4 ms·

The checklist is one's own ethics and morale guideposts --- every interaction with others has to be done with a consideration for the long-term strategic goals

The checklist is one's own ethics and morale guideposts --- every interaction with others has to be done with a consideration for the long-term strategic goals rather than short-term gains --- Clausewitz argues that the will of the people of whom the military is an extension of and their ethics and mores have to be taken into account and all actions done in accord with what will make an acceptable news story. Consider the old adage: >Never do something which you wouldn't want your grandparents to read about in a newspaper, or to discuss with them over Sunday dinner. By extension, a military force should: >Never do anything which when shown on the evening news would result in a Congressional inquiry (or a War Crimes Tribunal).

falcor84 1y ago
I'm all for "Be excellent to each other", but in war, the first and foremost consideration is whether the strategy is effective. I'm not a big Clausewitz scholar, but I can't imagine that he or any other general would accept a strategy that prioritises the well-being of the opposing side to the point of their own side admitting defeat. As I see it, the only way that we can have "Rules of War" is by proving that a war can be won while maintaining them. Otherwise (and unless you have a magic wand to make humans non-aggressive), these rules are worse than useless, because they limit the more ethical side, while making them lose to the less ethical.
- MichaelZuo 1y ago
  Anyone can pretend to have this and that ethics when its comfortable and easy, its only under extreme duress when all pretenders are revealed.
- iamnothere 1y ago
  I think the lesson is that you can never be sure that you will meet your military objectives—failure is always a possibility—and the blowback from that failure will be more limited if you appear to have conducted your war with adequate respect for noncombatants. Failing to conquer a nation (or depose its government, or secure some land, or defend a border, or whatever your objective is) may be shrugged off by your own nation, and you may even be able to normalize relations after some time. But if you abuse the noncombatant population, you often create bitter enemies, generational hatred, and global pressures on your society from third party observers. In the worst case this eventually escalates to mutual threats of genocide and total war. Even if a nation wins a conflict through sheer brutality, they may lose the occupation, or the reconstruction, or good relations with important partners, or all of the above. And they may create an enemy who will one day return with a vengeance.
  - falcor84 1y ago
    From my reading of history, there's no straightforward correspondence between the ethics of the winning side and its ability to have good relations with the losing side. As a clear anti-example, in later stages of WW2, the allied forces were very willing to engage in attacks on population centers to achieve a decisive victory faster (particularly: Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima and Nagasaki), and the resulting relationships between the allied countries and Germany and Japan could not have been more positive even if the most optimistic poet in 1944 were to written lyric poetry about the best possible future. To be clear, I'm not advocating for cruelty, but I'm wondering if going back to an approach of "surrender or we'll kill you all" would save more lives than the current situation of "do everything you can to avoid doing too much harm at any one time", which ends up prolonging conflicts indefinitely.
    - pjc50 1y ago
      > resulting relationships between the allied countries and Germany and Japan could not have been more positive I think there may have been a "lesser evil" aspect to that. The Allies had good relationships with West Germany almost immediately after the war because they were saving the defeated Germans from the USSR. Japan reconciled with the USSR but there are still tensions between Japan, Korea, and China over the war.
    - iamnothere 1y ago
      In both cases the aggressors were the first to engage in atrocities, and their atrocities were much more severe than those inflicted upon them. So both seem like a unique case. Additionally, both were part of a global conflict, which is uncommon. In a global conflict there aren’t many bystanders who can effectively implement sanctions or apply diplomatic pressure. > I'm wondering if going back to an approach of "surrender or we'll kill you all" would save more lives than the current situation This is just as likely to provoke a “fight to the death” response from the defender which is often enough to prevent you from achieving your objectives. There are very few large conflicts where the objective is simply “eliminate the defenders”.
- paddleon 1y ago
  Friend, I have respect to where you are coming from, and ask you to please think a little longer term. You don't prioritize the well-being of the other side, but you do want to avoid radicalizing them. The more reasons they have to surrender, the more likely they are to surrender, thus ending the conflict sooner AND keeping the end conditions one they are comfortable living under. If instead they feel they are in a fight to the death, then you have a much tougher battle on your hand because they will fight to the death. You'll still win (maybe) but it's going to cost you in personelle and time and money. Next aspect. Moral of your troops. Everyone wants to be a hero, very few people join the military because they want to kill. And those that are in it to kill tend to be toxic leaders which is really bad for the rest of the team. "Rules of war"/"rules of engagement" are methods that allow your troops to maintain their humanity and sense of purpose under horrific situations. You give up that and you are now undercutting the fighting power of your own forces. The military did not come up with these ideas to make themselves weak. They came up with them and enforced them because they are the source of strength.
  - falcor84 1y ago
    But that's the question - how do you fight honorably and win? How many examples can you offer (from any time in history), where the winning side conducted the campaign in a "gentlemanly fashion" (or however you want to call it), won, and got the respect of the losing side and lasting peace?
    - pjc50 1y ago
      American Civil War?
      - falcor84 1y ago
        I wouldn't quite say that the former Confederate states fully respected the Union's victory as saying something good about the North [0], and in some ways still don't, but otherwise it is a good example. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy
    - 1y ago
- pjc50 1y ago
  The broader point is that an unethical military victory erodes your political support, which might lead you to win the battle but lose the war.
nradov 1y ago
The obvious counter example is WWII. The victorious Allied forces conducted widespread strategic bombing campaigns and starvation blockades against Axis civilian targets. This was highly effective and saved the lives of many Allied personnel but judged against some modern criteria could have been considered "war crimes": for example, see the fire bombing of Dresden. None of the Allied leaders were put in front of a tribunal because the strategy worked and Congress was fully on board. The uncomfortable reality is that sometimes the only practical way to win and preserve your own forces is to massacre enemy civilians on an industrial scale.
- TheCoelacanth 1y ago
  Whether or not strategic bombing was actually effective in WWII is widely disputed.
  - nradov 1y ago
    The strategic bombing campaign absolutely reduced Axis manufacturing capacity and fuel supplies. There is no serious dispute about that point. There is some academic dispute about whether it was the most effective use of Allied resources but by the second half of the war the US had plenty resources to spare so that dispute is kind of moot.

falcor84 1y ago

I'm all for "Be excellent to each other", but in war, the first and foremost consideration is whether the strategy is effective. I'm not a big Clausewitz scholar, but I can't imagine that he or any other general would accept a strategy that prioritises the well-being of the opposing side to the point of their own side admitting defeat. As I see it, the only way that we can have "Rules of War" is by proving that a war can be won while maintaining them. Otherwise (and unless you have a magic wand to make humans non-aggressive), these rules are worse than useless, because they limit the more ethical side, while making them lose to the less ethical.

MichaelZuo 1y ago
Anyone can pretend to have this and that ethics when its comfortable and easy, its only under extreme duress when all pretenders are revealed.
iamnothere 1y ago
I think the lesson is that you can never be sure that you will meet your military objectives—failure is always a possibility—and the blowback from that failure will be more limited if you appear to have conducted your war with adequate respect for noncombatants. Failing to conquer a nation (or depose its government, or secure some land, or defend a border, or whatever your objective is) may be shrugged off by your own nation, and you may even be able to normalize relations after some time. But if you abuse the noncombatant population, you often create bitter enemies, generational hatred, and global pressures on your society from third party observers. In the worst case this eventually escalates to mutual threats of genocide and total war. Even if a nation wins a conflict through sheer brutality, they may lose the occupation, or the reconstruction, or good relations with important partners, or all of the above. And they may create an enemy who will one day return with a vengeance.
- falcor84 1y ago
  From my reading of history, there's no straightforward correspondence between the ethics of the winning side and its ability to have good relations with the losing side. As a clear anti-example, in later stages of WW2, the allied forces were very willing to engage in attacks on population centers to achieve a decisive victory faster (particularly: Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima and Nagasaki), and the resulting relationships between the allied countries and Germany and Japan could not have been more positive even if the most optimistic poet in 1944 were to written lyric poetry about the best possible future. To be clear, I'm not advocating for cruelty, but I'm wondering if going back to an approach of "surrender or we'll kill you all" would save more lives than the current situation of "do everything you can to avoid doing too much harm at any one time", which ends up prolonging conflicts indefinitely.
  - pjc50 1y ago
    > resulting relationships between the allied countries and Germany and Japan could not have been more positive I think there may have been a "lesser evil" aspect to that. The Allies had good relationships with West Germany almost immediately after the war because they were saving the defeated Germans from the USSR. Japan reconciled with the USSR but there are still tensions between Japan, Korea, and China over the war.
  - iamnothere 1y ago
    In both cases the aggressors were the first to engage in atrocities, and their atrocities were much more severe than those inflicted upon them. So both seem like a unique case. Additionally, both were part of a global conflict, which is uncommon. In a global conflict there aren’t many bystanders who can effectively implement sanctions or apply diplomatic pressure. > I'm wondering if going back to an approach of "surrender or we'll kill you all" would save more lives than the current situation This is just as likely to provoke a “fight to the death” response from the defender which is often enough to prevent you from achieving your objectives. There are very few large conflicts where the objective is simply “eliminate the defenders”.
paddleon 1y ago
Friend, I have respect to where you are coming from, and ask you to please think a little longer term. You don't prioritize the well-being of the other side, but you do want to avoid radicalizing them. The more reasons they have to surrender, the more likely they are to surrender, thus ending the conflict sooner AND keeping the end conditions one they are comfortable living under. If instead they feel they are in a fight to the death, then you have a much tougher battle on your hand because they will fight to the death. You'll still win (maybe) but it's going to cost you in personelle and time and money. Next aspect. Moral of your troops. Everyone wants to be a hero, very few people join the military because they want to kill. And those that are in it to kill tend to be toxic leaders which is really bad for the rest of the team. "Rules of war"/"rules of engagement" are methods that allow your troops to maintain their humanity and sense of purpose under horrific situations. You give up that and you are now undercutting the fighting power of your own forces. The military did not come up with these ideas to make themselves weak. They came up with them and enforced them because they are the source of strength.
- falcor84 1y ago
  But that's the question - how do you fight honorably and win? How many examples can you offer (from any time in history), where the winning side conducted the campaign in a "gentlemanly fashion" (or however you want to call it), won, and got the respect of the losing side and lasting peace?
  - pjc50 1y ago
    American Civil War?
    - falcor84 1y ago
      I wouldn't quite say that the former Confederate states fully respected the Union's victory as saying something good about the North [0], and in some ways still don't, but otherwise it is a good example. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy
  - 1y ago
pjc50 1y ago
The broader point is that an unethical military victory erodes your political support, which might lead you to win the battle but lose the war.

nradov 1y ago

The obvious counter example is WWII. The victorious Allied forces conducted widespread strategic bombing campaigns and starvation blockades against Axis civilian targets. This was highly effective and saved the lives of many Allied personnel but judged against some modern criteria could have been considered "war crimes": for example, see the fire bombing of Dresden. None of the Allied leaders were put in front of a tribunal because the strategy worked and Congress was fully on board. The uncomfortable reality is that sometimes the only practical way to win and preserve your own forces is to massacre enemy civilians on an industrial scale.

TheCoelacanth 1y ago
Whether or not strategic bombing was actually effective in WWII is widely disputed.
- nradov 1y ago
  The strategic bombing campaign absolutely reduced Axis manufacturing capacity and fuel supplies. There is no serious dispute about that point. There is some academic dispute about whether it was the most effective use of Allied resources but by the second half of the war the US had plenty resources to spare so that dispute is kind of moot.