The rules of war

[Rhyfelwyr]

I think there is a lack of chivarly nowadays.

From now on, wars should be fought be each side selecting a champion, and them pitting him against the opponent in some sort of duel, perhaps to the death. Or perhaps the national leaders should have to fight.

But being serious, rules have always applied in warfare as they can make it much less costly for all sides involved. If competing nations or ideologies can respect each other then rules can make war much less brutal. This isn't a new phenomenon, look at the attempts to ban crossbows in the middle ages, for example.

[Husar]

But being serious, rules have always applied in warfare as they can make it much less costly for all sides involved. If competing nations or ideologies can respect each other then rules can make war much less brutal. This isn't a new phenomenon, look at the attempts to ban crossbows in the middle ages, for example.

Yes, but if you respect eachother that much, why do you go to war in the first place instead of having a respectful discussion and arriving at a conclusion that has much more respect for human life than even a "respectful war" in which usually still a lot of people, human beings(yes, I see soldiers as such), die all the time?

What you said just means (and i knew it but forgot when writing the OP) that this kind of weird attempts have been going on for quite some time, like not killing the officers or in other words, not killing the ones who send others to die because, well why?

[Mikeus Caesar]

War...war never changes.

[InsaneApache]

The rules of war = oxymoron.

To suggest that war should have rules would be hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic. It's not a game of chess.

[CountArach]

The rules of war = oxymoron.

To suggest that war should have rules would be hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic. It's not a game of chess.

So terror bombings of refugees is fine?

Shooting at the Red Cross is fine?

Torturing POWs is fine?

Forced labour from POWs is fine?

Taking a hospital by force is fine?

Shooting those who have surrendered is fine?

[Hooahguy]

"the victors make the rules"

in reality, i think the geneva convention should be thrown away, and world leaders meet to make new "rules."
like being allowed to blow up a car speeding towards you, even though you dont know his intentions.
the restrictive ROE is whats causing our troops deaths in iraq/afganistan.

[CountArach]

"the victors make the rules"

in reality, i think the geneva convention should be thrown away, and world leaders meet to make new "rules."
like being allowed to blow up a car speeding towards you, even though you dont know his intentions.
the restrictive ROE is whats causing our troops deaths in iraq/afganistan.

The Geneva Convention is what are keeping many Iraqi and Afghan civilians alive. The number of soldiers who die pale in comparison to the number of civilians who are protected.

[KarlXII]

"the victors make the rules"

in reality, i think the geneva convention should be thrown away, and world leaders meet to make new "rules."

What's so bad about Geneva that it needs to be thrown away?

the restrictive ROE is whats causing our troops deaths in iraq/afganistan.

It's also what's causing the low civilian deaths.

[InsaneApache]

No, not fine. My view is that if you're going to war then rules are irrelevent. Wars are terrible things. Attempts to civilize wars are pipe dreams. If you decide to have rules then you need an umpire.

It's not a boxing match.

[Fragony]

No, not fine. My view is that if you're going to war then rules are irrelevent. Wars are terrible things. Attempts to civilize wars are pipe dreams. If you decide to have rules then you need an umpire.

It's not a boxing match.

Reading tip http://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Terror.../dp/0375508430

[Seamus Fermanagh]

So terror bombings of refugees is fine?

Shooting at the Red Cross is fine?

Torturing POWs is fine?

Forced labour from POWs is fine?

Taking a hospital by force is fine?

Shooting those who have surrendered is fine?

Judging from the 20th century track record of almost everyone, we'd probably have to say "yes."

[LittleGrizzly]

These rules have saved countless lives throughout the years, they basically protect everyone, even if your enemy does not follow these rules by holding yourself to a higher moral standard you can show that you are the on the side of right...

Besides, these days any developed country that doesn't follow these rules gets such a pr backlash that it is worth following them for that reason alone...

[HoreTore]

Or perhaps the national leaders should have to fight.

Saddam, Bush and two pairs of boxing gloves. Awesome.

[LittleGrizzly]

Or perhaps the national leaders should have to fight.

It would give us a whole new set of criteria to elect people on... Putin and Russia would kick some serious ass!

[InsaneApache]

Well that isn't really applicable to any developed countries at the moment, they don't do unwinnable wars (well unwinnable against enemies military, occupation is a whole other problem)

That's what they said in 1913 and 1938.

[PanzerJaeger]

The concept of the rules of war is the ultimate oxymoron, and they are most often simply a means of enforcing victor's justice.

[KarlXII]

The concept of the rules of war is the ultimate oxymoron, and they are most often simply a means of enforcing victor's justice.

God forbid we, you know, actually don't shoot at civilians.

[Ironside]

Well, I've been thinking now and then about the rules of war, like the geneva convention etc. the banning of the use of gas and so on, one might want to include not killing civilians or medics in that as well although I couldn't say whether that's part of any treaty or not as I never studied such treaties.

Well, my point for the debate is that these rules give me a weird vibe in the sense that war is usually some kind of last resort after diplomacy has failed, a type of aggression of a ruthless country/regime to gain more power or a desperate defense of a country being attacked by another. Now in any case it is a matter of life or death and the objective used to be to kill your opposition with any means necessary and there can be quite a lot of cruelty as individuals become desperate or angry etc. Now a few nations went and agreed not to use gas for example when they bash eachothers heads in which makes me wonder because once you get to the point of bashing eachothers heads in, why would you restrain yourself and give up on something that could possibly give you an edge over your enemy?
Now you can say gas is cruel but so is collecting your intestines after an artillery hit cut you open, yet they banned gas but not artillery.

I wonder why that is and so far it looks to me like this is either sheer stupidity or a move of politicians to be able to sell war as more acceptable to the public and thus be able to make more war since "it's not that cruel anyway" as if a bullet going right through someone's brain would not create a dirty mess or something.

And one might wonder why nuclear weapons aren't on such a ban list everybody should sign.

Opinions, feelings and explanations welcome.

Short version, it's benefical to not be too cruel in war as it bites back as a winner and as a looser. For a winner, killing everybody= no profit on winning + everyone hates you and actually makes active moves to down you + makes it very bad to loose. For loosers, well usually you're alive to see the consequences and knifing a police at a police station might not be that best move...

Taking prisoners makes it more likely to get enemies that surrender, not sacking surrending cities makes other cities more likely not to resist, etc, etc.

Some things are "acceptable" in war, while some are not and the rules are there to see when it's gone too far. That's also why they end up as guidelines, quite often it's "acceptable" to break them a few times, but it done too often things go bad.

"the victors make the rules"

in reality, i think the geneva convention should be thrown away, and world leaders meet to make new "rules."
like being allowed to blow up a car speeding towards you, even though you dont know his intentions.
the restrictive ROE is whats causing our troops deaths in iraq/afganistan.

You won the war, didn't you read the memo? That's peacekeeping.

Rules of war are developed because, appalling though war is, it does not have to descend to barbarism. The recent discussion on German versus Allied atrocity should provide evidence of that.

In the West, German forces tended to follow the Geneva Conventions. In the East, they treated their foes with malice and wickedness, as sub-humans undeserving of law. They reaped a terrible whirlwind in turn.

Rules of war are less there for the war - much more in the hope of a lasting peace.

Well said. It can also be noticed that the German activities on the Eastern front costed them a considerble amount of men into partisan duty and turned potential allies (people freed from Stalin) into hostiles.

Backlash? As in the UN sending them a letter saying they "the bad country are being bad boys" because they didn't follow rules?

No, but usually you're supposed to like uhm govern or keep a puppet after victory. It is not a good idea to piss off the population badly (very pissed off population last about a century, and that's after putting down the last of those 20 years cycle rebellions and not counting the insurgence).

You can of course be nice to the population durig a calm period to prevent the next rebellion, but that require you to be nice, thus obeying those ROW and ROE.

Unless, of course, you lose.

When losing, your window is that you can turn the war before your enemy starts outproducing you on your "wunderwaffe" (you're losing for a reason and long wars is all about production) and retaliates ten to one...

Oddly enough, massive retaliation due to vengence is often getting a lesser bad response, even from the looser. Can still be overdone though.

And to relate to the rest of the post, if you know that you, your family and friends are going to die you if loose, do you care? No.

[Rhyfelwyr]

To use an extreme example, if the US and Britain went to war today would you expect them to agree not to use nuclear weapons?

Since Britain would be all but certain to lose, does that mean Britain should abandon the rules and nuke the US?

Of course, the answer is no since it will be shown leniency in its defeat for not doing so.

The only problem is when this mutual trust breaks down. However, its beneficial for the victorious nation to honour the rules, otherwise its reputation will suffer. Play EU3 and get BadBoy points, and that shows why the idea of limited war is vital for both the winner and loser in a conflict. Or M2TW, yeah I could sack Baghdad but then the Egyptians will invade sort of thing.

[rory_20_uk]

Often the case is when one side feels that by just doing that little bit more they'd win:

If they used POWs in the industries
Slightly more indiscriminate bombings
Blockading neutral ships
Slightly more widespread sabotage
Helping distasteful allies

Since in many wars both sides feel like this, things slowly escalate.

From the American Civil War onwards powers have not been magnanimous in victory as the victors have lost so much they didn't view it as the old wrestling match.

Taking no prisoners either means the enemy will fight to the death - or run away. Look at some of the most successful armies. They generally took a dim view of prisoners. These days the logistics of prisoners can mean that abiding by the Geneva Convention cripples the war effort feeding and housing them all.

[KrooK]

Rules of war - hard thing. I don't like massive killin in general but if any country attacked Poland, I would massive kill its civizens (if it was possible).

[Husar]

Well, I could make another topic about why so many civilians are often found in warzones, if someone attacked Germany I'd be out of here ASAP, why should I try to "protect" my belongings when it will most likely just lead to me getting shot or blown up? Or could we link it to this thread and ask whether the ROE of today's militaries make it more likely that civilians try to stay in their homes? I've always found that bahaviour rather idiotic anyway unless the soldiers of their own military force them to stay in which case I'd say a revolution is in order as my govrnment shouldn't have the right to force me to act as a human shield.

[Jolt]

Rules of war - hard thing. I don't like massive killin in general but if any country attacked Poland, I would massive kill its civizens (if it was possible).

...Why?

If Poland invaded Slovakia, you would rally in support of a Slovakian massive terror strike to kill as many Poles as possible?

EDIT: The funny thing I like with Paradox's BadBoy points (Specifically in Victoria) is that once you get powerful enough, it stops mattering whether you have 10 or 100 badboy points (I have 452.53 in my Germany game, which is a gargantuan badboy score) Since I have a VASTLY superior army, navy, prestige and industry, noone even dares declare war (Everyone who declared war on me, met a sad, sad end.)
That said I have double of the overall score (14500) than the second Great Power does, which is the UK (Minus Scotland, which was lost in a war against me).
I think I could compare it into a single World Power which is what we had in the 90's with the USA.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Or perhaps the national leaders should have to fight.

Well, it would at least give some people more incentive to vote Palin. I can see it now...

[Strike For The South]

Putin would beat her senseless....literally

[Husar]

Putin would beat her senseless....literally

Absolutely.

And on the topic of PR etc. why do some weapons have a bad reputation and others not? It was said for example that gas kills slowly and painfully, but like I tried to say in my first post, so do other weapons.

then there is the point that these rules may have saved countless lives so far, although I'd argue nukes have saved even more especially because they are so cruel and deadly that noone would want to fight a war involving them, especially not over smaller issues that may nowadays result in small proxy wars etc. where people die just as well. So in a way these rules make wars more acceptable that may not be fought at all otherwise and possibly shouldn't be fought at all.
Or in other words, politicians may be much more willing to abandon talks and drop a few bombs than they were if they knew that it would be displayed as a bloody mess for both sides (which it probably is either way, but killing with guns seems to be seen as "clean" for some reason).

Or, if you view your enemy as honorable anyway, why do you take up arms against them in the first place? Maybe I'm just not getting it into my little head but it doesn't make sense to me yet somehow.

[PBI]

Absolutely.

And on the topic of PR etc. why do some weapons have a bad reputation and others not? It was said for example that gas kills slowly and painfully, but like I tried to say in my first post, so do other weapons.

As I understand it the bad PR of chemical weapons goes back to the First World War; with the gases used in that war, death was without exception truly atrocious (I suppose an artillery shell can at least in theory offer a quick death) and was one of the most shocking aspects of that war for people at the time (let's face it, if a weapon is so terrible that Hitler will forbid its use in combat for fear of retaliation in kind, it must be pretty bad.) And generally the gases were not terribly efficient; they tended to cripple rather than kill. There does seem to be a trend, as CBR pointed out, to ban weapons which tend to permanently disable rather than kill; perhaps the reasoning is that the generals may be too quick to lob a shell into a school building if they know it will "only" cripple the occupants rather than killing them. After all, the death toll in Iraq is quoted in virtually every news item on the conflict, but estimates of the total number of civilians injured are almost never seen.

I must say that my views on this issue are somewhat undecided at the moment; I find myself somewhat persuaded by the line of argument that by trying to impose rules on war we run the danger of believing that we can sanitize it, and thus will be too willing to use it before all other options are exhausted.

Then again, given that we clearly are all too willing to go to war sooner or later, I really cannot bring myself to agree with the viewpoint that when we do, we should immediately strive for the utter annihilation of the enemy by any means necessary and regardless of the cost or consequences; we need only look at the events of the past ten years in the Congo to see what happens when a war is waged with utter disregard for the populace of the warzone - the deadliest war since the Second World War, which to my dismay looks like it is flaring up once more.

Perhaps it is a choice: Either between a world in which war is started cheaply, but need not always be fought out to the bitter end, or a world in which wars are infrequent, but when they come, come as vast apocalypses wiping out huge swaths of population.

then there is the point that these rules may have saved countless lives so far, although I'd argue nukes have saved even more especially because they are so cruel and deadly that noone would want to fight a war involving them, especially not over smaller issues that may nowadays result in small proxy wars etc. where people die just as well.

I must say I am starting to wonder whether universal nuclear armament wouldn't be such a bad idea. MAD has held true so far, and if any nations are idiotic enough to start a war, the ensuing nuclear destruction of both parties would serve as an object lesson in why it is you should never, ever start a war. Meanwhile, the threat of fallout will serve as a powerful incentive for the countries neighboring the combatants to do everything in their power to mediate a diplomatic solution.

Hmm. Maybe I need to watch Dr. Strangelove again, and take notes this time...