The rules of war

[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.

[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.

[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...

[CountArach]

Let's have a quick look at some of the current 'rules'.

It's OK to bayonet, shoot, stab, nuke, blow up, strangle people.

It's not OK to use landmines, gas, lasers(to blind), starve people.

Either way you're dead. Why does it matter if you get bayonetted (good) but not blinded by a laser (bad)?

Thats why it's ridiculous.

All of the second list that you have there have far larger civilian repercussions. The first list (Baring Nuclear Weapons, which IMO should be in the second list seeing as there are treaties which have attempted to remove them and public opinion is almost entirely against thie ruse in warfare) almost always only kill a single person - mostly a soldier.

To take Landmines as an example of why we need treaties to stop the use of inhumane weapons. My grandmother and grandfather do a lot of charity work in south-east Asia. They brought back video footage of them in a camp where many civilians who had had limbs blown off by landmines lived in a colony. There were children there with only 1 leg, or 1 arm. This is wrong and there is no way that people can continue to justify the use of weapons with potential civilian effects after seeing stuff like that. I watched the video and I could not help but think just how unjust the use of such weapons are. THAT is why they need to be banned.

However, if that isn't enough then just look at the statistics:

• In 2006 a total 5,751 casualties from mines, ERW and victim-activated IEDs were recorded in 68 countries and areas, including 1,367 people killed and 4,296 injured (88 were unknown).
• The actual total number of mine/ERW/victim-activated IED casualties is unknown but certainly higher than 5,751, as data collection is inadequate or non-existent in 64 of 68 countries with recorded casualties.
• As in previous years, in 2006 civilians accounted for three-quarters of recorded casualties and children were 34 percent of civilian casualties, nearly all boys.
• Some 24 percent of casualties were military; this increase from 2005 (19 percent) is due to one country, Colombia, which accounts for 57 percent of all military casualties. Excluding Colombia, 12 percent of casualties would be military.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Productivity]

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

Backlash as in an extended and intensive insurgency that costs thosands of US lives? Am I talking in the realm of hypothesis, or has the US found somewhere to demonstrate why following the rules is a good idea?

Do you know anyone who has died in Iraq? Do you think that maybe if the US had followed the rules, the insurgent who had taken their life may not have been so outraged to commit extreme violence?

This isn't a shot at the US specifically - it apples to jsut about every nation that has been involved in war - the US is just an example that's probably a lot closer to most people here.

[Rhyfelwyr]

It's like the situation with raising chickens. Some people say, if we are going to eat them anyway, why be nice to them and put them on free range when we could just pour grain down their throats through tubes 24/7.

Some weapons are disproportionately cruel considering their effectiveness.

[InsaneApache]

Have you seen the price of an 'organic' 'free range' chicken these days?

Give me a battery hen anytime, they're a quater of the price.

Force fed by tubes is foi gras. Not chucks.