The rules of war

[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.