Voidwalkin
Emperor
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2024
- Messages
- 1,395
Do these actually exist meaningfully? Is it plausible to imagine that any consensus reached on this issue will actually last, or, is this a doomed concept?
I don't think that they exist in wars both sides are seriously committed to, not in high-stakes wars. The bombings of the Axis powers, particularly Japan, could be defined as war crimes. McNamara, who had penned a report that influenced LeMay, retrospectively declared that he and LeMay both were acting as war criminals in WW2. Yet, I have little doubt that America would be willing to undertake similar actions in a war of industrial scale, and our adversary likely would too(presuming it doesn't go nuclear).
With less important wars, wars that contribute to a states power but maybe don't threaten its existence, proxy wars, the only de facto use of the laws of war appears to be to bolster or diminish a side's moral authority for political reasons. Major actors still commit war crimes routinely in these conflicts, regardless, and I'm unaware of frankly any instances in which it could be fairly said that a side was actually committed to investigating itself for its own excesses. Famously, those on the ground claim My Lai was a routine thing, simply unreported.
I don't really love the concept of war crimes generally, which is kinda obvious. I think they make war more likely by obscuring from a public what exactly is going to inevitably follow. An honest appraisal of war should reveal the idea of a "clean" war is extremely unlikely and perhaps even impossible, but a belief that it can be leads otherwise good people to be more likely to believe they can apply mass violence to do good and solve a political problem(which I think should be done more seldomly and less lightly)
Anybody else have thoughts on this matter as a concept?
I don't think that they exist in wars both sides are seriously committed to, not in high-stakes wars. The bombings of the Axis powers, particularly Japan, could be defined as war crimes. McNamara, who had penned a report that influenced LeMay, retrospectively declared that he and LeMay both were acting as war criminals in WW2. Yet, I have little doubt that America would be willing to undertake similar actions in a war of industrial scale, and our adversary likely would too(presuming it doesn't go nuclear).
With less important wars, wars that contribute to a states power but maybe don't threaten its existence, proxy wars, the only de facto use of the laws of war appears to be to bolster or diminish a side's moral authority for political reasons. Major actors still commit war crimes routinely in these conflicts, regardless, and I'm unaware of frankly any instances in which it could be fairly said that a side was actually committed to investigating itself for its own excesses. Famously, those on the ground claim My Lai was a routine thing, simply unreported.
I don't really love the concept of war crimes generally, which is kinda obvious. I think they make war more likely by obscuring from a public what exactly is going to inevitably follow. An honest appraisal of war should reveal the idea of a "clean" war is extremely unlikely and perhaps even impossible, but a belief that it can be leads otherwise good people to be more likely to believe they can apply mass violence to do good and solve a political problem(which I think should be done more seldomly and less lightly)
Anybody else have thoughts on this matter as a concept?