Modern vs Old-fashioned war

[Kazuha Vinland]

Lately I have had these bizarre visions that all this talk about modern warfare taking fewer casualties, is all just an illusion. The reasoning behind it being that advances these days - tactical strikes, seem to only work briefly. It just lasts a single breath before the resistance picks up again with renewed hostility. In the past, a war lord would set out to burn a city to the ground, just to send a message. It worked though. Nobody would dare to oppose him, whether that being Caesar or Djengis Khan. They KNEW that the revenge would be horrifying, and they stood no chance of redemption.

That is the direct opposite of today's warfare. Today we pay an incredible price to make wars as gentle as possible. Whereas in the past the warriors had to take into consideration that if they rebelled and lost, their families would die too - now civilians are practially preserved against all interference. Not only do the enemy not fear, it uses the civilians as a tactical approach to hit us back.

Conclusionary, what does this lead to? Everlasting wars? How is that any better than manslaughter? Isn't society as a whole suffering under times of war, no matter if the civilians are the ones to take the bullet or not? Has war simply become too gentle? In an act that is supposed to break the opponent, are we taking too many considerations? Or do you have faith in that war for peace, actually works.

Spoiler:

I know I am being foolish, and I am putting it very at edge with it being open to tons of counter arguments. That's not the point here. I'm just raising a point about wars these days slowly transforming an entire society into a warzone, rather than taking the problem by its roots.

[Ominous Gamer]

I think a lot of what you are mentioning, sooner or later, ties back to current "wars" being (somewhat) subject to public perception. When a leader doesn't care about that the death toll will skyrocket. Just look at some of the rebellions in the middle east.

I think the idea that these advances are intended for fewer casualities will go out the fucking window once 2 world parties figure out how to rally their masses into a real patriotic frenzy. As these more precise techniques will then be turned on the choke points thats the masses rely on.

[Loki]

Wars are getting bloody for a variety of reasons, including an increasing importance of the general public, changing international norms and at least occasional enforcement of those norms, changes in weapon systems, etc. Now if there was a war for survival, the concern for civilian casualties would probably take a backseat to military objectives.

I don't think the lesser casualties in itself leads to longer conflicts. Most fighting isn't symbolic. If you destroy one village but don't have the capacity to destroy more, it wasn't going to serve as much of a deterrent to rebels. The reason the Syrian conflict is still ongoing now while it ended quickly in 1982 isn't because of Assad's restraint, but because the relative strength of the military compared to the rebels is much worse than it was before.

[wiggin]

I for one am happy we don't back to the horrendous death tolls of WWII et al. Much as I understand the logic of past excesses (e.g. strategic bombing), I much prefer the use of strikes that are rather more effective at hitting their targets. As an added bonus, you don't have to burn down most of Dresden or Tokyo!

I think deterrence can be effective without massive civilian casualties, and long term 'managed' conflicts still result in far few deaths overall than a short term no-holds-barred conflict.

[LittleFuzzy]

Has it led to everlasting wars? I can't really think of one. The Cold War plainly lasted quite a while but it's far from the only conflict to span decades and it never really fit this "gentleness" theme of yours anyway. Does this new theme make conflicts worse? Well that depends on how you want to define "worse." I can't think of a quantifiable metric which won't end up lower than wars in the past though.

[Nessus]

I for one am happy we don't back to the horrendous death tolls of WWII et al. Much as I understand the logic of past excesses (e.g. strategic bombing), I much prefer the use of strikes that are rather more effective at hitting their targets. As an added bonus, you don't have to burn down most of Dresden or Tokyo!

I think deterrence can be effective without massive civilian casualties, and long term 'managed' conflicts still result in far few deaths overall than a short term no-holds-barred conflict.

While I don't have an opinion on the OP, I find this post of yours troubling, Andrew. The proprietors of the highest moral order elevated the power of ten to nine when calculating their prospective victims; what precisely is it that has convinced you this is an 'excess of the past'? Especially when we consider that an average food calorie in the West costs 12 calories of burnt oil, and we all know how much oil there is...

[wiggin]

Prospective victims is rather different from actual ones. In general, death tolls from wars waged by modern militaries have been dropping.

I'm not sure where the oil bit comes in, to be honest.

[Nessus]

Prospective victims is rather different from actual ones. In general, death tolls from wars waged by modern militaries have been dropping.

I'm not sure where the oil bit comes in, to be honest.

Sorry, just my old rant about how humanity will distribute its resources when old commodities become expensive.

In the television shows, people who simply plot murder are sentenced less than those who actually do, but from a moral perspective how different are they? So long as we can demonstrate the will existed, are not dreamers as guilty as the doers?

[wiggin]

Wishing to kill a billion people would indeed be reprehensible. Planning for a doomsday scenario in the fervent hope that it never comes to pass is rather different.

[LittleFuzzy]

In the television shows, people who simply plot murder are sentenced less than those who actually do, but from a moral perspective how different are they?

A lot? Acts of omission may or may not be less than acts of commission but thoughts are most certainly less than either.

[Nessus]

Wishing to kill a billion people would indeed be reprehensible. Planning for a doomsday scenario in the fervent hope that it never comes to pass is rather different.

Could you explain to me why it is so different?

[Nessus]

A lot? Acts of omission may or may not be less than acts of commission but thoughts are most certainly less than either.

At the same time, for example, you wouldn't find fault in calling Himmler or Heydrich architects of the Holocaust where they personally committed no violence worth mentioning.

[wiggin]

Could you explain to me why it is so different?

I can personally conceive of any number of - regrettable - reasons why it might be necessary to kill someone, or even many someones. If I were in charge of national defense, I would be required to make detailed planning scenarios of various circumstances in which I might need to order the deaths of thousand or millions. That doesn't make me a mass murderer, nor does it make me a maniac. It's prudent planning. In the case of nuclear scenarios, most of them were either designed to minimize total casualties in order to allow for 'survivability', or during periods when MAD was the only real prevailing logic, to make nuclear war absolutely unthinkable for the other side. Neither set of scenarios is motivated by a desire to kill anyone; it is motivated by a desire to keep casualties as low as humanly possible (in the case of MAD, entirely zero). That's miles away from actively desiring the deaths of multitudes, and lightyears away from actually killing anyone.

You are correct that modern weaponry (both conventional and otherwise) is potentially far more destructive and lethal than in the past. And given such weaponry, it is not surprising that people have gamed out scenarios about how it might be used to most destructive effect. But in reality, its application has been to drastically reduce the total amount of damage done. We drop far less ordnance than we used to, use far fewer trigger-pullers, use things like artillery and heavy armor only sparingly, etc.

[Lebanese Dragon]

Not only do the enemy not fear, it uses the civilians as a tactical approach to hit us back.

Those soldiers have families, the cost of war is still high, even without burning down whole towns. I don't think in most cases [i]total war[i] is needed.


As far as the morality of thought verses actually commiting the crime. I think society should distinguish between them on punishment grounds. However, morally the only distinction I'd like to pose is you may think you want to kill a billion people, but it can be hard to say what you'd do if the "kill one billion people" button was right infront of you. I agree all that really matters is we'd have to be sure that that person would push it, then morally they share the same blame whether they pushed it or not. Given you believe in an objective morality.

[Nessus]

I can personally conceive of any number of - regrettable - reasons why it might be necessary to kill someone, or even many someones. If I were in charge of national defense, I would be required to make detailed planning scenarios of various circumstances in which I might need to order the deaths of thousand or millions. That doesn't make me a mass murderer, nor does it make me a maniac. It's prudent planning. In the case of nuclear scenarios, most of them were either designed to minimize total casualties in order to allow for 'survivability', or during periods when MAD was the only real prevailing logic, to make nuclear war absolutely unthinkable for the other side. Neither set of scenarios is motivated by a desire to kill anyone; it is motivated by a desire to keep casualties as low as humanly possible (in the case of MAD, entirely zero). That's miles away from actively desiring the deaths of multitudes, and lightyears away from actually killing anyone.

This is my problem. I cannot see those light years.

Sure, I can say right now that I wish every left-handed person in the world dead. Or every homosexual. Or whatever. It is absurd on its face since I'm in no position to actually do anything about it.

My question is, what is the difference between Himmler and all those people on the Soviet and US sides who had control of the missiles? In the moral realm. Himmler had access and means to do what he wished towards people, and so did those missile handling people. At which stage does the missile handler become a tragic figure, and Himmler the monster? Each night, the persons responsible of those missiles had to know that they might wake up in a world where some billions of people had just been killed. By their own design.

[wiggin]

Why can't you see the difference? For the billion people who are just thought of as dead, they sure can tell the difference. Someone who actively wishes it will work to make that wish a reality (as did Himmler); someone who includes it as a planning scenario is working feverishly to avoid such a reality.

[Nessus]

Outcomes justify the means? That's...Well, okay, I can buy that I guess.

What I can't see, where the difference should be, is the moral responsibility. Himmler was very upset at the psychological burden the SS had to endure when they were disposing hundreds of people a day, this is why the gas chambers came to be. He wasn't happy about what had to be done, it was simply his responsibility. (And a gateway to greater power in the National Socialist regime, to be fair.) Insofar as I know, we do not have access to Berija's thoughts during his reign, but I suspect there as well to have been some combination of uncaring of others and desire for personal gain.

Similarly, the architects of a global nuclear holocaust may have not desired the outcomes they calculated, but they had both the means and the 'desire' (insofar as MAD dictated) to do so. Are they absolved of their morality simply because their calculations did not come to be?

[wiggin]

Outcomes justify the means? That's...Well, okay, I can buy that I guess.

Not exactly. It's more that 'thought crime' is only a crime if there is an intention to carry out said thought. More broadly, it's that powerful technology does not have to be used to its fullest potential.

What I can't see, where the difference should be, is the moral responsibility. Himmler was very upset at the psychological burden the SS had to endure when they were disposing hundreds of people a day, this is why the gas chambers came to be. He wasn't happy about what had to be done, it was simply his responsibility. (And a gateway to greater power in the National Socialist regime, to be fair.) Insofar as I know, we do not have access to Berija's thoughts during his reign, but I suspect there as well to have been some combination of uncaring of others and desire for personal gain.

It was his 'responsibility' in that he actively wanted it to happen. That's the moral distinction, and it's a doozy of one.

Similarly, the architects of a global nuclear holocaust may have not desired the outcomes they calculated, but they had both the means and the 'desire' (insofar as MAD dictated) to do so. Are they absolved of their morality simply because their calculations did not come to be?

They had not desire for global nuclear war to happen. I don't think any sane person did.

I think there is some moral culpability for the architects of the nuclear buildup during the Cold War just because of the risk of errors. I don't know if any other alternative would have been better - once the nuclear genie was out of the bottle, I'm not sure it would have been easy to halt the ensuing arms race. But I do think they bear some responsibility for incurring such a horrific risk, no matter how hard they tried to minimize it. But that's an entirely different moral responsibility than that shared by mass murderers and architects of genocide alike.

[Nessus]

It just seems to me the same as "well why did she dress that way"

Look, guy, it's an awful nice planet you got here, wouldn't it be an awful shame if we, oh, destroyed the biosphere as you know it?

You don't get to say that and be the "good guy". The people responsible for the Cold War were committed, heart and soul, to the annihilation of billions of human lives. That they felt skeezy about it isn't a very proper defense.

[wiggin]

They weren't committed to it, they desperately wanted to avoid it.

[Nessus]

Whimsy aside, MAD demanded that both sides were absolutely committed to it, otherwise MAD wouldn't work!

[Loki]

That's a rather warped interpretation of their interests. They were committed to global annihilation only if attacked.

[Nessus]

For some values of 'attack'

[Loki]

Considering that neither declared actions that were casus belli for wars in the past to be those values, it's pretty clear that they tried to avoid war at all cost.

[Nessus]

Sure, but all the same they engineered the deaths of billions. "I didn't mean to, honest" or "He made me do it!" are not very good defences.

[ar81]

War is a cock fight game. Lenders bet money and make huge profits, the poor provide the casualties, the middle class provides the money and the organizers of the cock fight become richer. Once you understand how money works, you realize how the game of modern war works. Taking sides in a war is to become a hooligan cock.

[LittleFuzzy]

At the same time, for example, you wouldn't find fault in calling Himmler or Heydrich architects of the Holocaust where they personally committed no violence worth mentioning.

But they did engage in acts of commission, yes? They were, by their own active and deliberate decision-making, willfully responsible for massive harm being committed. Maybe we're reading "plot" in two different ways here.

[Timbuk2]

Any comments on what happens when modern ordinance and war tech comes up against old-style military tactics?

I'm thinking of much of WWI and the trenches of the Somme etc. Men being told to stand and march, slowly and in line, toward the enemy, as per typical pre-gunfire infantry manouvres. But when faced with machine-gun batteries, the lines of slowly marching men were mowed down like so much wheat scythed down in a field. Horrific and devastating, yet it took commanders and generals years to change such idiocy.

[Loki]

It seemed like a good idea at the time. But anywho, those who don't end up appropriate tactics tend to lose, while other countries/groups tend to adopt the tactics of the winners.

[Loki]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/wo...rview.html?hpw Slightly off topic, but I never cease to be amazed by the willingness of Western "anti-war" activists to voice support for the worst dictators and terrorists in the world as long as they're fighting Western interests.