14 ms·

Remote war is bad war

88 points by slowhand09 7y ago

Porthos9K 7y ago
All war is remote war unless the people who actually start the wars and profit from them are first to the front. Let Congress and the rich fight their own battles for once.
- KorematsuFred 7y ago
  I was here to comment the exact same thing. My phrasing however was that "All wars are bad wars if the people handling it remotely wont send their loved once on the frontline". The real issue with remote wars is that people sit in their air conditioned offices in Washington DC and move other people's sons into the deserts. They pay no personal cost for the failed operations and accidental drone strikes.
  - Porthos9K 7y ago
    Why should the war pigs' kids suffer for their parents' greed and ambition? Let those who start wars for their own political and financial gain be the first to die in the trenches.
    - goatinaboat 7y ago
      Why should the war pigs' kids suffer for their parents' greed and ambition? Because those kids are more than willing to, say, accept extremely lucrative directorships at foreign oil companies, despite lacking any discernible expertise in the industry.
      - Porthos9K 7y ago
        Which makes them war pigs themselves, and thus suitable cannon fodder.
- ptah 7y ago
  fully agree, the person declaring the war used to fight at the front for good reason
  - notahacker 7y ago
    except that the "good reason" tended to be that such cultures valued perceived bravery and martial skill as amongst the most important traits of a leader. Since this was best demonstrated by waging wars of aggression, such cultures certainly didn't tend to fight fewer futile conflicts, or offer social advancement opportunities to pacifists. The theory that leaders' proximity to conflict leads towards decisions being made with caution and/or compassion for one's potential adversaries is not one which survives contact with history.
    - Porthos9K 7y ago
      I just think leaders should die first.
    - ptah 7y ago
      the reason for the leader fighting at the front was so that they would take on most of the risk of their decision. This is important to ensure balanced decision making valuing bravery and martial skill came later when leaders started shifting the risk of their decisions onto others while still keeping most of the upside.
- buboard 7y ago
  Alternatively, conscription should come back. People are going to be a lot more hesitant to fire nukes if their own life is on the line.
  - goatinaboat 7y ago
    conscription should come back. Selective Service is probably the last remaining bastion of sexism in the US. Take the opportunity to fix that at the same time!
    - Porthos9K 7y ago
      Juan Rico would approve: "Everybody works. Everybody fights."
  - Porthos9K 7y ago
    We already have economic conscription, and it's worked wonderfully for the military as long as there are enough young poor people with no other options. > When domestic economic prospects are grim, the military has no problem recruiting soldiers. When those prospects improve, recruitment falls. How do we know? We can see a micro-version of this process happening right now. > This year, for the first time in thirteen years, the Army reported it was short thousands of recruits. This year’s unemployment rate is also the lowest we’ve seen in that same time period. These facts are related, and the military agrees. https://jacobinmag.com/2018/10/military-recruits-full-employment-welfare-state https://jacobinmag.com/2018/10/military-recruits-full-employ...
    - buboard 7y ago
      It's not the same, economic conscription always existed throughout history. I also find the idea that a country's military can be staffed with calculating mercenaries laughable. Nobody could build a state like that
      - Porthos9K 7y ago
        We've been doing it since Vietnam.
- rayiner 7y ago
  I think this sentiment is rooted in a misconception of the U.S. military industrial complex. First, people from higher income households are disproportionately represented among those who serve: http://www.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/posts/Enlisted2.jpg; http://www.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/posts/Enlis... https://www.heritage.org/node/15058/print-display https://www.heritage.org/node/15058/print-display > Enlisted recruits in 2006 and 2007 came primarily from middle-class and upper-middle-class backgrounds. Low-income neighborhoods were underrepresented among enlisted troops, while middle-class and high-income neighborhoods were overrepresented. Officers, of course, and civilian leadership tend to come even more from the upper part of the income spectrum. The idea that wars are fought by the poor for the rich is a myth--the lowest 20% of households in terms of income account for just 10% of enlisted ranks. As to "profit"--war isn't particularly profitable. Raytheon, the third largest defense contractor, is about as profitable as Starbucks (both in terms of absolute profit and profit margin). The defense industry doesn't mint billionaires or enjoy 30%+ profit margins like say tech. Raytheon has a valuation similar to WeWork. With the exception of a few highly-compensated CEOs, defense contractors are dominated by upper-middle class scientists and engineers. The U.S. has a middle class military that serves middle class interests. Anti-war people fail to understand that because they fail to understand that Americans aren't anti-war. We're an ideological people and we're not afraid to use the military to achieve a wide variety of ends. For example, what are we doing in Syria? I don't know, but a slight majority of Americans oppose Trump's decision to withdraw: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/18/americans-divided-over-decision-to-withdraw-from-syria https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/18/americans-d.... 43% of Americans still think the iraq war was the right decision: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/19/iraq-war-continues-to-divide-u-s-public-15-years-after-it-began https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/19/iraq-war-co.... Only 30% of Americans think that reducing our overseas military commitments should be a "top priority." https://www.people-press.org/2018/11/29/conflicting-partisan-priorities-for-u-s-foreign-policy https://www.people-press.org/2018/11/29/conflicting-partisan.... Many policies that would involve the opposite, like fighting terrorism, limiting the influence of China, etc., enjoy more support. 45% of Americans self-identify as "hawks." https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs/public/images/2017-handbook/img-741-1.png?itok=RHUVfzVP https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs/public.... And more than 50% of Americans believe the following would justify military intervention: stopping genocide (70%), humanitarian crisis (70%), stopping Iran nukes (69%), ensurign oil supply (55%), peacekeeping in the middle east (50%). Over 70% of both Democrats and Republicans support: U.S. airstrikes against terrorist training camps, drone strikes to assassinate terrorist leaders, and assassination of terrorist leaders generally.
ReptileMan 7y ago
>The Geneva Convention banned us from using a .50 caliber weapon on a human target, Quick google search suggests this is false, but an urban legend told marines during Vietnam to conserve ammo.
- ThinkingGuy 7y ago
  Here's the version I was told in the early 2000's by a US Army Ranger: "Firing at humans with a .50 caliber weapon is illegal, but firing at military 'equipment' is allowed. If a soldier is wearing a helmet, the helmet counts as 'equipment.'"
  - saiya-jin 7y ago
    I find this very strange, .50cal is one of the standard sniper caliber all around the world (although originally intended as anti-materiel it works OK for anti-personnel purposes too). In fact, longest confirmed hit AFAIK was done quite recently by .50, I think by canadian sniper. Plus you have these machine guns on vehicles that are .50, I can't imagine they are not used 'because rules'. Maybe not against civilians, but that's another topic.
    - aidenn0 7y ago
      .50 BMG (aka 12.7x99) is the common NATO heavy cartridge. The .338 Lapua Magnum is a more modern cartridge and briefly had several record-holding shots, but the .50 BMG again has the lead. The equivalent Warsaw pact round woud be the 14.5x114 (.57 cal) and is the third round with confirmed hits from a rifle at over 2km. Note that both the 12.7x99 and the 14.5x114 are heavy machine gun rounds while the .338 lapua is specifically designed for rifles (at least I'm not aware of an HMG that fires them). It turns out that for long range you want a heavy bullet moving really fast with low-drag. an HMG cartridge fitted with a low-drag bullet does that pretty well.
    - GhettoMaestro 7y ago
      As I understand it these types of restrictions are "best effort". You're not supposed to set out to shoot someone with an inappropriate type of round from the get-go (eg, using incendiary against a human), but if you are shooting it and a target presents itself, you aren't blocked from shooting it if it is a threat to you or your boys. None of this really matters in my opinion. Once the stuff is flying in both directions most restrictions (short of nuclear weapons) kind of get relaxed.
jarnagin 7y ago
What is good war?
- DannyB2 7y ago
  No war is good. But the better question is: What is a justifiable war? Or necessary war? While war is not good, what about our participation in WWII?
  - pjc50 7y ago
    WW2 is an almost unique example of an enemy that was inherently monstrous on a huge scale - but that wasn't actually the reason for the war. If Germany and Japan had started the war with their first strikes in the same way, but had not committed war crimes on a colossal scale, it might be remembered rather differently. Few people talk up WW1, it gets remembered as a pointless slaughter. Or all the various post-WW2 conflicts the West chose to get involved in.
    - bluejekyll 7y ago
      Reading Howard Zinn made me question for the first time how moral we (the allies) were during that war: https://www.howardzinn.org/a-veteran-against-war/ https://www.howardzinn.org/a-veteran-against-war/ I still believe it was worth fighting, but I agree that we shouldn’t delude ourselves into believing that we didn’t have other motivations.
      - andrewla 7y ago
        Yes -- the framing of WWII as a war of "good against evil" and "fascism must be fought at all costs" is entirely retrospective. Roosevelt and Wilkie were stepping over each other trying to argue who was the most anti-interventionist. It was only the bombing of Pearl Harbor that gave Roosevelt the political power to openly support intervention in the European theater, which before he could only passively push for. If he had announced his intention to get boots on the ground before the 1940 election, we would have had a different president in 1941.
jpm_sd 7y ago
"However, all wars must eventually be won with boots on the ground." Can wars even be "won", in this sense, any more? Modern war is asymmetric. If the enemy is a radicalized percentage of the civilian population, hiding in plain sight, when do you "win"? Who surrenders? Who signs a treaty?
- convery 7y ago
  The only vector I can think of would be improving society for the general public to the point where there's no reason to support the militants. i.e. so they end up being viewed the same as biker-gangs / outlaws rather than representing anyone. The boots being used to protect such work from interference.
  - oldmanthrowit 7y ago
    It doesn't work that way. At that point, they cease being militants and become warlords.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    That's not how it works. For example, fundamentalist extremism/terrorism has ramped up in Bangladesh in the last decade, even as the economy has been growing at 5-7% annually.
  - Jill_the_Pill 7y ago
    Isn't that sort of the way the remnants of the IRA have gone?
- mcguire 7y ago
  I was watching a talk on YouTube last night about the end of WW2 with Japan. According to the speaker, one fear was that the emperor would surrender, but the military units individually would refuse to follow the order, meaning the army would have to pacify the country in pieces. That sounds like modern warfare.
  - ljp_206 7y ago
GhettoMaestro 7y ago
I really don’t get this guys post. It is a bit all over the place.
mr_tristan 7y ago
One insight from reading about Vietnam, was that the US military actually was largely achieved the goal it set out for. It was strategy of attrition, and they were able to post very positive metrics throughout. My sense is that with more technology, you get more focus on metrics, not less, with an even greater likelihood of choosing the wrong strategy. So I read this is less of a "good vs evil" debate. It's just that when you are up close to the evil, you are really left questioning, "is the end really going to justify the means". If you are far away, you just see "hey, we're winning". Thus, this "bad war" is less of a statement of "evil war" but _ineffective_ war.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  I'd take issue with that -- the US Military was able to put up certain goalposts and make a credible claim that they hit them. The problem was that the point of the conflict was poorly defined, and victory was even more poorly defined. Bodycount was used as a metric for doing something. IMO, Vietnam was a vanity war against an idea ("Communism"), and remote warfare is bad because it lowers the cost of vanity conflicts dramatically. If I need metrics in a historical narrative to keep score, nobody is winning. That's the problem.
  - randcraw 7y ago
    One of the first rules you learn when working for the US military is, if your kick doesn't go between the goalposts... find a way to move the goalposts. Every military contract/mission officer wants one thing: to claim success for their project at the end of the year. They quickly learn the best way to do this is to reshape the metrics for success so that, whatever the outcome was for that year, you can claim that was the real objective all along. In the space of R&D contracting, it turns out that "blind the generals with flashy demos" does that rather well. Of course, that also requires that the original mission objective be phrased in ambiguous terms so "goalpost" and "kick" remain freely fungible concepts. To that end, in 1964, "Defeating Communism" fit the bill nicely. Today it's "Defeating Terrorism".
    - mr_tristan 7y ago
rinchik 7y ago
The best war is the war that can be won without a single fight, without a single battle. A great accomplishment with no waste of resources. The Art of War by Sun Tzu is quite a read. Did you read it? Well.. your enemies are reading it.
- goatinaboat 7y ago
  Sort of like, without firing a single shot (at them) your enemies line up to sing your praises and grovel for offending you.
- buboard 7y ago
  Like trade war?
ISL 7y ago
If the article's thesis is resonant, consider a David Drake novel or two. Rolling Hot comes immediately to mind, but Hammer's Slammers started the series. Drake served in armored cavalry in Vietnam -- many of his science-fiction books imagine a universe of higher technology that is no less human. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammerverse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammerverse
mamon 7y ago
The problem is: USA are safe behind the two oceans (neither Canada nor Mexico pose a serious threat to them), so it is easy for them to bully other nations around the world. Since the end of WWII there were over 200 military conflicts started by the US, out of maybe 250 total - 80%. I really wish Secession war ended differently, with South gaining independence, and at least two rivaling countries coming up as the result. EDIT: Here's the idea: have the UN mandate that both Canada and Mexico receive nuclear weapons, just to keep Jankees in check :) I'm sure Russia and China have some warheads to spare.
- throwaway123x2 7y ago
  I'll bite - imagine then a South that sided with Germany in WWII.
  - bena 7y ago
    That's not a guarantee. There were Nazi sympathizers in what would have been Union states during that time. Support for the war was not 100%. If we're defining the South by the slave trade, then they'd have strong ties to the British, the French, and the Dutch through that. All Allied powers. Connections to the Axis powers would have been Portugal and Spain. You're making the mistake of assuming that just because one immoral act was committed that there were no redeeming values to be found in the people. That is just untrue. It is interesting to speculate what would have happened had secession succeeded. We can speculate that slavery would have still eventually ended, maybe later. Reconstruction obviously doesn't happen. Do the two nations become more Canada/US, Mexico/US, East/West Germany, or even North/South Korea? Are there scuffles over unclaimed territory? Who knows. The point is that it could have just as easily be the former Union joining the Axis. We don't know.
    - danharaj 7y ago
      > You're making the mistake of assuming that just because one immoral act was committed that there were no redeeming values to be found in the people. Slavery was a pillar of society, continuously reproduced and reinforced, over many generations. "one immoral act"
oregano 7y ago
We need someone to remind us why any type of war is bad?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
wespiser_2018 7y ago
> I am not a grunt who thinks wars can only be won with boots on the ground. However, all wars must eventually be won with boots on the ground. This has to be an over-simplification, and we should think this narrowly about armed human conflict. It's definitely possible to win a war by simply not fighting it, to win a war via stalemate (cold war), by finding a political alternative, or by just not showing up.
- gnode 7y ago
  The cold war isn't a great example. It encompasses violent proxy wars, involving plenty of ground combat (e.g. Korean War; Vietnam War).
  - wespiser_2018 7y ago
    Fair point! I only bring it up because we didn't directly fight the Soviets, although the use of combat troops was a large part of the cold war geopolitical strategy, as you mention!
- buboard 7y ago
  Cold war wasn't a war, and it involved a lot of ground operation (spies), which oddly could be said to have brought the two sides closer.
sillydinosaur 7y ago
Remote war is bad because pushing a button is easier than putting a dagger through an eye. War should be ugly enough that it is sad and scary.
buboard 7y ago
Remote wars are inhuman wars. Not that war is humane, but people (soldiers) have empathetic reactions when confronted with the conditions on the ground. Drone wars also have a negative moral impact. Without people witnessing the horror on the ground, no drone is ever going to go back home and protest the injustice. Combine that with the end of conscription and you have a perverse situation in which Nations claim legitimacy, but they rest on armies that are immoral, dishonorable. In the end, it hurts the sense of nation itself.
ahurmazda 7y ago
Depressing topic. I am sure scientists will argue that adversity is a required ingredient for evolution etc. I just hoped that we/humans can come together and decide that _this_ particular type of adversity (ie war) is no longer required. Heck, maybe, I'd settle for Star Trek style simulated war[1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon
thinkloop 7y ago
I don't remember many wars being stopped by soldiers, but I do remember many instances of shocking imagery causing change. Maybe the problem could be mitigated by requiring cameras.
- buboard 7y ago
  That's not going to work. Images will be selected, edited etc. That's why it is important to have real humans witnessing the action.
scott_s 7y ago
For those that don't know, the author is Anthony Swofford, who wrote the book Jarhead, which was turned into a movie of the same name.
jeffdavis 7y ago
"The moral distance a society creates from the killing done in its name will increase the killing done in its name." Then why is violence worldwide decreasing?
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Is violence in war decreasing worldwide? Or is it more street crime? And, are you counting something like what China is doing to the Uighurs in what you count as violence?
  - jeffdavis 7y ago
    Read The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker. It's a well-researched book that goes over how all kinds of violence (at least the easily-measured kinds) have consistently fallen over time. This includes war as well as crime. There are local maxima, of course, but over any significant time scale and area, violence is down a lot.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > "The moral distance a society creates from the killing done in its name will increase the killing done in its name." > Then why is violence worldwide decreasing? Actual violence mostly occurs when one side is willing to use violence and the other side has enough belief in their ability to resist (including in that belief that the first side will back down before resorting to force) to compel the first side to actually resort to violence to achieve their actual aims, to which violence is usually merely a means. States becoming more willing to use violence and gain greater capacity to accurately (at least, avoiding false negatives) target that violence might plausibly result in populations becoming more compliant without actual resort to violence (or, at least, more quick to capitulate on an issue once the state first responds violently on it), reducing total active violence but increasing repression through the omnipresent threat of violence. (Also, violence done “in [society's] name”—mostly state violence—and violence in total aren't the same thing; it's also plausible that total violence might decrease while, perhaps even because, state violence increased in a way which eliminated more non-state violence.)
ken 7y ago
> The moral distance a society creates from the killing done in its name will increase the killing done in its name. "It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it". --Robert E. Lee
- ilaksh 7y ago
  The problem is that wars are moralized by propaganda which is outright lies designed to provide a false moral basis for war. Wars are about control and resources.
ilaksh 7y ago
All war is bad war. War is mass killing for profit and control based on lies. All of it. It's amazing that people continuously by into the bullshit propaganda they keep making up. The wars are about the same thing they have been for thousands of years. Why is there really conflict in places like Syria and between the US and Iran? It's the same thing as the Roman-Persian wars. Or the Crusades. It's about control of resources and territory.

88 points by slowhand09 7y ago

All war is remote war unless the people who actually start the wars and profit from them are first to the front. Let Congress and the rich fight their own battles for once.

KorematsuFred 7y ago
I was here to comment the exact same thing. My phrasing however was that "All wars are bad wars if the people handling it remotely wont send their loved once on the frontline". The real issue with remote wars is that people sit in their air conditioned offices in Washington DC and move other people's sons into the deserts. They pay no personal cost for the failed operations and accidental drone strikes.
- Porthos9K 7y ago
  Why should the war pigs' kids suffer for their parents' greed and ambition? Let those who start wars for their own political and financial gain be the first to die in the trenches.
  - goatinaboat 7y ago
    Why should the war pigs' kids suffer for their parents' greed and ambition? Because those kids are more than willing to, say, accept extremely lucrative directorships at foreign oil companies, despite lacking any discernible expertise in the industry.
    - Porthos9K 7y ago
      Which makes them war pigs themselves, and thus suitable cannon fodder.
ptah 7y ago
fully agree, the person declaring the war used to fight at the front for good reason
- notahacker 7y ago
  except that the "good reason" tended to be that such cultures valued perceived bravery and martial skill as amongst the most important traits of a leader. Since this was best demonstrated by waging wars of aggression, such cultures certainly didn't tend to fight fewer futile conflicts, or offer social advancement opportunities to pacifists. The theory that leaders' proximity to conflict leads towards decisions being made with caution and/or compassion for one's potential adversaries is not one which survives contact with history.
  - Porthos9K 7y ago
    I just think leaders should die first.
  - ptah 7y ago
    the reason for the leader fighting at the front was so that they would take on most of the risk of their decision. This is important to ensure balanced decision making valuing bravery and martial skill came later when leaders started shifting the risk of their decisions onto others while still keeping most of the upside.
buboard 7y ago
Alternatively, conscription should come back. People are going to be a lot more hesitant to fire nukes if their own life is on the line.
- goatinaboat 7y ago
  conscription should come back. Selective Service is probably the last remaining bastion of sexism in the US. Take the opportunity to fix that at the same time!
  - Porthos9K 7y ago
    Juan Rico would approve: "Everybody works. Everybody fights."
- Porthos9K 7y ago
  We already have economic conscription, and it's worked wonderfully for the military as long as there are enough young poor people with no other options. > When domestic economic prospects are grim, the military has no problem recruiting soldiers. When those prospects improve, recruitment falls. How do we know? We can see a micro-version of this process happening right now. > This year, for the first time in thirteen years, the Army reported it was short thousands of recruits. This year’s unemployment rate is also the lowest we’ve seen in that same time period. These facts are related, and the military agrees. https://jacobinmag.com/2018/10/military-recruits-full-employment-welfare-state https://jacobinmag.com/2018/10/military-recruits-full-employ...
  - buboard 7y ago
    It's not the same, economic conscription always existed throughout history. I also find the idea that a country's military can be staffed with calculating mercenaries laughable. Nobody could build a state like that
    - Porthos9K 7y ago
      We've been doing it since Vietnam.
rayiner 7y ago
I think this sentiment is rooted in a misconception of the U.S. military industrial complex. First, people from higher income households are disproportionately represented among those who serve: http://www.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/posts/Enlisted2.jpg; http://www.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/posts/Enlis... https://www.heritage.org/node/15058/print-display https://www.heritage.org/node/15058/print-display > Enlisted recruits in 2006 and 2007 came primarily from middle-class and upper-middle-class backgrounds. Low-income neighborhoods were underrepresented among enlisted troops, while middle-class and high-income neighborhoods were overrepresented. Officers, of course, and civilian leadership tend to come even more from the upper part of the income spectrum. The idea that wars are fought by the poor for the rich is a myth--the lowest 20% of households in terms of income account for just 10% of enlisted ranks. As to "profit"--war isn't particularly profitable. Raytheon, the third largest defense contractor, is about as profitable as Starbucks (both in terms of absolute profit and profit margin). The defense industry doesn't mint billionaires or enjoy 30%+ profit margins like say tech. Raytheon has a valuation similar to WeWork. With the exception of a few highly-compensated CEOs, defense contractors are dominated by upper-middle class scientists and engineers. The U.S. has a middle class military that serves middle class interests. Anti-war people fail to understand that because they fail to understand that Americans aren't anti-war. We're an ideological people and we're not afraid to use the military to achieve a wide variety of ends. For example, what are we doing in Syria? I don't know, but a slight majority of Americans oppose Trump's decision to withdraw: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/18/americans-divided-over-decision-to-withdraw-from-syria https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/18/americans-d.... 43% of Americans still think the iraq war was the right decision: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/19/iraq-war-continues-to-divide-u-s-public-15-years-after-it-began https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/19/iraq-war-co.... Only 30% of Americans think that reducing our overseas military commitments should be a "top priority." https://www.people-press.org/2018/11/29/conflicting-partisan-priorities-for-u-s-foreign-policy https://www.people-press.org/2018/11/29/conflicting-partisan.... Many policies that would involve the opposite, like fighting terrorism, limiting the influence of China, etc., enjoy more support. 45% of Americans self-identify as "hawks." https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs/public/images/2017-handbook/img-741-1.png?itok=RHUVfzVP https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs/public.... And more than 50% of Americans believe the following would justify military intervention: stopping genocide (70%), humanitarian crisis (70%), stopping Iran nukes (69%), ensurign oil supply (55%), peacekeeping in the middle east (50%). Over 70% of both Democrats and Republicans support: U.S. airstrikes against terrorist training camps, drone strikes to assassinate terrorist leaders, and assassination of terrorist leaders generally.

ReptileMan 7y ago

>The Geneva Convention banned us from using a .50 caliber weapon on a human target, Quick google search suggests this is false, but an urban legend told marines during Vietnam to conserve ammo.

ThinkingGuy 7y ago
Here's the version I was told in the early 2000's by a US Army Ranger: "Firing at humans with a .50 caliber weapon is illegal, but firing at military 'equipment' is allowed. If a soldier is wearing a helmet, the helmet counts as 'equipment.'"
- saiya-jin 7y ago
  I find this very strange, .50cal is one of the standard sniper caliber all around the world (although originally intended as anti-materiel it works OK for anti-personnel purposes too). In fact, longest confirmed hit AFAIK was done quite recently by .50, I think by canadian sniper. Plus you have these machine guns on vehicles that are .50, I can't imagine they are not used 'because rules'. Maybe not against civilians, but that's another topic.
  - aidenn0 7y ago
    .50 BMG (aka 12.7x99) is the common NATO heavy cartridge. The .338 Lapua Magnum is a more modern cartridge and briefly had several record-holding shots, but the .50 BMG again has the lead. The equivalent Warsaw pact round woud be the 14.5x114 (.57 cal) and is the third round with confirmed hits from a rifle at over 2km. Note that both the 12.7x99 and the 14.5x114 are heavy machine gun rounds while the .338 lapua is specifically designed for rifles (at least I'm not aware of an HMG that fires them). It turns out that for long range you want a heavy bullet moving really fast with low-drag. an HMG cartridge fitted with a low-drag bullet does that pretty well.
  - GhettoMaestro 7y ago
    As I understand it these types of restrictions are "best effort". You're not supposed to set out to shoot someone with an inappropriate type of round from the get-go (eg, using incendiary against a human), but if you are shooting it and a target presents itself, you aren't blocked from shooting it if it is a threat to you or your boys. None of this really matters in my opinion. Once the stuff is flying in both directions most restrictions (short of nuclear weapons) kind of get relaxed.

jarnagin 7y ago

What is good war?

DannyB2 7y ago
No war is good. But the better question is: What is a justifiable war? Or necessary war? While war is not good, what about our participation in WWII?
- pjc50 7y ago
  WW2 is an almost unique example of an enemy that was inherently monstrous on a huge scale - but that wasn't actually the reason for the war. If Germany and Japan had started the war with their first strikes in the same way, but had not committed war crimes on a colossal scale, it might be remembered rather differently. Few people talk up WW1, it gets remembered as a pointless slaughter. Or all the various post-WW2 conflicts the West chose to get involved in.
  - bluejekyll 7y ago
    Reading Howard Zinn made me question for the first time how moral we (the allies) were during that war: https://www.howardzinn.org/a-veteran-against-war/ https://www.howardzinn.org/a-veteran-against-war/ I still believe it was worth fighting, but I agree that we shouldn’t delude ourselves into believing that we didn’t have other motivations.
    - andrewla 7y ago
      Yes -- the framing of WWII as a war of "good against evil" and "fascism must be fought at all costs" is entirely retrospective. Roosevelt and Wilkie were stepping over each other trying to argue who was the most anti-interventionist. It was only the bombing of Pearl Harbor that gave Roosevelt the political power to openly support intervention in the European theater, which before he could only passively push for. If he had announced his intention to get boots on the ground before the 1940 election, we would have had a different president in 1941.

jpm_sd 7y ago

"However, all wars must eventually be won with boots on the ground." Can wars even be "won", in this sense, any more? Modern war is asymmetric. If the enemy is a radicalized percentage of the civilian population, hiding in plain sight, when do you "win"? Who surrenders? Who signs a treaty?

convery 7y ago
The only vector I can think of would be improving society for the general public to the point where there's no reason to support the militants. i.e. so they end up being viewed the same as biker-gangs / outlaws rather than representing anyone. The boots being used to protect such work from interference.
- oldmanthrowit 7y ago
  It doesn't work that way. At that point, they cease being militants and become warlords.
- rayiner 7y ago
  That's not how it works. For example, fundamentalist extremism/terrorism has ramped up in Bangladesh in the last decade, even as the economy has been growing at 5-7% annually.
- Jill_the_Pill 7y ago
  Isn't that sort of the way the remnants of the IRA have gone?
mcguire 7y ago
I was watching a talk on YouTube last night about the end of WW2 with Japan. According to the speaker, one fear was that the emperor would surrender, but the military units individually would refuse to follow the order, meaning the army would have to pacify the country in pieces. That sounds like modern warfare.
- ljp_206 7y ago

GhettoMaestro 7y ago

I really don’t get this guys post. It is a bit all over the place.

mr_tristan 7y ago

One insight from reading about Vietnam, was that the US military actually was largely achieved the goal it set out for. It was strategy of attrition, and they were able to post very positive metrics throughout. My sense is that with more technology, you get more focus on metrics, not less, with an even greater likelihood of choosing the wrong strategy. So I read this is less of a "good vs evil" debate. It's just that when you are up close to the evil, you are really left questioning, "is the end really going to justify the means". If you are far away, you just see "hey, we're winning". Thus, this "bad war" is less of a statement of "evil war" but _ineffective_ war.

Spooky23 7y ago
I'd take issue with that -- the US Military was able to put up certain goalposts and make a credible claim that they hit them. The problem was that the point of the conflict was poorly defined, and victory was even more poorly defined. Bodycount was used as a metric for doing something. IMO, Vietnam was a vanity war against an idea ("Communism"), and remote warfare is bad because it lowers the cost of vanity conflicts dramatically. If I need metrics in a historical narrative to keep score, nobody is winning. That's the problem.
- randcraw 7y ago
  One of the first rules you learn when working for the US military is, if your kick doesn't go between the goalposts... find a way to move the goalposts. Every military contract/mission officer wants one thing: to claim success for their project at the end of the year. They quickly learn the best way to do this is to reshape the metrics for success so that, whatever the outcome was for that year, you can claim that was the real objective all along. In the space of R&D contracting, it turns out that "blind the generals with flashy demos" does that rather well. Of course, that also requires that the original mission objective be phrased in ambiguous terms so "goalpost" and "kick" remain freely fungible concepts. To that end, in 1964, "Defeating Communism" fit the bill nicely. Today it's "Defeating Terrorism".
  - mr_tristan 7y ago

rinchik 7y ago

The best war is the war that can be won without a single fight, without a single battle. A great accomplishment with no waste of resources. The Art of War by Sun Tzu is quite a read. Did you read it? Well.. your enemies are reading it.

goatinaboat 7y ago
Sort of like, without firing a single shot (at them) your enemies line up to sing your praises and grovel for offending you.
buboard 7y ago
Like trade war?

ISL 7y ago

If the article's thesis is resonant, consider a David Drake novel or two. Rolling Hot comes immediately to mind, but Hammer's Slammers started the series. Drake served in armored cavalry in Vietnam -- many of his science-fiction books imagine a universe of higher technology that is no less human. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammerverse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammerverse

mamon 7y ago

The problem is: USA are safe behind the two oceans (neither Canada nor Mexico pose a serious threat to them), so it is easy for them to bully other nations around the world. Since the end of WWII there were over 200 military conflicts started by the US, out of maybe 250 total - 80%. I really wish Secession war ended differently, with South gaining independence, and at least two rivaling countries coming up as the result. EDIT: Here's the idea: have the UN mandate that both Canada and Mexico receive nuclear weapons, just to keep Jankees in check :) I'm sure Russia and China have some warheads to spare.

throwaway123x2 7y ago
I'll bite - imagine then a South that sided with Germany in WWII.
- bena 7y ago
  That's not a guarantee. There were Nazi sympathizers in what would have been Union states during that time. Support for the war was not 100%. If we're defining the South by the slave trade, then they'd have strong ties to the British, the French, and the Dutch through that. All Allied powers. Connections to the Axis powers would have been Portugal and Spain. You're making the mistake of assuming that just because one immoral act was committed that there were no redeeming values to be found in the people. That is just untrue. It is interesting to speculate what would have happened had secession succeeded. We can speculate that slavery would have still eventually ended, maybe later. Reconstruction obviously doesn't happen. Do the two nations become more Canada/US, Mexico/US, East/West Germany, or even North/South Korea? Are there scuffles over unclaimed territory? Who knows. The point is that it could have just as easily be the former Union joining the Axis. We don't know.
  - danharaj 7y ago
    > You're making the mistake of assuming that just because one immoral act was committed that there were no redeeming values to be found in the people. Slavery was a pillar of society, continuously reproduced and reinforced, over many generations. "one immoral act"

oregano 7y ago

We need someone to remind us why any type of war is bad?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

wespiser_2018 7y ago

> I am not a grunt who thinks wars can only be won with boots on the ground. However, all wars must eventually be won with boots on the ground. This has to be an over-simplification, and we should think this narrowly about armed human conflict. It's definitely possible to win a war by simply not fighting it, to win a war via stalemate (cold war), by finding a political alternative, or by just not showing up.

gnode 7y ago
The cold war isn't a great example. It encompasses violent proxy wars, involving plenty of ground combat (e.g. Korean War; Vietnam War).
- wespiser_2018 7y ago
  Fair point! I only bring it up because we didn't directly fight the Soviets, although the use of combat troops was a large part of the cold war geopolitical strategy, as you mention!
buboard 7y ago
Cold war wasn't a war, and it involved a lot of ground operation (spies), which oddly could be said to have brought the two sides closer.

sillydinosaur 7y ago

Remote war is bad because pushing a button is easier than putting a dagger through an eye. War should be ugly enough that it is sad and scary.

buboard 7y ago

Remote wars are inhuman wars. Not that war is humane, but people (soldiers) have empathetic reactions when confronted with the conditions on the ground. Drone wars also have a negative moral impact. Without people witnessing the horror on the ground, no drone is ever going to go back home and protest the injustice. Combine that with the end of conscription and you have a perverse situation in which Nations claim legitimacy, but they rest on armies that are immoral, dishonorable. In the end, it hurts the sense of nation itself.

ahurmazda 7y ago

Depressing topic. I am sure scientists will argue that adversity is a required ingredient for evolution etc. I just hoped that we/humans can come together and decide that _this_ particular type of adversity (ie war) is no longer required. Heck, maybe, I'd settle for Star Trek style simulated war[1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon

thinkloop 7y ago

I don't remember many wars being stopped by soldiers, but I do remember many instances of shocking imagery causing change. Maybe the problem could be mitigated by requiring cameras.

buboard 7y ago
That's not going to work. Images will be selected, edited etc. That's why it is important to have real humans witnessing the action.

scott_s 7y ago

For those that don't know, the author is Anthony Swofford, who wrote the book Jarhead, which was turned into a movie of the same name.

jeffdavis 7y ago

"The moral distance a society creates from the killing done in its name will increase the killing done in its name." Then why is violence worldwide decreasing?

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
Is violence in war decreasing worldwide? Or is it more street crime? And, are you counting something like what China is doing to the Uighurs in what you count as violence?
- jeffdavis 7y ago
  Read The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker. It's a well-researched book that goes over how all kinds of violence (at least the easily-measured kinds) have consistently fallen over time. This includes war as well as crime. There are local maxima, of course, but over any significant time scale and area, violence is down a lot.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> "The moral distance a society creates from the killing done in its name will increase the killing done in its name." > Then why is violence worldwide decreasing? Actual violence mostly occurs when one side is willing to use violence and the other side has enough belief in their ability to resist (including in that belief that the first side will back down before resorting to force) to compel the first side to actually resort to violence to achieve their actual aims, to which violence is usually merely a means. States becoming more willing to use violence and gain greater capacity to accurately (at least, avoiding false negatives) target that violence might plausibly result in populations becoming more compliant without actual resort to violence (or, at least, more quick to capitulate on an issue once the state first responds violently on it), reducing total active violence but increasing repression through the omnipresent threat of violence. (Also, violence done “in [society's] name”—mostly state violence—and violence in total aren't the same thing; it's also plausible that total violence might decrease while, perhaps even because, state violence increased in a way which eliminated more non-state violence.)

ken 7y ago

> The moral distance a society creates from the killing done in its name will increase the killing done in its name. "It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it". --Robert E. Lee

ilaksh 7y ago
The problem is that wars are moralized by propaganda which is outright lies designed to provide a false moral basis for war. Wars are about control and resources.

ilaksh 7y ago

All war is bad war. War is mass killing for profit and control based on lies. All of it. It's amazing that people continuously by into the bullshit propaganda they keep making up. The wars are about the same thing they have been for thousands of years. Why is there really conflict in places like Syria and between the US and Iran? It's the same thing as the Roman-Persian wars. Or the Crusades. It's about control of resources and territory.