SYRIA thread

[Montmorency]

If any serious conflict in the vein of WW2 happens again, all those rules and regulations will go out the window, like they did in WW2.

While I do agree that we shouldn't forego of rules because it is hard to enforce them, at the moment it is really a matter of what's the country in question relations with the west rather than what happens on the ground.

If Assad is brought to answer, it won't be because of his crimes against civilians but because he opposed US idea for Syria and the region.

There is in fact no "last resort" in war, other than the end of hostilities by the total liquidation of civilization. For most, it's not a measurable standard when nothing else matters.

Civillians in the West are worried about threats that might directly affect them. So Biological / Nuclear and Chemical are all worrying things. Machetes, AKs and so on are not since they happen Over There - with Americans' fetish on shooting each other being the Western anomaly.

Regarding modalities of violence, I think that Tokyo / Dresden firebombings were as horrific as use of the two atom bombs and in both cases the loss of life / general chaos and terror was so high to be almost incomprehensible for me to imagine sitting in front of a laptop in my front room. Ditto the "incident" in Rwanda / Uganda which might have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people but this apparently wasn't an issue for the West. Close to being sticks and stones - knives and cleavers in the main part.

Conflicts have in general terms become less violent but I think that this has more to do with our global economy is now far less "land based" - what is the point of having an Empire and having to suppress all those people when you can get far more money from dominating their markets - and they thank you for this? In essence, killing customers is bad, and outsourcing ownership to a local strong man i one's pocket is much more cost effective. China is trying to take as much sea as they can and control the trade links and view this as far more valuable than trying to stick their flag into (for example) Afghanistan. Better to pay the locals for a mining contract and take what you need.

Nuclear missile reductions was a good thing. Of course, now Russia and perhaps the USA are both in breach of it (and both sides kept enough to sterilise the entire planet for probably tens of metres under the surface).

The UN was a good idea. As was the League of Nations before it. That was scrapped as it didn't work but I imagine they now realise that if we keep scrapping these things until we get one that is actually obeyed we'll be doing it for ever. I do not really see how different countries interpreting UN mandates differently when they get one and have a "coalition of the willing" when they don't. The rules of engagement might have altered, but Von Bismark would fit right in after learning the new phrases.

China changes everything, don't they? Including the nuclear balance, despite a formal no-first-strike policy. They are in the position of getting to run a rather efficient non-ideological empire, using the master's economic tools against us...

The civilian, or noncombatant, has always been essential to the prosecution and maintenance of war, often more so than the warfighters themselves. This is part of the reason why civilians have always been targeted from prehistoric times (other reasons including because it is expedient, because it is lucrative, and because it sates carnal impulses). The importance of civilians in and around the war machine relative to the combatants themselves has perhaps never been higher. At the same time, the targeting of civilians has never been less legitimate, and protections extended never greater.

Yet still the most effective means of bringing favorable termination to almost any conflict today would be the ruthless targeting of civilians. We should be very worried - here in the West.

Did they? I wasn't aware that everyone used chemical weapons on a large scale in WW2.

Unless you count flamethrowers, explosives and guns as chemical weapons because they all use chemical reactions.

Smoke and tear gas may technically count.