Valuing Genocide

[Rodion Romanovich]

Difficult to predict exactly where the line is drawn, i.e. what needed to not happen to make a difference. I'm merely making a very rough assessment of the potential outcome with none of these things, comparing it with what happened with all of them. Exactly what would be the result of something in between I think is very difficult to predict, it requires more complex models. In short however, there is a quite strong correlation between increased unprovoked atrocities and bad end results for the one who does that.

The main idea is that atrocities strengthens the fighting spirit of the opponents and makes neutrals more tempted to join the opponent's side. More often than not, with the end result that the one who committed the atrocity is overwhelmed by superior force. This obviously fails in the cases where the one who is guilty of the atrocity has extremely superior forces before this occurs, to the point that no alliances can be formed against the aggressor in the nearest future (i.e. Native Americans and some colonialism examples). That doesn't exclude the possibility of a counter-atrocity occuring one or a few centuries afterwards, especially if the problem and reppression still remains by that time.

What are you basing this numerical argument on?

This is common sense. Say one group contains 10K people, and it wages war with 10 groups with each 10K people. It slaughters and genocides many of these groups, say kills 1K people in each. In each conflict it suffers 300 casualties (such casualty ratios are uncommonly good compared to historical examples). In total the reppressive group suffers 3K casualties over the period, compared to 1K per the same amount of people in the other groups. Basically you need to have excessive, impossible, unrealistic kill-loss ratios to lose less than your opponents if you have many opponents. You can do this calculation more exactly by looking at population sizes and calculate their respective casualties compared to the roman ones.

[econ21]

The main idea is that atrocities strengthens the fighting spirit of the opponents ...

I think there's a lot of truth in that. I am not sure the Holocaust against the Jews had a marked affect on the war with Germany. However, there was a definitely lagged effect, with the determination never to let it happened to them again being a major factor behind the Jews fighting like tigers to establish and defend Israel. Moreover, Germany definitely suffered from its harsh treatment of Russian prisoners of war and occupied parts of the USSR. The early mass surrenders of the Red Army soon stopped when it was realised how bad the survival chances of Russian POWs were. It is also argued that the brutal German occupation alienated non-Russians and other subject people who were no lovers of Stalin.

The Rwanda example is also a case of genocide encouraging opponents (the RPF) to fight harder. An RPF battalion was in Kigali and held out under siege. The main force cut their way through to the capital all the faster because they knew every day lost meant thousands more innocents were butchered.

...and makes neutrals more tempted to join the opponent's side.

I am less sure of that point. I doubt it mattered much in WW2 (or with Israel). In Rwanda, the genociders targeted the neutrals (the UN blue berets) to terrorise them into withdrawing. France only increased its intervention when it was clear those committing genocide were losing and even then it came perilously close to protecting them.

[Orb]

'Well again the romans are an example of extreme military superiority - a set of legions and auxilia which in total numbered 500,000 men with proper difficult to pierce armor against poor weapons from smaller, separated tribes conquered one at a time.'

Which time period are you looking at? You'll find that their enemies normally had decent weapons and armour too, and when they didn't, it was normally due to Roman oppression or aggression earlier.

'And I oppose to your view on the roman empire case being an exception. Surely it fell after centuries, but over that period many more romans than non-romans got slaughtered per population size.'

This seems unlikely. You also neglect that those killed of the populations of those other people are too dead to breed, and many of the survivors no longer have property, a high standard of life, or often liberty. Numbers of deaths over the entire history of the empire/republic may well be higher than for their enemies, but that was generally because their enemies ceased to exist as independent peoples in the long term.

'The romans elected the strongest of their population to man the legions, these got killed en masse. Other people did the same, but while suffering more casualties in total, suffered fewer per population size. The roman empire also caused a dramatic change in world politics outside the empire - smaller tribes which had previously had no reason to ally did so. Out of smaller Germanic tribes, the Franks and Allemanni were formed, for instance. No doubt the romans suffered more in the end.'

No. There were plenty of nations, not 'smaller tribes' at the time they started. The Celts also selected their best men. Thanks to the attrition of the Roman war machine and their own civil war, they almost all died.

[Rodion Romanovich]

'Well again the romans are an example of extreme military superiority - a set of legions and auxilia which in total numbered 500,000 men with proper difficult to pierce armor against poor weapons from smaller, separated tribes conquered one at a time.'

Which time period are you looking at? You'll find that their enemies normally had decent weapons and armour too, and when they didn't, it was normally due to Roman oppression or aggression earlier.

'And I oppose to your view on the roman empire case being an exception. Surely it fell after centuries, but over that period many more romans than non-romans got slaughtered per population size.'

This seems unlikely. You also neglect that those killed of the populations of those other people are too dead to breed, and many of the survivors no longer have property, a high standard of life, or often liberty. Numbers of deaths over the entire history of the empire/republic may well be higher than for their enemies, but that was generally because their enemies ceased to exist as independent peoples in the long term.

'The romans elected the strongest of their population to man the legions, these got killed en masse. Other people did the same, but while suffering more casualties in total, suffered fewer per population size. The roman empire also caused a dramatic change in world politics outside the empire - smaller tribes which had previously had no reason to ally did so. Out of smaller Germanic tribes, the Franks and Allemanni were formed, for instance. No doubt the romans suffered more in the end.'

No. There were plenty of nations, not 'smaller tribes' at the time they started. The Celts also selected their best men. Thanks to the attrition of the Roman war machine and their own civil war, they almost all died.

That's what Caesar's prppaganda "De bello gallico" says. I don't consider it a very reliable source for figures. He even claims to have killed a million Gauls in the Gallic wars, which is an unreasonably high percentage of world population at that time (http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldhis.html). Moreoever, don't you think the organization of smaller tribes into larger to fight the romans would have occured quite fast if the romans would have carried out a true genocide each time they conquered an area? Surely terror may have been used to lure out armies avoiding engagement and such, but the ancient figures are as little trustworthy as figures can be - limited plundering is not the same as a genocide. If terror had really been nearly as large scale as the ancient sources imply, then we would damned sure have seen every little child and woman that could walk cut spears to fight the romans. Surely Caesar used terror in his plans, but not nearly to the amount that sources such as "De Bello Gallico" implies, and he hardly had much benefit from it. Even though Caesar's terror was limited, it was enough for the germanic peoples, who had previously been very little united, to unite and massacre the romans in the Teutoburg forest, and the proceed to continually kill roman soldiers along the border. The constant fights on the roman borders led to massive losses of roman lives. The romans also found that they couldn't hold the provinces under roman culture, without allowing the provincial culture to affect rome to a great degree, and let high offices eventually end up in the hands of non-romans. So there was never any total assimilation. In fact, many regions today have several pre-roman rituals and traditions preserved. This couldn't have occured if roman terror had been nearly as bad as in "de bello gallico". I don't know what the DNA guys say either, but my guess is that they'll also find that total destruction of entire peoples as described in some less than reliable ancient sources are vastly exaggerated descriptions of conquests resulting in either integration of the conquered, or their movement to another area.

Again I appeal to common sense: if you have many enemies, say 10, you need to kill 10 times as many of them as you lose yourself, in order to not lose more than them. However, if you can get such good loss ratios, you have certainly no need to use terror to win the war, so if you in such a situation still end up using genocide, you'll send a clear signal to all other countries that you're an absolute maniac that must be dealth with as soon as possible. All neutrals with any desire to live, and any intelligence, will immediately either join an alliance against you, or wait for a time when they can do so. Would you not? Or would you be among those who fall for propaganda such as: "this genocide is an exception, it will never strike you, because YOU are our friend, whereas the current victims are EVIL, UNUSUAL DANGEROUS people" that is so common among people who use genocide?

If you look at sources after the ancient period, the figures are more reliable. They support my model. I'm quite sure that any calculations for the ancient period, with serious figures, will yield the same result. If you have good sources, we could perform a similar calculation to the one I made above, and find out more precisely.

I do understand that it's easy, when looking at history at first glance, to think genocide gives any gains. It's probably cold rationality combined with this incorrect assumption that is the main cause of genocide in history, even though genocides are so harmful for those who carry them out. I've demonstrated here that genocide doesn't give gains, and that more often than not the guilty end up suffering more in the end as a result of their crimes. Hopefully this be clear enough to future potential massmurderers, and more importantly their potential supporters, so that genocides can be prevented at an earlier stage. No dictator can come to power without important initial support to settle in his position. I'm surprised by the eagerness of so many in this thread to show that genocide would come with any gains for the perpetrator. IMO, if you truly believe genocide is rationally beneficial, you must either be a supporter of genocide, or an irrationalist.

[Ser Clegane]

That's what Caesar's prppaganda "De bello gallico" says. I don't consider it a very reliable source for figures. He even claims to have killed a million Gauls in the Gallic wars, which is unreasonable considering that world population at that time was estimated to less than 1 million (http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldhis.html).

The source your are citing gives a range of 170 - 400 million for the year 1 AD.

[Ser Clegane]

Gawain, I might be wrong, but "wiping out" communism is not quite the same as wiping out communists. I wasn't quite aware that the latter was the goal of the United States.