in a constitution favorable to him and his party though a bit of parliamentary trickery. A better example might be Hammas in Gaza.

Re:Also,

[YrWrstNtmr]

There are no justifiable wars.

Sometimes, "war" is thrust upon you. The obvious classic example is WWII.
The French/Belgians/Poles/Russians did not ask to be invaded. The Brits did not ask to be bombed.

Sometimes, your choices are reduced to only two.
1. Surrender and die
or
2. Fight back.
There is no #3. Wait, there was a #3, which Chamberlain tried first. Didn't work. So that leaves fight back or die.

Re:Also,

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no justifiable wars.

The US Civil War?

World War II?

Two of the most obvious examples of a justifiable war. There are others.

Oh, all wars are justifiable... just one side is somewhat more justifiable than the other. Or perhaps you belong in the 70s. The GP is a pacifist... they'd prefer to be reading that their great great grandfather never hurt a hair on someone else, and that only other people are evil. It's "I'm a nice guy, why don't girls go out with me" writ large. Of course, this is an unstable situation -- people so noble seem to only be in societies that have died out. I can't imagine why.

What you mean to be debating is when it is appropriate to move from peace to war.

Re:Also,

[DSElliot]

Well, seeing as that your domain suffix is .be and you wrote that statement in English instead of German, I would say that there are certainly some justifiable wars.

Re:Also,

[Anonymous Coward]

Except Hammas has goals that basically include destroying the US. So no. A much much much better example is Vietnam.

Re:Also,

[Anonymous Coward]

Well... instead of complaining you could have done some googling (though I agree the gp should have given a source):

"Wenn einer mit Vergnügen in Reih und Glied zu einer Musik marschieren kann, dann verachte ich ihn schon; er hat sein großes Gehirn nur aus Irrtum bekommen, da für ihn das Rückenmark schon völlig genügen würde. Diesen Schandfleck der Zivilisation sollte man so schnell wie möglich zum Verschwinden bringen. Heldentum auf Kommando, sinnlose Gewalttat und die leidige Vaterländerei, wie glühend hasse ich sie, wie gemein und verächtlich erscheint mir der Krieg; ich möchte mich lieber in Stücke schlagen lassen, als mich an einem so elenden Tun beteiligen! " (p. 499)
and
"Töten im Krieg ist nach meiner Auffassung um nichts besser als gewöhnlicher Mord." (p. 499)

I'd say the the translation above is pretty close.

Source:
http://www.amazon.com/Mein-Weltbild-Albert-Einstein/dp/3856655107
PDF: http://gedankenfrei.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/mein-weltbild-albert-einstein.pdf

Re:Also,

[Firethorn]

There are no justifiable wars.

There may be no justifiable wars right now, but there have been in the past. For that matter I think that Iraq and Afghanistan are more complicated than you potray them. If we truly did it just for the resources we would have simply made a deal with Saddam and treated Afghanistan much differently.

As for the Einstein quote - remember that he helped convince the USA to develop nuclear weapons with the fear that Germany would develop them first. So obviously either his beliefs changed or his views more nuanced than 'all war is wrong'.

How about we start putting our trillions into solving problems at home instead of attacking people elsewhere and let other nations govern themselves.

I mostly agree with you, just short of the part where if we ignore them too much they come over and bug us.

Re:Also,

[PseudonymousBlowhard]

The Taliban and orgs like it have "governed" Afghanistan for thousands of years. Don't be fooled by the propaganda effort to conflate the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

I wasn't. But the Taliban still aren't exactly representative of Afghans in general - aren't they basically just the Pashtuns? My point was just that letting one faction get the upper hand over the others isn't, as the original commenter seemed to think, the same thing as national self-determination.

Re:Also,

[Richard_at_work]

Twas the Octospiders in Clarkes Rama series - any member that voted for or was involved in the war itself had an immediate sentence of death after the hostilities ended.

Re:Also,

[dkleinsc]

slipping in a constitution favorable to him and his party though a bit of parliamentary trickery

George Washington, John Adams, and their buddies in the Federalists did exactly the same thing. The only difference was that he was also in charge of the army.

I would have been fine with an ouster of Morsi had he refused to give up power after his constitutional term was up, and he lost the election or was term-limited out. Neither of those things happened.

Re:Also,

[CastrTroy]

As far as WWII goes, it's like the old saying, hindsight is 20/20. Sure there were decisions that were made, both by foreign government after WWI and by individual citizens in Germany that lead to the Nazi uprising. But once the Nazis got to a point of power, there wasn't any option other than war to stop them.

Re:Also,

[marcello_dl]

Did WWII came because Hitler came to power, or did Hitler came to power to wage WWII? I'd really wanted to know if those internet rumors about western financial backing of both USSR and Nazis are true, if they are WWII is a different kind civil war to shape up the not so pleasant society we seem headed to.

Re:Also,

[TheCarp]

You know I agree with the basic premise, but it is also why I am so against war. The thing is it is "see it thru and secure the intended outcome." Intended outcome is the problem: war seldom is any good at securing an intended outcome.

Look at Iraq. Was the "intended outcome" just to kill their dictator? Mission accomplished eh? That is a very shortsighted goal, and by any real measure, Iraqis were better off under their dictator. Just about anything you could look at and say "look how bad things are for them", it got worst with war.

There is an addage that every problem has a simple solution which doesn't work. War really seems to be that solution. Sure, sometimes one is left with little choice; but to steal a line from a movie, it is a broad sword not a scalpel.

War tends to be a piss poor means for achieving meaningful outcomes; and is even counterproductive at many goals. Who cares if you kill a terrorist, if, in doing so, you make his viewpoint seem more reasonable and help recruit 5 more? Intended outcome achieved?

War, with few exceptions, tends to be about the ruling elites using the poor as pawns in their struggles for power and profit. The intended outcomes are generally little more than excuses for this. In that I think the most apt observation has been repeated in the fallout games.... war never changes.

Re:Also,

[onyxruby]

People count on useful idiots like you. Stalin considered people like yourself to be critical for success. Tyrants and dictators depend on useful idiots to stand by and do nothing will they commit their atrocities.

Iraq was working better under Saddam than it is now, it's a joke (or would be if it hadn't cost so many lives)

So we should continue to leave countries under dictators that violate treaties, employ government rapists and kill their own citizens in large blocs because the country will run better? Tell you what, next time there's a genocide going on, why don't you send a sternly worded letter to the people doing it and see how that works?

In the words of Burke âoeThe only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing.â Continue standing by and doing nothing while innocents are slaughtered by the millions in genocides because no one will 'go to war'. Your hands are clean only because your knee deep in blood.

Re: Also,

[NatasRevol]

"Fuck you, Mark & Abe!" - George Washington

Re:Also,

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"I'm not voting for war -- just give Hitler what he wants and cross our fingers!"

Re:Also,

[MrL0G1C]

Saddam was apparently lead to believe he could attack Kuwait without consequence, it could have been stopped before it started.

There was no good reason for US to enter Afghanistan, the whole exercise was completely futile, US is mostly leaving now with more Afgans hating America more than ever.

US goes to war to keep the corporate military machine going, if America stopped going to war it's economy would take a dive.

Re:Also,

[MrL0G1C]

So, hitler was justified in going to war?

FML

Re:Also,

[MrL0G1C]

Hitler started WWII, are you saying he was justified?

Re:Also,

[operagost]

What we have now are invasions of sovereign nations which happen to be chock full of resources

Unless you're crying "no blood for opium" in the case of Afghanistan, that's clearly NOT the case of a "sovereign nation" (it was rules by multiple warlords) that is "chock full of resources".

Re:Also,

[operagost]

OK-- so if one side isn't "justified", then war isn't justified? Of course history will deem at least once side in a war as "wrong"-- usually the losing side. Just admit you're a pacifist, and move on.

Re:Also,

[Anonymous Coward]

The French/Belgians/Poles/Russians did not ask to be invaded. The Brits did not ask to be bombed.
 

No, but the French and the Brits did declare war on Germany.

Re:Also,

[operagost]

You do know that Afghanistan has no significant oil resources, right? Or are you referring to the pipeline?

Re:Also,

[Muad'Dave]

Thanks for the reply - I searched and searched for that a few months ago and couldn't find a reference to it.

Re:Also,

[Koreantoast]

No, but the Brits and the French directly created the monster that came back and bit them in WWII. They decided that at the end of WWI, it was better to screw over the Germans as much as possible, laying the groundwork for the birth of the Nazis. Kind of like how the West is stuck dealing with terrorism now: they screwed with the Middle East for so long that eventually it gave birth to craziness that is now coming after them.

Re:Also,

[cardpuncher]

Well, apart from the fact that #3 was arguably necessary to buy time owing to the lack of military preparedness compared with Germany, the result of an accommodation between the UK and Germany (on which Hitler was quite keen) would have been the division of Europe with a large area under totalitarian control and the widespread extermination of civilians considered "undesirable". Whereas the result of failing to settle an accommodation was the division of Europe with a large area under totalitarian control and the widespread extermination of civilians considered "undesirable" - alongside the massive loss of life and economic damage.

Of course this is all a matter of hindsight, but the problem with war is that everyone enters with the expectation that it won't last.

Re:Also,

[Nemyst]

With today's snivelling, cowardly politicians, all that would happen is that the first ever so slightly powerful dictator could start taking over country after country and steamroll through everything. Either die to protect your country, or make a deal with the invader for a lofty, safe position in exchange for abdication? I know what most of them would choose.

A much more interesting but tangentially related idea I read was that politicians would have to surrender all personal assets (money, property, you name it) on becoming elected, which would become state property. Once they retire, their payoff would be proportional to how well the country is doing as a whole compared to how it was when they started. This would stop corrupt, self-serving politicians dead in their tracks, and then perhaps your idea of self-sacrifice could work.

Re:Also,

[noh8rz10]

The rules of war are written by the conquerors and those who successfully avoided being vanquished

Re:Also,

[El Puerco Loco]

There was no WW2. We're entering the hundredth year of WW1.

Re:Also,

[PseudonymousBlowhard]

Saddam was apparently lead to believe he could attack Kuwait without consequence

If there's a difference between this and a policy of pacifism, I don't see it.

Re:Also,

[ericloewe]

That is a completely ridiculous statement.

While there are those that interpret WWI and WWII as being the same thing, with pseudo-peace dividing them, saying that the whole thing is still ongoing has no merit.
Yes, there were major geopolitical changes, but these happened because of the outcome of WWII, not because WWII never ended. By your logic, mankind has always been at war, in a single war that spawns our history.

Re:Also,

[ericloewe]

You're right, but it's beside the point.

Re:Also,

[Anonymous Coward]

As Machiavel said: "“People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.” The problem is that we have indecisive leaders that don't know if they should crush the middle east or caress them. We should take one approach and stick with it not try to do both and ending to do neither.

Re:Also,

[ausekilis]

There are no justifiable wars.

I agree that wars are horrible, but to say that none are justifiable I think is false. Diplomacy is not perfect and does fail from time to time. Then what are we left with? The advancement of drones and "lethal robots"? Do we have a race to create the best T-800? T-1000?

It's unfortunate that there can be such disagreement and both parties (read: leaders) feel so strongly and are incapable of compromise,that the only resolution is war. Even if both sides were to fight with only drones/robots and the winner being the one with more robots standing (i.e. bloodless), it wouldn't solve the initial disagreement, not when you have a national leader willing to kill his own people to satiate and reinforce his thirst for power. Do you honestly think that given enough political pressure or enough economic loss that Saddam would have stepped down? Ghaddafi? Hitler? Stalin?... We are seeing just how well that works with North Korea right now.

When a society is willing to die for their beleifs, and that beleif is that you are evil simply by your country of origin, how do you make and keep peace? What about a leader willing to kill his people just because they think differently or want more freedoms and opportunities thean the leader is willing to provide? How many bodies would it take before you intervene?

Re:Also,

[dkleinsc]

Yes, I'm referring to the pipeline, which was former Unocal executive Hamid Karzai's first act as president of Afghanistan.

Re:Also,

[fredprado]

The need for "justification" is a illusion and utterly irrelevant in this world. Anything can be "justified" if you are really wanting to rationalize. In the end there is power, will to use it and that is it.

Re:Also,

[cusco]

Pipeline, rare earth elements (which the Soviets had mapped), but most important it was the largest source of opiates on the planet before the Taliban shut down production. The only opium still being grown in the country was in the territory controlled by our allies the Northern Warlords, and the prospective loss of income was frightening for the large international banks. Over a trillion dollars in drug money is laundered every year, over half of it through the US, with bank charges averaging 10-15% for the service. The Colombians and Mexicans were starting to pick up the slack, but they launder their money differently and the banksters were looking at a huge revenue loss. Certainly not the only reason for the invasion, just one of several.

Re:Also,

[cusco]

Actually the satellite photos of Iraqi tanks massing at the border of Saudi Arabia were faked, which the US has since admitted. It's likely that Bahndar Bush and the rest of the Saudi royalty even knew, but needed some justification to keep the population from freaking out about the US building air bases in the country.

Re:Also,

[TheLink]

That's a bit wasteful if the leaders are good. Good leaders are rare.

I prefer my proposal: http://slashdot.org/~TheLink/journal/208853

With my proposal the leaders do put their lives at risk, but their lives are not automatically forfeit.

That should be enough to make even sociopaths not start wars lightly.

Re:Also,

[jbolden]

Iraq we replaced a regime we didn't like with one we are so/so with. Had we just crushed Saddam and left it would have been a success.
Afghanistan you might remember was harboring the people who conducted a major bombing operation against America. What we have to show for it is the fall of the Taliban for over a decade. We also killed a bunch of Al Qaeda.

Re:Also,

[PseudonymousBlowhard]

Where does Kuwait itself figure in this view of things?

Re:Also,

[cusco]

Under Hussein the country had developed the highest standard of living in the region outside urban Israel, the best medical care and educational systems (both free for everyone) in the region, had potable water and processed sewage systems for all communities larger than small towns, and had achieved a degree of sexual equality unequaled in the region outside (again) urban Israel. Jews and Christians were protected and had representatives in the parliament, the Jewish community in Baghdad was the largest of any Arab country, the government was notably secular, and the judiciary used no religious criteria. Crime was extremely low, and the only terrorism was that performed by US-financed groups.

Was it heaven on Earth? Of course not, but it was the best thing in the entire Middle East. It was a hundred times better than what we have put in its place. It was an example of what could be done if a country's oil income were used for the benefit of the populace rather than funneled exclusively to royalty and other elites, so it had to be destroyed.

Re:Also,

[jbolden]

This would stop corrupt, self-serving politicians dead in their tracks,

How would it do that? They would put money aside from politics in various trusts, for example in family members name. What it would do is stop previous rich politicians. Those politicians for all their other flaws are often the least corrupt.

Why would anyone agree to your scheme who had substantial money unless the state payoff were huge?

Re:Also,

[jbolden]

Look at Iraq. Was the "intended outcome" just to kill their dictator?

To change regimes, yes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Liberation_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution

Iraqis were better off under their dictator

By what measure?

. Who cares if you kill a terrorist, if, in doing so, you make his viewpoint seem more reasonable and help recruit 5 more? Intended outcome achieved?

Terror organizations can and have been defeated militarily. The idea that ideas can't be killed through violence is undermined by history.

Re:Also,

[Mitreya]

if their governing body declared war, they'd fight the battle, and then all members of the governing body that voted for the war were put to death.

Maybe that's why modern wars are endless. Even if we were to put the governing body to death after the "War on Terror" ended, they would be perfectly safe, because "wars on concept" do not end.

Re:Also,

[stdarg]

Saddam was apparently lead to believe he could attack Kuwait without consequence, it could have been stopped before it started.

If we're still talking about justifiable wars, then it doesn't matter if there was an earlier opportunity to stop it. It wasn't stopped, so at the time the war was justifiable.

There was no good reason for US to enter Afghanistan

Them harboring al Qaeda was good enough reason for many people.

US goes to war to keep the corporate military machine going, if America stopped going to war it's economy would take a dive.

In other words, the wars are justifiable. You just don't like the justification.

Re:Also,

[stdarg]

Well, WWII was not one of those "sometimes" you're referring to. When France surrendered to Germany it didn't result in the death of all the French.

There are very few wars of extermination in history compared to normal wars where the dominant side wins and then life goes on.

Re:Also,

[bluegutang]

Twas the Octospiders in Clarkes Rama series - any member that voted for or was involved in the war itself had an immediate sentence of death after the hostilities ended.

Sounds like a strong incentive to continue hostilities indefinitely.

Re:Also,

[Anubis IV]

It's a great idea that I wish could work...but (based on the additional details provided by Richard_at_work in the reply below) it could only function in a frictionless vacuum or a work of fiction. By increasing the cost of war to such a degree, we've effectively created a system that disproportionately favors the bullies.

For instance, we already have numerous examples from our own history of peoples who allowed themselves to be oppressed or their way of life extinguished, rather than fighting back against an aggressor whom they cannot defeat, simply because a chance at life, even one in a severely diminished condition, was a better option than a near-certain death. Mind you, that has happened, despite the fact that the people involved in those situations might have managed to survive a war and live a healthy life after its conclusion. If we instead guaranteed that everyone involved was without fail going to die, regardless of who "won", the only reasonable conclusion is that even less groups would defend their ways of life against aggressors.

As such, what would stop a small nation with delusions of grandeur from simply conquering everyone else but leaving them in a condition that was slightly more palatable than death? Why wouldn't those other nations simply take it on the chin and allow their way of life to be destroyed?

Re:Also,

[schlachter]

exactly. rules of war are a luxury for those with money and humans to expend. in reality, there are only two things that matter in any fight, what you can do, and what you can't do.

Re:Also,

[schlachter]

US Civil War, justified? WTF.

Re:Also,

[stdarg]

War, with few exceptions, tends to be about the ruling elites using the poor as pawns in their struggles for power and profit.

I don't think so because the ruling elite by definition already have power and profit, and can extend that without war. I think most wars in the last few hundred years are ideological, with power and profit being a consequence of war (not a cause).

Even wars of succession, while having high stakes for power and profit, are certainly tied to things like family pride as well as wealth.

Re:Also,

[oreiasecaman]

Not only oil has value, you know

"It is believed that among other things the country holds $3 trillion in untapped mineral deposits.[1] In December 2013, President Karzai claimed the mineral deposits are actually worth $30 trillion."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_Afghanistan

Re:Also,

[greenbird]

There are no justifiable wars.

Yeah, cause violence never solved anything (roles eyes). Right

What we have now are invasions of sovereign nations which happen to be chock full of resources and blind eyes turned to genocide elsewhere.

So your claim is the US invaded Afghanistan for the Poppies? Cause that's about the only resource there. And where's all that oil we invaded Iraq to steal? Seems there's a few holes in your little theory there.

Re:Also,

[guises]

Vietnam is a better example of a middle eastern country with democratically elected leaders?

Re:Also,

[guises]

The Federalists didn't exist until after the constitution was already in place. The people who would become the federalists certainly had a lot of influence over what went into the constitution, but so did Jefferson and the rest of the people who would become the Democratic Republicans. That's sorta the point: a constitution isn't just any bill, where you can tolerate a certain amount of legislative impropriety. A constitution needs consensus. If the Egyptians had accepted the constitution that Morsi had slipped through, they would have effectively been giving him and his party the power to dictate the future of the country. Likewise, rejecting the constitution meant rejecting Morsi.

What I'm saying is that they had plenty of reason to get rid of him, and plenty of reasons to celebrate his ousting (as many of them did). There may or may not be ties between the Egyptian military and the United States, but regardless of that those ties cannot be assumed to be the reason for the coup.

Re:Also,

[AK Marc]

Woodrow Wilson saw that the War to End All Wars wouldn't. WWII is a direct result of the conservatives in the US blocking the League of Nations. That's not hindsight. That's ignored foresight.

Re: Also,

[smittyoneeach]

"And while you're at it,
Mark & Abe, get that bison rug
out of here. It's not the
horns I mind so much
as the five tons of buffalo
standin' behind 'em."
--John Wayne

Re:Also,

[RabidReindeer]

It sounds like you think "Pacifist" is a dirty word, synonymous with "Surrender Monkey".

When someone else becomes agressive and you move to defend yourself, that doesn't mean you surrender your pacifism. But the essence of pacifism is to attempt to find constructive solutions to problems. If the other side refuses to be constructive, slap them down.

On the other hand, people who sit around and do nothing while the other side is obviously building to a boiling point are part of the problem, not part of the solution. We cannot always ensure that others will behave constructively, but we owe it to ourselves and our allies to never stop trying right up to the point where we nuke the buggers.

War is destruction. The illogic of waste, as someone once said.

Re:Also,

[dkleinsc]

The Federalists didn't exist until after the constitution was already in place.

Yes they did, not as a political party, but as a group of people trying to create the U.S. Constitution the way they (mostly James Madison) wanted it. They weren't officially a political party, per se, but they were certainly an organized group of people trying to put their stamp on how the US government would work. They were the majority in the Constitutional Convention, and that gave them the power to dictate a lot of the overall structure. The Anti-Federalists, led by Jefferson, left a stamp on the Constitution too, in the form of the Bill of Rights, but only because many states refused to ratify the Constitution without it. There wasn't a consensus really: Many of the ratification votes were extremely contentious, and there was a lot of nasty mudslinging going on in the press and public meetings.

That said, what the Federalists came up with was pretty decently good, but far from perfect (3/5 compromise, anyone?). But these guys were politicians and businessmen, and while they were often smart they were also pretty practical people, and as partisan as some politicians today. The image of a happy band of founders calmly debating everything as an intellectual exercise is pure fantasy.

Re:Also,

[operagost]

U.S.-based oil companies were specifically mentioned.

Re:Also,

[oreiasecaman]

Yes but this whole thread is about the US invading countries, and if war is justifiable. So, I thought it would add to the discussion citing that Afghanistan has significant resources on their land just sitting there, unexploited.

Re:Also,

[shutdown -p now]

Got news, the Geneva and Hague Convention only apply to regular military. So the moment you are either facing or are irregular combatants everything goes.

The spectrum is broader than that - between "regular military" and "irregular combatants", there are other protected categories. In particular, the Third Geneva Convention says:

"Article 4
Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy: ...
Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:
that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
that of carrying arms openly;
that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war."

But then you need to remember by who when the treaties where singed. At the time generals would send thousand men to their deaths and then congratulate each other over their victories over a cup of tee.

All but the First Geneva Convention were adopted after WW1, when what you describe was already, shall we say, uncommon.

Re:Also,

[jwhitener]

Afghanistan hasn't been stable enough to have an election yet. Given it some time and they'll have elections just like Iraq did.

The majority of Egypt did elect Morsi. Then after they watched him work for a while, the majority of Egypt wanted him out. The military listened to the people when they ousted Morsi. Morsi was essentially working towards a complete takeover of Egyptian government with Muslim Brotherhood members. Lots of articles about this if you want to google it.

For the record, I did not support any of our overseas wars. But the Arab spring is a bit different. Real democracies are forming.

Re:Also,

[Jmc23]

So he's torn himself to shreds thousands of times before and after his death?

Isn't he the one who made modern US warfare possible?

The US is undermining the Laws of war.

[miffo.swe]

The technology is not undermining the established laws but the US use of the tech sure does. Using depleted uranium, murdering civilians based on shoddy intelligence, torturing people with new methods, social media puppetry, wholesale wiretapping etc is just things that have been avoided before but has been reintroduced when they could do it in new ways.

The technology is not the problem at all, its the people using it.

Re:The US is undermining the Laws of war.

[jeremyp]

murdering civilians based on shoddy intelligence, torturing people with new methods, social media puppetry, wholesale wiretapping etc is just things that have been avoided before but has been reintroduced when they could do it in new ways.

The technology is not the problem at all, its the people using it.

All of those things have always been a part of war, except the social media thing, but that is just an instance of propaganda.

Civilians have always found themselves being murdered in war. For example, in Wellington's Peninsular campaign, there were several instances of cities being taken by force and then the army doing a bit of rape pillage and murder. This was done by both sides even though the British were ostensibly trying to liberate the locals.

Then the invention of the bomber allowed civilian murder to be taken to new extremes in WW2. The British bombing campaign was particularly bad, based as it was on the premise that the smallest target that could reliably be hit by night bombers was a city.

Torture of captured opponents has always figured in warfare, if the opponent had information that you wanted.

Wiretapping or earlier means of intercepting of communications have always figured in warfare.

The tech just alters the details.

Re:The US is undermining the Laws of war.

[AHuxley]

re All of those things have always been a part of war, except the social media thing, but that is just an instance of propaganda.
Yes think back to the black sites, double tap drone strikes, the surge..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2208307/Americas-deadly-double-tap-drone-attacks-killing-49-people-known-terrorist-Pakistan.html
Really its just back to the old colonial wars under a new brand and better spin via happy 24/7 media sock puppets.

Re:The US is undermining the Laws of war.

[jmac_the_man]

Then the invention of the bomber allowed civilian murder to be taken to new extremes in WW2. The British bombing campaign was particularly bad, based as it was on the premise that the smallest target that could reliably be hit by night bombers was a city.

How accurate was German bombing during the Battle of Britain?

Re:The US is undermining the Laws of war.

[mrbester]

Considering that Coventry was pretty much erased from the map (hence the revenge bombing of Dresden, subject to much hand-wringing in hindsight) I'd say it was quite accurate.

Re:The US is undermining the Laws of war.

[myowntrueself]

Considering that Coventry was pretty much erased from the map (hence the revenge bombing of Dresden, subject to much hand-wringing in hindsight) I'd say it was quite accurate.

The reason why the cities were so erased was because the bombing wasn't accurate.

If you wanted to destroy a couple of factories in a city you pretty much had to wipe out the whole city to make sure you hit the factories.

Re:The US is undermining the Laws of war.

[AthanasiusKircher]

Then the invention of the bomber allowed civilian murder to be taken to new extremes in WW2. The British bombing campaign was particularly bad, based as it was on the premise that the smallest target that could reliably be hit by night bombers was a city.

Well, that and things like firebombing, as used heavily in places like Dresden and Tokyo. When you have things like urban civilian populations suffocating to death due to lack of oxygen because all the fire raining from the sky is using it up... well, I don't think you can get much worse in terms of disregard for civilians.

Re:The US is undermining the Laws of war.

[jmac_the_man]

So the Germans wiped an entire city off the map withe their bombing too? Maybe because their bombs weren't accurate to hit anything larger than a city?

Keep in mind, when I wrote my comment, I was thinking of the bombing of London, which is about 100 miles away from Coventry. London, of course, is another city full of civilians that the Germans bombed.

Which brings up my point. The GGP called the British bombing of Dredsden "particularly bad" because the British were bombing cities rather than picking out specific targets. Obviously it wasn't "particularly bad" because nobody ELSE in the European theater could hit anything more accurately either. It seems like reason someone would call the British campaigns worse that the German campaigns from the same time period is as a criticism of the modern day British government (which is still around, unlike the German government from that era.) Think about why someone would make that comparison.

Re:The US is undermining the Laws of war.

[redlemming]

How accurate was German bombing during the Battle of Britain?

If you want the short answer, the bombing was not very accurate.

To understand this in detail, it is best to be familiar with a little additional history.

The Luftwaffe had experimented with bombing an urban area during the Spanish Civil War. It was determined that this had little effect, and as a result Luftwaffe policy was to avoid primarily civilian targets. The British pursued a similar policy once WW2 started.

However, in the course of going after the docks and factories of London, some German bombs fell outside the prescribed target area.

This happened after many bombing raids had been going on for a long time, involving many different aircraft and crews, against a strenuous defence, and some kind of mistake along these lines was probably inevitable given the relatively primitive technology of the day and the chaos of war.

The German aircrew involved was immediately arrested after landing, but the damage had been done. The British decided to direct an air raid on Berlin in "retaliation", and even though it did little damage Hitler decided to escalate (one of his dumbest decisions in a career filled with them).

Since the Germans hadn't planned to attack civilian targets, they didn't have weapons, training, or doctrine to do it particularly well. Accuracy, in short, was poor. The British were equally limited. However, when attacking a densely populated city such as London it wasn't necessary to have good accuracy to do significant damage.

Estimates of casualties vary, but about 40k-50k civilian lives were lost during the Battle of Britain, with at least as many being injured. Total deaths for WW2 from all causes is around 55 million.

For both combatant's bomber arms, the attack built slowly enough, and was ineffective enough (in military terms) to give the defenders time to evolve an effective defence. Some of the defensive measures that were developed included the use of civilian shelters, radar, fighters, anti-aircraft guns, balloons, and considerable use of deception.

Defences such as anti-aircraft guns and balloons made bombing even less accurate as the planes had to attack from high up. Fighter interception often caused bombers to drop their bombs before reaching their targets (assuming they could identify those targets in the first place, not always a given). Deceptive measures often prevented bombs from being dropped on militarily significant targets, which probably wasn't much consolation to the people the bombs actually fell upon. In short, defensive measures tended to make inaccurate bombing even more so.

In both cases, the bombing effort eventually took such tremendous losses that each side concluded that they had to bomb at night, with huge losses in accuracy, if they were going to bomb at all (the Americans, in contrast, chose to bomb in the daylight, trusting to their Norden Bombsight to give them accuracy, a hope that was often foiled by the Northern European weather).

Some attempts were made by the Germans to use radio beams to guide planes to their targets, but these were quickly countered by the British.

The net effect of night bombing against defended targets was heavy civilian casualties. Over the course of the war the numbers of deaths from the inaccurate dropping of conventional bombs would dwarf the number of deaths resulting from the atomic bombs (well under 1% of the total wartime deaths resulted from the atomic weapons).

Recent books such as "The Bomber War" provide more detail, if you want it. Older books tend to have a lot of errors which have been corrected by modern scholarship, so while they sometimes provide useful data you have to be careful working with them.

Naive Article

[DeathToBill]

Firstly, Betteridge's law applies here.

Secondly, the laws of war have never been developed through "a deliberate and focused international dialogue that includes a range of cultural and institutional perspectives." The laws of war have, unfortunately, always developed just after a major conflict, when lots of people said, "Whoa, we should do something to stop that happening again."

Re:Naive Article

[TheloniousToady]

Firstly, Betteridge's law applies here.

Yeah, I noticed that also. Which makes me wonder: if Slashdot ran an article called, "Does Betteridge's Law Apply to Every Headline Here That Ends With a Question Mark?", would it still apply?

War is bad/wrong/immoral, period.

[XcepticZP]

The only "law of war" that we need is one that states that war is not allowed, period. If you're an aggressor, you are breaking the "law of war". Seriously, we've come too far as a civilized society to still condone such a barbaric practice as war. If you do anything more than to defend yourself, then you become an aggressor. As far as I'm concerned, if you're an aggressor you forfeit all "rights" to your own safety as you are attempting to deprive others of similar rights, thus making pretty much everything against you fair game. That doesn't even touch on the moral aspects about compelling individuals to murder on your behalf by virtue of conscription and other practices that have a similar effect. And those that get paid to do such aggressing are nothing more than paid murderers.

On a side note, quite a few world leaders (ahem, America) have broken both the above simplistic "law of war", as well as actual torture, war and genocide laws of war that we already have. And we, as a supposedly civilized society, don't even have the backing/support/power to pressure their countries for any sort of accountability. Not to mention the fact that there is no ruling body that has any sort of jurisdiction to remedy this by getting those horrible individuals to a war crimes court. The current laws of war don't work, and are only there to make it unfeasible for smaller/less-powerful countries to fight in an asymmetric force situation. A similar thing was imposed on guerilla warfare when "formal" and "gentleman" warfare required countless fodder to stand in neat long rows to be slaughtered one at a time; essentially making war about who had more cannon fodder.

Re:War is bad/wrong/immoral, period.

[oodaloop]

The only "law of war" that we need is one that states that war is not allowed, period. If you're an aggressor, you are breaking the "law of war".

That sounds really great, but I doubt it would work well in practice. The colonies would still be under the Crown, who never lost power. France would be under control of Louis XXXXII, the South would still run on slavery, etc. Without war and revolution, how would despotic regimes ever end?

Re:War is bad/wrong/immoral, period.

[oodaloop]

She became a figurehead as the result of the Glorious Revolution and other revolutions where the monarch was forced to agree to a consitutional monarchy. The power of the monarchy was taken by force; there was nothing gradual about it.

Re:War is bad/wrong/immoral, period.

[AmiMoJo]

Actually that is the law. Starting a war of aggression is always a crime in international law. The only reason any nation is allowed to wage war is in self defence. That is why many people consider the Iraq invasion to have been illegal.

As for colonies international law requires that populations be given the right to self determination. It's hard to enforce but in theory if the population of a geographical area within a country can show that they wish to be independent the country is obliged to try and facilitate that, perhaps through devolved powers or by letting them set up on their own. Slavery is illegal, internal revolutions are not wars per-se but internal conflict or civil war. The law only applies to nation states, not individuals or factions within nations.

Re:War is bad/wrong/immoral, period.

[aethelrick]

The only "law of war" that we need is one that states that war is not allowed, period. If you're an aggressor, you are breaking the "law of war". Seriously, we've come too far as a civilized society to still condone such a barbaric practice as war. If you do anything more than to defend yourself, then you become an aggressor.

Fantastic idea, but you speak about "an aggressor" as if he/she was easy to identify, nations go to war, not individuals. It's really hard to sort out the good guys from the bad in this situation. Their is no single aggressor in any war, their is only a tangled web of politics and agendas of the nations involved and a load of soldiers from both sides either paid to fight or deluded/damaged/desperate enough to resort to wholesale violence as a way to solve problems. Also the only way to make your "law" meaningful would be to enforce it and to do so would require you to have a standing army that you could bring to war should the need arise. The downside here of course is that as soon as you have an army, you give anyone who disagrees with you a reason to fear you and recruit a bunch of dimwits to wage war on you.

As far as I'm concerned, if you're an aggressor you forfeit all "rights" to your own safety as you are attempting to deprive others of similar rights, thus making pretty much everything against you fair game.

I think this attitude makes you an aggressor (to use your own phrase). You are advocating wholesale genocide of an enemy nation because their leaders are warmongering retards? You have masterfully over-simplified and compartmentalized the complexity of why nations go to war into the classical good vs bad scenario except, you have defined your own rules about why the bad guy is bad. I would offer... this is EXACTLY how people find themselves at war in the first place; people over-simplify and compartmentalize their understanding of the world and these people are easily manipulated into going to war because they'd rather jump to their familiar conclusions than try to cope with the real complexities of life.

Don't get me wrong I agree with your sentiment, war is bad and should be stopped, but I don't believe that their are ANY simple answers like the one you suggest. Indeed I think the only thing your "final solution" to war would achieve is more war and hatred. We are not going to end all war quickly or easily by declaring a free for all on any aggressor nation. We will only manage to see the end of war one small painful step at a time.

Re:War is bad/wrong/immoral, period.

[Anonymous Coward]

When did all those former colonies rise up to fight revolutionary wars of independence against the empire and free themselves from that monarchy, exactly? Oh right. They didn't. There's a Queen of Australia, and a Queen of Canada, and a Queen of New Zealand, ...

Re:War is bad/wrong/immoral, period.

[XcepticZP]

Imposing your rule over another group of people sounds quite a lot like aggression to me. The way to tell this is if that other group tried to go against your will (whatever that may be), and you have to keep them in line with violence, imprisonment, or the threat of either, then you are clearly aggressing.

Re:War is bad/wrong/immoral, period.

[XcepticZP]

I understand, and I didn't quite want to come out with a comprehensive solution to all war and aggression in two small paragraphs. Just an overal idea and sentiment as you say. It definitely is something that we have to approach, and quite quickly.

Fantastic idea, but you speak about "an aggressor" as if he/she was easy to identify, nations go to war, not individuals. It's really hard to sort out the good guys from the bad in this situation. Their is no single aggressor in any war, their is only a tangled web of politics and agendas of the nations involved and a load of soldiers from both sides either paid to fight or deluded/damaged/desperate enough to resort to wholesale violence as a way to solve problems.

I guess it does require a bit of a specific and clearly defined solution in order to not be unambigous. Start with the person that authorized the act of aggression. As things are currently, that is a 'solution' because the slaughter of a nation's soldiers doesn't quite convince the populace of that nation to prosecute their own leaders. If anything, in each state they are usually behind a veil that prevents them from being accountable for the decisions they made during power. Hence why the "external" solution to the problem.

Also the only way to make your "law" meaningful would be to enforce it and to do so would require you to have a standing army that you could bring to war should the need arise.

I guess that depends on your definition of "enforce". Perhaps I'm naive, but I think that there are other ways of punishing individuals and states for not conforming to what we as a society have collectively deemed as acceptable. Ostracism and trade embargoes come to mind first. Having states at all, where power and resources can be consolidated and concentrated means that a military will eventually form, even if it is just to defend. Which they might eventually use to bully, attack or intimidate. I'm not entirely sure how we can approach this problem just yet, short of getting rid of states entirely and thereby not allowing power to concentrate.

I think this attitude makes you an aggressor (to use your own phrase). You are advocating wholesale genocide of an enemy nation because their leaders are warmongering retards? You have masterfully over-simplified and compartmentalized the complexity of why nations go to war into the classical good vs bad scenario except, you have defined your own rules about why the bad guy is bad.

There are but a handful of very specific scenarios where the soldiers of a warring state are not complicit in the actual war. If you have a choice, you shouldn't opt to kill/murder. No matter how poor, desperate or indoctrinated you are. You make it seem like there is a huge grey area of motivations for participating as a soldier in a war, as if that can excuse their actions. Off the top of my head, the scenarios mentioned above: Threat of direct violence against family. Mentally challenged, and thus tricked. Brainwashed/lied into thinking the other enemy is an aggressor, so you think you're actually defending. In a digital, and increasingly connected society, a lot of the options for tricking/forcing people into doing things is quickly diminishing. The moral line needs to be drawn at the choice each individual soldier makes.

"There are times, sir, when... men of good conscience cannot blindly follow orders." Jean-Luc Picard (ST:TNG)

Re:War is bad/wrong/immoral, period.

[TangoMargarine]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellogg%E2%80%93Briand_Pact

Note that it was signed in 1928.

By Germany.

Re:War is bad/wrong/immoral, period.

[jbolden]

That was tried after WWI. Didn't work too well.

Re:War is bad/wrong/immoral, period.

[stdarg]

No it's not aggression to impose your rule. For instance don't you think it's allowable for countries to have borders and keep people out that it doesn't want to let in? The way you've phrased it, if Exxon hires a bunch of guys to peacefully go pump all the oil out of Mexico, there's nothing Mexico can do to stop it because they can't use violence or impose their rules over other people. So basically Mexico as a sovereign state ceases to exist.

Re:War is bad/wrong/immoral, period.

[XcepticZP]

Does the land belong to someone? Yes? Then Exxon is aggressing by stealing resources from someone's land. In that example, the land owner is the victim and Exxon is the aggressor. Likewise if the landowner and Exxon voluntarily decided to enter into an agreement between one another where natural resources are mined from the landowner's land and shipped overseas for Exxon to sell, and the Mexican government forbids it or imposes restrictions on it, then the Mexican government is the aggressor.

Re:War is bad/wrong/immoral, period.

[stdarg]

Exxon could very well peacefully enter the land. Millions of illegal immigrants from Mexico have entered the US -- who would call that an "aggressive" invasion? That's silly. So of course you can enter another country, as private citizens, without being aggressive.

On the other hand owning land and keeping others out is "Imposing your rule over another group of people" which you said is aggressive. You can't peacefully keep people out who want to come in.

I think perhaps you just spoke too broadly if that's not what you actually meant.

Re:War is bad/wrong/immoral, period.

[aethelrick]

Perhaps we could look at some examples from history and apply your ideas; The Rwandan civil war was arguably started by a leader being removed from power (his plane was shot down). The "remove the leader" method is one of your proposed solutions to war in general. The act of assassinating this bloke sparked off a genocide wherein around 800,000 people were killed. How do you decide who has the right to rule in this situation. Both sides had legitimate grievances (at least in their own minds) and both sides did terrible things (though one more than the other in terms of a body count). Who do you strip of their rights and punish with "trade embargoes"? how do you punish the "bad guys" when they are living in the same country as the "good guys"? Even if you decide who's right and who's wrong, you cannot selectively punish one side or the other without putting boots on the ground; doing so will put your personnel in the line of fire. This will lead to you having to chose between using force or ignoring the problem and hoping it will go away.

Consider Germany in the 1930's it was the application of sanctions and internationally enforced laws (treaty of Versailles) on the German nation that provided an ideal breeding ground for the sort of hatred that lead to the rise of Adolf Hitler. In fact it was precisely this treaty that gave Hitler a strong point of fact to rally his followers around. The only thing that stopped Hitler was gratuitous use of force, he was intent on military domination of all who opposed him.

In summary, I think that in some cases war is unavoidable; however, war should be avoided at all costs. I don't think we'll see an end to war until we have a world government and paradoxically I don't think this will ever come about except by way of war (at least in some part)

Laws of war?

[danknight48]

There isnt any.

You might like to think there is a law, that bubble wraps the situation. But your being an idiot if you think war follows "rules".
War is War. A country will go to any length to prepare/protect itself, regardless of what special "laws" you think exist.

Always with the questions

[wonkey_monkey]

Are New Technologies Undermining the Laws of War?

Yes? No? I don't know! Get out of my house!

There are no nations. There are no "peoples"

[Neo-Rio-101]

"You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no Third Worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems. One vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-varied, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rands, rubles, pounds and shekels"

- Arthur Jensen (in the 1976 movie "Network")

Re: There are no nations. There are no "peoples"

[swb]

Rollerball and Network were two of the most prescient films of the 1970s.

Re: There are no nations. There are no "peoples"

[Vitriol Angst]

As I get older, it seems that the movie Network is more truth.

Snowden did not hurt US security -- because this data is likely for sale to China via a contractor. Our "massive trading partner" is not surprised. The "damage" was for the merely large companies to learn what the multinationals already knew. And "spying on everything" takes on other connotations if you think of economics, trade secrets, and negotiations. Sure, getting dirt on politicians is profitable -- but knowing about money and technology is profit.

If there were an ACTUAL ENEMY out there, the US, the pentagon, and our secret agencies would be acting a lot differently than how they do now. It seems that these governments are more afraid of their own people. It's as if they were making a show of enemies at the gate to convince us to keep building up the castle and disenfranchise us.

Why is China, after years of peace with the USA while we did not take advantage of superior power, now buying air craft carriers and possibly getting into spending a lot of their prosperity on a military like we do? Is the air craft carrier going to help them dominate something that WalMart didn't already help them own? Are they going to attack a Samsung store down the street? Couldn't they continue dominating the world better by restricting imports and foreign ownership and continuing their public works projects and subsidizing strategic industries? Or are they only interested in "enough prosperity" and then later the same excuses to the middle class why they can no longer "afford education and health care" -- when they have record profits one day like we do now?

Re: There are no nations. There are no "peoples"

[Crypto Gnome]

The fact of the matter, people, is that any standing army which doesn't have an external "enemy" to wage war upon will inevitably turn against (or be used against) its own citizenry.

Re: There are no nations. There are no "peoples"

[Vitriol Angst]

The fact of the matter, people, is that any standing army which doesn't have an external "enemy" to wage war upon will inevitably turn against (or be used against) its own citizenry.

Hence why we shouldn't have a "standing army." Of course -- because today the world is more complicated, you can't just train citizenry to learn to be "part time" warriors. The days of just teaching someone a fire arm are as gone as are the days where a simple tax need only pay for the occasional cobblestone replacement and horse hitch. To compare today's military and infrastructure to the "founding fathers" era is of course ridiculous -- as is winning an argument based on psychic readings of some long-dead person's "intent" when we can't even figure out what a current politician intends when they are talking right to us.

We need a better way. We've got to take the profit out of war and security just like health care. Profit should only occur when you want MORE of something. If you want more sick people paying dearly for hospital beads, or you want 750 military bases and perhaps a dozen concurrent wars LIKE WE DO TODAY, well, keep profit in the equation for Sick Care and Military Offense, LIKE WE DO TODAY.

Repost of an earlier story

[paiute]

Today, emerging military technologies — including breech-loading cannons and rifled barrels — raise the prospect of upheavals in military practice so fundamental that they challenge assumptions underlying long-established international laws of war....

Today, emerging military technologies — including tanks, aeroplanes and machine guns — raise the prospect of upheavals in military practice so fundamental that they challenge assumptions underlying long-established international laws of war....

Today, emerging military technologies — including long range monoplanes and submarines — raise the prospect of upheavals in military practice so fundamental that they challenge assumptions underlying long-established international laws of war....

The wills of the many outclassed by the few.

[VortexCortex]

The thing about humans piloting machines of war is that you still need a lot of people's consent to fight the war. With a remote drone operator you could have a lot fewer folks consent for the same or more war-fighting: Have one guy take the helm of the lead fighting machine in an autopilot squadron. Kill their drone, it doesn't injure the pilot, not a scratch. Their neck's not on the line. They switch drones and keep coming for as much money as it takes to win.

Against enemies yields less risk of life for your soldiers, more bag for your Buck, more death dealt, more atrocities. Given that these systems aren't even needed due to our existing military might it just seems a little too convenient that it would also take less folks to fight against their own people with these drones -- detached, not having to show your face on the battle field -- and especially when we discover government drones are making their way to the homeland skies.

If your neck is not on the line, you have no right to pull the trigger. To remove the human element from war is inhumane by definition.

Re:The wills of the many outclassed by the few.

[Sique]

You could argue the same already for spears, arrows, cannonballs and bullets. The place where they inflict damage is not the place where the person responsible for them is. With the advent of ballistic missiles, this person didn't even need to be in the same country or at the same continent. Cruise missiles are nothing else than one-way-drones.

This is in principle an age old problem, and it is unresolved since then. But there is not much pressure to actually resolve it, because it just means that heroism doesn't win wars, but armoury, weapons, tactics and overwhelming resources do.

Re:The wills of the many outclassed by the few.

[Vitriol Angst]

Yeah, drones make war too easy.

And even suicide attacks are self-moderating. But a drone can "strap on" some ordinance and you don't even need someone to volunteer or believe enough in the cause. There is no sacrifice or backlash -- just continual asymmetric warfare.

How does someone on the receiving end of such a drone policy react? They aren't ALL bond villains, are they? They had a gripe and were in our way and someone they know got attacked by a faceless drone. I'm thinking the futility and anger would be greater because the "who did this" is more removed. This makes it more likely that innocent people are retaliated against in the future -- not less.

Re:The wills of the many outclassed by the few.

[Jason Levine]

To add to this, the horrors of war used to only be known to the few who actually fought in it. Yes, they might have told stories, but it's one thing to hear a story from grandpa about the horrible war he fought in and another to see it for yourself. As technology improved, we began to get photographs from the front lines (or near enough to them) and people saw for themselves how horrible war could be. Then we got video and real-time reporting. Faced with the real horrors of war, people didn't as readily support it. They weren't willing to put their sons and daughters into that situation for just any cause. Especially when the situation was half a world away and the cause didn't have a direct bearing on their lives at home.

Technology like drones could solve this public support "problem." After all, who cares if Johnny is "shot down" when the net effect is that his drone has crashed and he switches to drone #15 and continues the fight? What's the worst that will happen? He'll come home with "battlefield carpal tunnel syndrome"? There will still be monetary concerns over war, but those are more easily argued against versus the lives of people's relatives.

This technology could actually make us a more war-mongering nation since we'll be removing one of the big downsides to war - casualties on our side.

Re:The wills of the many outclassed by the few.

[Gerner]

The place where they inflict damage is not the place where the person responsible for them is.

The difference with drones is that there is no way to figure out where the person is that "pulled the trigger". With spears, arrows, guns, etc. you could see the person. With missiles, you could at least find the launch points using satellite imagery, radio, etc. With drones you have no idea where the responsible party might be. They could be on a boat, in some random country, or their mom's basement.

Re:The wills of the many outclassed by the few.

[Sique]

Satellite imagery is a very late addition to the game. Artillery cannons have a large range of dozens of miles, and they had it already in WWI. When the Germans attacked the Belgian fortresses at Liege, they did it with their big 16.5-inch-howitzer ("Big Bertha") which had a firing range of about 8 mls. No way for the Belgians to figure out where the cannon actually was placed, they just got the shells on their fortresses. The Paris Gun of 1918 even had a firing range of 80 mls, and when it attacked Paris, the Parisians could not hear the muzzle sound, so they had no clue from where they were attacked.

Re:The wills of the many outclassed by the few.

[stdarg]

Once war becomes so easy to do, perhaps the need for it will decrease. If suicide attacks are self-moderating, and doing things to piss off a powerful drone-equipped military becomes equivalent to a suicide attack, then it will be self-moderating.

I don't buy the argument that having drones will make the population so numb that things like "Today in Chad, Exxon commissioned the US Army to drone-attack BP's oil field workers. Exxon is up 1.5% in premarket trading." will start happening. I mean seriously you have people today paying 300% markups for "fair trade coffee" and garbage like that. Our sense of humanity is only increasing over time.

Funny title...'laws of war'

[dtjohnson]

War is a brutal savage activity that spreads disease, decimates populations, lays waste to cities, destroys entire cultures and civilizations, will eventually destroy the habitability of our planet, and is the ultimate expression of the human desire to possess their neighbor's belongings and force them to do one's bidding. Yes, some countries have entered into agreements with other countries about the humane treatment of non-combatants and prisoners, and the limitation and use of certain horrific weapons but...in the end, the 'laws of war' fall into the same category as 'honor among thieves' as being an idealized concept to make the non-practitioners feel good but one with no actual meaning.

Re:Funny title...'laws of war'

[david_thornley]

The laws of war, fundamentally, are to limit brutality and savagery to those cases that are militarily effective. Shooting enemy soldiers is militarily effective, so it's permitted. Killing prisoners doesn't help win a war, so it's forbidden. Laws of war that interfere with military effectiveness are normally simply ignored (consider the adoption of unrestricted submarine warfare in WWII: neither the British, US, Germans, or Italians, to name the main practitioners, paid any attention to it having been forbidden).

Stop starting wars...

[Xhamster]

and use technology for accomplishing things like ending hunger -> thats the best way!

Powers That Be will never tire of war.

[rmdingler]

"War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige as the warrior does today."

~JFK

Current Laws

[dazoline]

Did the machine gun change the rules of war? Rules of engagement yes. Where you lie down in the mud to avoid all the lead flying whereas you stood shoulder to shoulder before. Rules about who can be rightfully killed as a combatant and how prisoners of war and non combatants are treated, no. The only thing that's changed recently is the attitude of a certain super power towards obeying the current laws that work perfectly fine.

The "rules" have no practical relevance

[petes_PoV]

The USA is the prime developer of all these new technologies, and by far the biggest user of them. The USA has also declared that it is not bound by the International Criminal Court which investigates and tries criminal acts during wars. As a consequence the US feels that it is above the sanction of the rest of the world and has no need of it's "rules" for warfare.

Re:The "rules" have no practical relevance

[g0bshiTe]

What else would you expect of a country in which the Constitution is thought of as more a guide by it's leaders.

Re:The "rules" have no practical relevance

[Firethorn]

The USA has also declared that it is not bound by the International Criminal Court which investigates and tries criminal acts during wars.

Actually, the International Criminal Court generally only gets involved when the country itself doesn't enforce certain laws/ban certain behaviors. The USA 'generally' does, plus it takes a brave cop(who doesn't have any backup) to really do anything to the 800 pound jaywalking Gorilla.

Really, I tend to view international relations as having a lot more in common with ancient 'justice' systems - might makes right and all that. I'm not saying it's fair by any stretch, but people who think that Bush is going to be tried in an international court are dreaming.

There is only one law of war

[Dunbal]

Clausewitz stated in his book "On War" that war is won by the most violent. Therefore the one with the biggest guns (or at least the one who makes the most effective use of them) wins. And he gets to write the rules, and ignore the inconvenient ones. After all - who is going to stop him? The "rules of war" are only good during peacetime, and usually only as a pretext to help justify another war. Ironic, no?

jus ad beryllium

[BisuDagger]

The forgotten 4th category for the Laws of War, jus ad beryllium, states when in war if you are a super power use any weapon that contains beryllium for autowin.

Re:jus ad beryllium

[TangoMargarine]

There's no backup beryllium sphere on board.

Way to go, you broke the ship!

It's Simple

[g0bshiTe]

It's simple in this day and age where face time means chatting via IM online of through Skype instead of one to one face time in person, the rules will disappear.
Gone are the days when a solder might be close enough to smell the odor of his enemy, see the sweat on his brow or hear the cries as he passed on.

It's all point n click now, home in time for American Idol.

14 hour shift piloting fighter drones, "can you pick up milk and sugar on your way home honey?"

Re:Of course they are ...

[g0bshiTe]

If that strike was done by Al Queda yes it's terrorism, if it's done by some other militant group yes, if it's done by a country it's called "an act of war".

Re:Of course they are ...

[g0bshiTe]

I'm American, yes America today is not the same America I was born and raised in, we also have no freedom just the illusion. We are the great defenders of the 1%'s financial interests which has nothing to do with defending freedom.

Don't think all us Americans are blind to what our country does and where it's true interest lies.

War is an ironic racket

[Paul Fernhout]

From a Marine Major General: http://warisaracket.org/racket.html "Smedley Butler: War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket."

At length: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

Another quote by Einstein: "The release of atomic power has changed everything except our way of thinking ... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. (1945)"

See also this essay by me on how that applies to all forms of modern weaponry, inspired by that Einstein quote, given a modern-day digital watch has more computing power than was used to design the first atomic weapons:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
----
Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead?
Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land?
Biological weapons like genetically-engineered plagues are ironic because they are about using advanced life-altering biotechnology to fight over which old-fashioned humans get to occupy the planet. Why not just use advanced biotech to let people pick their skin color, or to create living arkologies and agricultural abundance for everyone everywhere?
These militaristic socio-economic ironies would be hilarious if they were not so deadly serious. Here is some dark humor I wrote on the topic:
A post-scarcity "Downfall" parody remix of the bunker scene. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/openmanufacturing/8qspPyyS1tY/vZacyDL86DIJ
See also a little ironic story I wrote on trying to talk the USA out of collective suicide because it feels "Burdened by Bags of Sand". http://www.pdfernhout.net/burdened-by-bags-of-sand.html
Or this YouTube video I put together: The Richest Man in the World: A parable about structural unemployment and a basic income. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p14bAe6AzhA
Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possibl

Laws of war?

[nurb432]

Is this a joke? There is only one law: Win, or you are conquered.

True, and not just for war

[GameboyRMH]

New technologies can undermine all laws. Laws must be updated to address the new technologies. Surveillance is another area where the effects are obvious.

Here is the "dialogue".

[Dishevel]

You can't have weapons I can not afford!

This article misses a point

[reovirus1]

As technology advances it can also decentralize power. Laws of war are cute to discuss if there are nations that are only capable of waging war. They are a mute point when some crazy dude in a home made bio lab engineers the next bubonic plague.

Ha.

[Dishevel]

I love it when idiots speak. "There are no justifiable wars." Get a life, get an education, then get a woman. The reason that the Taliban are going to win is because we can no longer prosecute a war properly due to all the fucking pansies in our own country. The rules are now something like this. Don't hurt any civilians. Do not cause any collateral damage. Do not do anything that could be construed as not nice. Then and only then if you are still alive can you start to think about killing the enemy. The rules should go back to ... Kill the enemy, Destroy their ability to prosecute the war and then try to kill as few innocents as possible. War is bad. When you start one do what it takes to win it fast.

Re:Ha.

[NatasRevol]

Tell me why the Taliban are our 'enemy'?

Re:Ha.

[operagost]

OoRAH!

Re:Ha.

[Dishevel]

They are not. They are the enemies of little girls who want to go to school.

Technically we could say "Fuck em, Let the little girls burn!"

For myself though I am perfectly ok with prosecuting a "kill em all" war vs people who do that. But ....

You are right. We could just leave that part of the world to its own devices. Sadams sons can walk down the street and rape the bitches and we can sit by and watch as little girls are murdered because they want to learn. We can allow genocide as long as it is not us they are killing. We can wait until all that is good on the earth is burned out by evil as long as they leave us til last.

Re:Ha.

[NatasRevol]

That's a good cover story when most of the known oil reserves (at the time) were right below those 'little girls'.

Who had been getting raped for decades but we didn't care until access to the oil was threatened.

At least try to be honest in our motivations.

Re:Ha.

[Dishevel]

Cool. So are you mad because we allowed little girls to die or because during the conflict we stole all their oil and now we have 1$/Gal gas here?

I am just glad when we get it right.

Re:Ha.

[NatasRevol]

They're still getting raped. Now by US soldiers as well as their own countrymen.

We have cheaper gas.

Tell me why we went to war?

Re:Ha.

[Dishevel]

You do realize we got not one gallon of gas out of there. Right?

Re:Ha.

[NatasRevol]

Other than 13% of it?

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/11/150444802/where-does-america-get-oil-you-may-be-surprised

And it was much more back in 2001.

Re:Ha.

[jbolden]

Because they harbored Al Qaeda after Al Qaeda attacked us. They were an accessory after the fact on the fist major successful bombing operation since Pearl Harbor and the first major success operation in the continental United States since the war of 1812.

Re:Ha.

[NatasRevol]

And were we invading their country before they attacked us?

Consequences are a bitch.

Re:Ha.

[NatasRevol]

LOL. Try to get facts out of a military court?

No.

Go google it. Too many stories.

Re:Ha.

[cusco]

Actually, no one ever wins in Afghanistan but the Afghans (a grouping of peoples which is about as nebulous as can be). No one has managed to hold that territory for more than a generation since Alexander the Great. Not the British, not the Moguls, not the Mongols, not the Kazakhs, not even the Persians. The utter stupidity of the Pentagon rarely amazes me any more, but when they agreed to take over Afghanistan I was totally flabbergasted. WTF were they even thinking?

Re:Ha.

[jbolden]

How were we invading Afghanistan before the attack?

Re:Ha.

[NatasRevol]

You mean there were no US military in Afganistan before 2001?

We didn't take advantage of the civil war in the 1980s & 1990s?

Shit, Al-quaeda was using our own weapons from back then against us in 2001.

Re:Ha.

[Evtim]

US soldiers rape even in "allied" countries. Japan - that's easy to find. I am too revolted to do the search in my native tongue, but I can assure you that we had such case in my country too, not long after the establishment of the first american base. Teen girls there were...

Every army is an army of rapists and the awful, terrible secret is that , well, secretly the misogyny is encouraged in the military, US not excluded...

Re:Ha.

[stdarg]

Every army is an army of rapists

Sure, and every civilian group is a civilian group of rapists, because some civilians also rape. So really it's just rapists fighting rapists. Why do you care?

Re:Ha.

[stdarg]

Military being present is not the same as "invading." We were working WITH the Taliban against the Soviets.

You could say we invaded Soviet Afghanistan, but we did not invade the Taliban, they invited us in.

Re:Ha.

[stdarg]

Why do the Afghans win? Because they're still there afterwards?

It doesn't make sense to define winning like that unless you think the only goal of war is genocide. America can go where it wants, shoot people, fly planes and drones, set up bases. It can't do that for free, but it can do it as much and as often as it likes. It can also leave if it likes.

If you can do whatever you like, didn't you pretty much win?

Re:Ha.

[cusco]

Because they're still there afterwards?

Because they're the ONLY ones there afterwards. The British couldn't even set up a satrap to rule in their stead when they pulled out, and the day the US withdraws is the day Karzai needs to grab his stolen wealth and start running.

The purpose of warfare is generally to control something, be it territory, a trade route, raw materials, a population, whatever. By no reasonable standards does the US control most of the Afghan countryside, they can't even stop farmers from planting opium a couple of miles from their bases. Opium is easily visible from the air, and production is at record highs. The US can't stop them from processing the thousands of tons of opium into hundreds of tons of heroin, which requires thousands of gallons of chemicals that they can't seem to control, nor can it stop them from exporting those hundreds of tons of product all over the world. The same goes for hashish, which Afghanistan supplies most of the world with as well.

After a dozen years of the second-most expensive occupation in history the entire accomplishments of the US in Afghanistan is that they control most of Kabul and some if its suburbs, their heavily-armed military bases are secure, and they control some of the mountain passes. Even in Vietnam a soldier could visit a bar or brothel alone and unarmed and expect to survive. Any claim that the US is somehow "winning" in Afghanistan is nothing more than fantasy.

Re:Ha.

[stdarg]

The purpose of warfare is generally to control something, be it territory, a trade route, raw materials, a population, whatever.

I think that's the traditional purpose of warfare but today it's not. America fights wars of principle. Why do we interfere in random civil wars like Bosnia? What did we gain? Why did people want the US to get involved in Rwanda? Why did we start giving weapons to Syrian rebels? Because we think we'll be in control of Syria afterwards?

It's a product of being rich and detached from the actual conflict. Personally I think it's linked to the decline of religion in the US. People need something to believe in, and war gives us such a thing -- that we're these awesome champions of justice, that we're going to go make a positive difference in the world, etc. I saw it first hand when the US liberated Iraq. Nobody who supported the war said "Oh sweet we'll control their territory forever." People GENUINELY thought that once we liberated them and showed them democracy and stuff that they'd be our new buddies.

After a dozen years of the second-most expensive occupation in history the entire accomplishments of the US in Afghanistan is that they control most of Kabul and some if its suburbs, their heavily-armed military bases are secure, and they control some of the mountain passes.

Look I readily agree that if the goal is to control the territory and make them like us, then we've lost. I don't think that's the goal. If the goal is to say "This is what happens when you harbor terrorists who we don't also support.." then we won. If it's just to say "Look we can still do what we want when we want and no other country is going to step in to help our target" then we won.

If you're cynical maybe it's to say "Look we have enough control over our domestic affairs and population that we can wage the 2nd most expensive occupation in history, get nothing out of it, and face no consequences."

Bottom line, winning a war today, when war is about principles, is entirely subjective. There are winners and losers on both sides. In my opinion, the Afghanistan War was about punishment and we won. Then it morphed into a humanitarian mission, which is separate, and stupid, and we will not win that. The Iraq War also had two parts. We obviously won the military part, and again lost/will lose the humanitarian part. That said, who knows... maybe the Kurds will break away from Iraq and in hindsight it will be a net win (though why we care is beyond me).

Re:Ha.

[jbolden]

You mean there were no US military in Afganistan before 2001?

Yes.

We didn't take advantage of the civil war in the 1980s & 1990s?

There was no Taliban then. And that wasn't an invasion, that was CIA and mostly in Pakistan. We were on the side of the Islamic militants against the Russians.

Historically, laws always thrown out for guerillas

[Koreantoast]

Should be noted that even back during the Napoleonic era, organized armies struggled with rules and regulations how to deal with irregular forces. The term guerrilla after all came from that era. They struggled with how to treat such individuals and were forced into the same messy counterinsurgency campaigns that you see today (perhaps even uglier since there were less restraints on just outright torching villages and massacring civilians). This wasn't just limited to the French or that time either: you saw this with just about every major civilization throughout the world and most of history as a continuous problem up until today. Any laws or conventions were always thrown out when dealing with unconventional forces, with organized armies feeling "freed" of constraints when dealing with them.

Civilized

[internerdj]

While I'll give our views are largely due to our cultural religious heritage, violence is intrusive and unexpected while sexuality is welcome and often the product of considerable effort. That is a highly important distinction when we consider how often to discuss them culturally and when and how we introduce the topics to our children.

Re:"Laws" of war?

[ElitistWhiner]

On point, concise, factual and directly focused on First Principles. Of course this post is rated -1. That's why you need to read the (-) comments first!

Headline ends with a question mark

[tomhath]

Therefore you can be sure the answer is "No".

Roman emperors sent their legions out to make war. Those men were expendable, same as an unmanned drone today; nothing has changed.

Re:Headline ends with a question mark

[mjwalshe]

A Legion was not expendable - Losing 3 legions at Teutoburg effectively stopped the roman empire's expansion north ward

Einstein also encouraged US to create a-bomb

[drnb]

There are no justifiable wars ...

I'll leave you with this well known Einstein quote: ... how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

Einstein also wrote letters to President Roosevelt to convince him to create an atomic bomb. If you read the quote you offer you will find that it refers to offensive wars for patriotic reasons. It does not preclude defensive wars in response to an actual threat. Which is the context in which he wrote President Roosevelt.

The quote you offer in fact contradicts your premise. Even Einstein believed that some wars were justifiable. In this case a war resisting the Nazis.

Before you offer his later quote regretting his role in the atomic bomb's development note that it was in the context that Germany would not have developed the bomb prior to its defeat. That the fear of a Nazi a-bomb would never have been realized. He still considered his action justifiable in the sense that at the time (1939) it seemed very plausible that that Nazi's might attain the a-bomb.

War is bad/wrong/immoral -- sometimes necessary

[drnb]

War is bad/wrong/immoral.

That is what an elderly man once taught me when I was a child. He also taught me that it was regrettably necessary at times. The elderly man was once a paratrooper who jumped into Normandy the night before the D-Day landings.

He deeply regretted the regular army troops they killed, he wished there had been some way to get to those responsible for the war without going through these men. But there was not so they did what was unfortunately necessary. He had no regrets about the SS troops they killed, they were part of the political machine that caused the war.

Re:"Laws" of war?

[msobkow]

Of course it was modded down. I mentioned the Americans. Can't mention the Americans, or the rah-rah flag waving troops will mod you down because they're "offended".

no justified war?

[schlachter]

Certainly the Iraqi's and Afghani's would call their defense of the US invasion a justified war.

Israeli military works a bit like this...

[schlachter]

at least the first part.

the IDF has the highest senior officer/commander casualty rate in the world because they are required to lead their troops out front on the battlefield. you often see generals on the front lines directing combat.

they also have mandatory military service, so any gov member who votes for war is sending their children/family to war.

Study ancient tribes...

[Firethorn]

'Total War' is pretty much an invention of the industrial age. If you look at various ancient tribes, you'll find that their conflicts are wrapped in various traditions that if you strip the various trappings away amount to 'make sure your tribe survives, even if it means that you can't wipe out the other tribe'. Things like if you kill a single enemy you must immediately leave the battlefield and purify yourself, which helps ensure that your best warriors(who are often also your best hunters) are preserved to fight another day. The Medieval period had a fairly elaborate ransom system.

Even without ransom treating captured enemies relatively well helps encourage them to surrender faster, which helps preserve your own troops. When conducting war to gain resources, it's almost as important to avoid pyhrric 'victories' as it is to avoid defeats.

Please note that I'm not making moral judgments about justifications for war here

The Brits did not ask to be bombed

[BranMan]

Actually, a few did. Germany was pounding the RAF into the ground (figuratively and literally) to achieve air supremacy before invading across the Channel. Long range bombing attacks on Berlin were ordered, inflicting little damage, but enraging Hitler. Who ordered the massive bombing campaign of London (against the council of his generals). Leaving the RAF alone to recover.

A brilliant case of knowing your enemy and manipulating him into doing what you want.

Re:The Brits did not ask to be bombed

[redlemming]

Germany was pounding the RAF into the ground (figuratively and literally) to achieve air supremacy before invading across the Channel.

A popular myth, but long since corrected by modern research (which you can readily find in references published in the last ten or so years).

In reality, the Germans were taking unsustainable losses and failing to inflict proportionate damage well before the decision to attack London was made. A lot of craters were made in runways, but these were easily filled. The "Home Team" advantage was decisive, given the relative parity of the fighters, and the limited range of the German fighters.

In short, the Germans had very poor intelligence regarding the location of key British facilities, and didn't understand what was necessary to knock them out. Like the Allies (both at that point, and later in the war), they massively underestimated the effectiveness of strategic air attack given the primitive equipment and training available.

In the short run, provided the British didn't let internal politics hamstring them, there was no real chance of a German victory from the air.

In the long run, of course, the Germans would have had to confront the same problem that the Allies would eventually have to deal with, namely the need for a long range fighter escort and appropriate doctrine. They were never given the opportunity to do this.