Laws of War?

Voidwalkin

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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?
 
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?
The rules keep on existing, until a major power can expect to win (or avoid losing) if it breaks them.
Happened in all conflicts. Unrestricted submarine warfare is a good example.
 
Most war crimes are as wasteful for military resources as they are abhorrent to the one suffering them. Ex. had Nazi Germany spent less time with their little thing there in East Europe instead of fighting the Red Army, maybe they could've won the war; instead they insisted on massacring a bunch of potential allies vs. Stalin because they were thought of as icky and gross.

As to poison gas, similarly I think it would be used far more often if it was actually reliable. But it tends to blow where it wants and sits in low-lying areas. So let's just outlaw it; it's not like any infantry sergeant ever said "yeah I need that poison gas to win a firefight and not HE artillery".

With the laws of war, they are just made to outlaw stuff that is so beyond the pale for its utter antiquatedness that it only serves as a form of political terror (only now brought to the battlefield) rather than true military prowess. So I think that's a component too...
 
Poison gas it is then.
No convention deters its use. WW2, fear of retaliation. More modern conflicts, both retaliation, and also the moral outrage creates political disadvantages often of more weight than victory. In either instance, calling it a war crime does not create the moral horror that may bring retaliation or political disadvantage. It's the effects of the weapon itself. Convention? Irrelevant.

When a state is against the wall? In those cases, neither Assad nor Saddam saw their use of this class meet immediate intervention. Laws of war really are just suggestions of war.

What relevance does the convention have?

...it's actually useful to convince domestic publics in the West(particularly America) to flex power on assumption nobody will get hurt that doesn't have it coming, and this really seldom actually happens that way.
 
No convention deters its use. WW2, fear of retaliation. More modern conflicts, both retaliation, and also the moral outrage creates political disadvantages often of more weight than victory. In either instance, calling it a war crime does not create the moral horror that may bring retaliation or political disadvantage. It's the effects of the weapon itself. Convention? Irrelevant.

When a state is against the wall? In those cases, neither Assad nor Saddam saw their use of this class meet immediate intervention. Laws of war really are just suggestions of war.

What relevance does the convention have?

...it's actually useful to convince domestic publics in the West(particularly America) to flex power on assumption nobody will get hurt that doesn't have it coming, and this really seldom actually happens that way.
Yes, and the Japanese army in WWII might have been entirely correct and justified in their assumptions that allied soldiers that had surrendered were dishonored to the point of having forfeit their very lives, etc?

There clearly are all manner of rules involved in it all. And when they are broken...

There's an already old formulation about taking care when staring into the abyss.
 
What happens when rules are broken clearly is determined by who wins.
Charges of Crimes against Hellenism (analogue of later 'crimes against humanity') ultimately only fell on Athens.
 
Yes, and the Japanese army in WWII might have been entirely correct and justified in their assumptions that allied soldiers that had surrendered were dishonored to the point of having forfeit their very lives, etc?

There clearly are all manner of rules involved in it all. And when they are broken...

There's an already old formulation about taking care when staring into the abyss.
In contrast, the American war criminals McNamara and LeMay(both by their own admission) later became Secretary of Defense and Chief of the Air Force, respectively.
 
Do you people think there should be more or less international law?

That's the real question.
 
Laws are basically a consensus put into explicit wording, where people find that they would overall benefit from keeping everyone accountable on some actions.
They are generally a good thing - as if everyone tend to agree some things shouldn't be done, it's often there is a very good reason for them not to be done.

The enforcement is usually the problem. To enforce a law, you need some coercitive force, be it formal military/police power, or at least the collective pressure making it costly to not respect.
Once someone becomes strong or mad enough to not care for the consequences, rules become hard to enforce.

And obviously, if survival hangs in the balance, rules like anything else become inconsequential when violating them could give a way out.
 
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So "less", or perhaps more aptly "none", is your answer.
What other answer could be given? A law that is not or cannot be enforced is not really a law at all. In theory, it's good I guess? I just don't think it matters. In practice, the strong still do what they can, the weak still suffer what they must.
 
What other answer could be given? A law that is not or cannot be enforced is not really a law at all. In theory, it's good I guess? I just don't think it matters. In practice, the strong still do what they can, the weak still suffer what they must.
Laws are made. They never happen by themselves Somehow you don't think it worthwhile. So that's not a passive and defeatist position?

Enforcement requires power, and that requires political will at they very least. Assembling the necessary power is an option, never mind how distant or difficult it might seem. But if the default attitude before even beginning to try is that it's just impossible... – then that is obviously completely self-fulfilling.

And then there is the lure of the kind of self-absolving ideas of "poltical realism" according to which "the strong do what they like, and the weak suffer what they must", and so that is then supposedly "natural" – but the outcome of that tends to be abominable.

So another set of questions that follow bring up how much injustice in the world we are individually willing and able to rationalize – rather than try to increase the balance in favor of greater justice? However, already the ancient Greek were keenly aware that power untempered by justice is an inherently unstable situation.

People tend to be very aware of when they have been subjected to an injustice. People also in general are vicariously sympathetic towards other people seen to be subject to injustices of some kind. Hence the need to rationalize the injustices as if not "natural", then at least "inevitable". But it's still rationalization.
 
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Enforcement requires power, and that requires political will at they very least. Assembling the necessary power is an option, never mind how distant or difficult it might seem. But if the default attitude before even beginning to try is that it's just impossible... – then that is obviously completely self-fulfilling.
You're bringing morality into what is, at the core, the most competitive and utilitarian of all human endeavors. Morality is gonna be consistently overruled by the nature of competition, and will to respond perpetually lacking, usually entirely.

Also to be considered, enforcement would actually be fairly dangerous. Horrific, potentially. If nuclear power A decides to intervene against B, because of war crimes against C, there's a non-zero chance of millions dead. Of course, states know this.
So another set of questions that follow bring up how much injustice in the world we are individually willing and able to rationalize – rather than try to increase the balance in favor of greater justice? However, already the ancient Greek were keenly aware that power untempered by justice is an inherently unstable situation.

People tend to be very aware of when they have been subjected to an injustice. People also in general are vicariously sympathetic towards other people seen to be subject to injustices of some kind. Hence the need to rationalize the injustices as if not "natural", then at least "inevitable". But it's still rationalization.
"So, Mister Von Braun, we hear ya employed a little bit of slave labor at Pennemunde. More than a little bit. You were also surely aware your rockets were built specifically to terrorbomb London. But we want that expertise and don't want our competitors to have it, and you work for us now".

Laws of war are a Western thing, but the West itself follows them inconsistently, because competition. Other regions use them as a game for political advantage and others further from the West culturally and geographically don't seem to care much. The moral consensus that they're meant to express exists independently, but only solidly in the West; the idea that there's a universal concept of fairness at play is just sorta naive. It isn't so. Tons of peoples are OK with indiscriminate slaughter, applauding it for one reason or another(often not even good ones)

If it can't be enforced and isn't universal, yeah, it's not without wisdom to say it's naive to try, and that naivete could be far more disastrous than whatever war act is alleged to be criminal to begin with.
 
Some academicians are of the view that quite a few countries are stuck one or two global status eras ago. We had the cold war and then we had the US as sole superpower, but things have been moving towards a multi-polar status for a while.
Shifting sands aren't nice, but it's even worse to be there and instead of trying to get out you start reciting how it was when you were not and that consequently the sand should stop moving.
 
"War crimes" are keeping Putin from traveling except to friendly nations.
 
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've bolded the part where you've answered your own question.

War is ultimately conducted to some kind of political end. If there is some kind of agreement on what is or isn't acceptable in warfare, even if there is no effective formal enforcement mechanism, breaches of the laws of war still detrimentally impact a belligerent's moral authority and therefore its legitimacy.

And there is agreement. No nukes, no plagues, no poison gas, no explicit genocide, no random executions of civilians, prisoners of war, etc are pretty universally accepted. Things like blockades, collatoral damage, strategic bombings are still grey areas.

This imposes costs on belligerents. Since as you point out a "clean" war is basically impossible, nations going to war really need to weigh how much legitimacy they will lose versus what they want to gain from it.

When the stakes are existential the calculations change, legitimacy matters less than survival.
 
Enforcement is really the issue. Usually the invader is the one in the wrong.

Clean wars are impossible. I think it's mostly to avoid the worst excesses.
 
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