>WWI>Austrohungariangermans complain about inhumane snipers and shotguns>they fire shells filled with face melting poisonous gas>WWII>motherfucking flamethrowers clearing bunkers and trenchesWhere does one draw the line in war in regards to humanity and/or should such a concept be thrown out the window entirely?Geneva/Hague convention being a meme, discussion, I guess?Political tiptioeing as well, seeing how anal retentive the US Govt was about using ACTUAL 5.56 against non-treaty countries in their oilfield/opium wars.
Are you implying that wars should be a civilized affair? Do you think they should be noble pursuits?Anon, it looks like you need to rethink your assumptions.
>>62950300>WW III>Killer drones operated by children blowing up you and your entire squad, intercontinental missiles and mortars razing cities to the ground
>>62950300Thw issue with these is that what is considered humane or justifiable often differs depending on cultural views and past experiences. Which gets even worse because nations are more than willing to ensure rules are to their benefit.Taking your examples:>shotgunsPropaganda meme by both sides>snipersA good example of previous experiences coloring views.in the Franco-Prussian War the french had irregulars/civilians which fought in ambushes and sabotaged the germans, which lead to reprisal actions.This directly affected their behavior in WW1 and snipers were often enough assumed to be irregulars.>poison gasThat's was arguably a loosening of morals, the french used teargas in august 1914 and like 2 months later the germans followed suit.Afaik that was technically violating geneva, it's just that neither side cared much.But as a consequence the to use other gas was way smaller compared to using ir from the get go.>flamethrowers Yeah I got nothing, I don't think anyone really minded those in either world war, which is crazy.Might be due to all the, bullshit, claims of "it's so hot they die before they know what's happening".On the other hand I think some US officers argued for the use of gas in the island hopping campaign becaus ei isn't any worse than burning a dude alive.I'd also like to mention:>cruiser/prize rules in WW1You have to warn merchants before sinking them and give the crew opportunity to evacuate etc.For ubaots that ment they had to surface, so the anglos put guns on ships and even converted some merchant ships into decoys which had no cargo and were bristling with guns. As a result the uboats had to surface and die do nothing and stay in port or ignore the rules. Although I think there were arguments that Which is basically just the brits being "that guy" and rule lawyering g to their advantage.
>>62950300>Where does one draw the lineUltimately those will always be arbitrary for the most part but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be any.Especially the things people consider to be perfidious, needlessly cruel and targeting of civilians tend to inherently cause a desire of reprisal in the other party. Without any rules there is a risk that a conflict will escalate evermore to right the previous action. This is further compounded by the damage to environment and the population which risk a race to the bottom until you're left with ruins.
shotguns are literally cheating and a walking warcrimefuck shotguns
>>62950480Cope, Krautoid.
>>62950480Deformed Erb's palsy hand typed this post.
>>62950300>Modern day>Call in "smoke" on entrenched positions if HE was ineffective>It's willy Pete>Fumes are agitating and toxicWar, war never changes. Honestly fire just seems to work too fucking well for people to get away from using it because muh morality. Which is presumably why it's legal outside of built up civilian areas>>62950426When it comes to napalm and flamethrowers in general the typical use is entrenched enemies in bunkers or tunnels, the vast majority don't die from the flames, you have to be really close to the tunnel entrance for that to happen. What it really does is burn up most of the oxygen and produce a LOT of carbon monoxide which will creep through the tunnel much further than flames would. Really it was just poison gas with extra steps.
>>62950300>Austrohungariangermans complain about inhumane snipersThat's not actually true though.
>>62950566>British doctors did this to me
>>62950300>WWII>Vaporize two cities with the power of the sun>This is the more ethical option compared to outright genociding the Japanese who would fight to the death for their islands otherwiseThe most ethical way to wage a war is whatever ends it the fastest and with the least bloodshed, even if that means using "unethical" tools.
>>62950501>a repeating shotgun and a sword combinedAmerican ingenuity.
>>62950320>Are you implying that wars should be a civilized affair? Do you think they should be noble pursuits?Yes. They should be martial arts contests and/or honor duels performed personally by those who would wage them, all publicly televised.
>>62951087>yee trench rat, I challange thee to fisticuffs to dissolve our dispute in a gentlemanly manner>*both get blown simultaneusly the fuck apart by a drone with an OGi-7MA*
Wars were fought the best in Napoleon times. Just two armies standing face to face at each other and shooting till one gives up. thats also the time where all the civilised values for warfare came from. Its allies of ww1 and ww2 who went complete subhuman in warfare without any rules throwing back civilisation by 200 years
>>62951223>Just two armies standing face to face at each other and shooting till one gives up.You're a mongoloid.
>>62950300>>62950480the germans only complained about shotguns as an attempt to drive a wedge between the united states and the triple entente, highlighting the difference between "Civilized" european countries and new world frontier savages. They never actually cared about the ethicality of shotguns in warfare.
>Wars were fought the best in Napoleon times. Just two armies standing face to face at each other and shooting till one gives up. thats also the time where all the civilised values for warfare came from. Its allies of ww1 and ww2 who went complete subhuman in warfare without any rules throwing back civilisation by 200 years
>>62950300The very concept of "war crimes" is absurd; war itself is a crime, and no lesser suffering comes from restraint, only more, for the dogs of war must truly be unleashed without restriction for war to end quickly & decisively, thereby putting an end to the suffering."Sanitizing" war through law is an insult to common sense.
>>62955870How war is a crime?
>>62951223>Its allies of ww1 and ww2 who went complete subhuman in warfare without any rulesGermans started using terror bombing in Poland before the allies got involved.
>>62955870>war itself is a crimeAn absurd statementIf another nation were to exterminate parts of its population standing idly by would be a crime instead of putting a stop to it.Like Saint Augustine of Hippo argued:>peacefulness in the face of a grave wrong that could be stopped by only violence would be a sin.
>>62951223The condottieri system of 15th-century Italy was the peak of warfare and I don't care what any fucker that has read too much Machiavelli says.
>>62955870I take it you don't understand the concept of harm mitigation either.
>>62956003>If another nation were to exterminate parts of its populationThe USSR did Holodomor and nobody cared. USA continued to help Stalin industrialize.
>>62956339That didn't make it the right thing to do from a moral point of view, at least in the christian world.
>>62950300Operation vegeterian from WW2
>>62956363This is such a bullshit.In "the christian world" nobody criticizes Stalin, USSR, allies for allying with the communists, Holodomor, pre-WWII invasions of the USSR into all sorts of countries. The USA literally had a monument to Stalin up until the recent years.There is nothing "moral" in it.
>>62950300>Where does one draw the line in war in regards to humanity and/or should such a concept be thrown out the window entirely?target the officers first when you see them, there was a lot of complaining about that because aristocracy sometimes falsely believes they should be immune from violence
>>62951223it's insane that people still actually believe this shit. linear infantry tactics developed out of necessity, not because they were heckin civilized. every single aspect, from the elaborate drills to the silly hats, was specifically made that way to increase the efficiency of the killing.
>>62950300It’s a combination of>stuff that’s illegal on paper, but people will end up doing during total war if push comes to shove, due to necessity or expediency / having to make a quick decision of your men vs their men>stuff that’s illegal because it actually benefits nobody and is just needlessly cruel for no reason Good example of the former is stuff like executing captured enemy soldiers or enemy civilians when you don’t have the capacity to detain or secure them in a scenario where letting them go alive leads to your troop getting killed. Good example of the second is chemical warfare, unironically a complete meme in the modern world.
>>62959092I would also add that having basic rules of humanity and decency in war (and having your soldiers be trained to follow these rules strictly, within reason) is key for providing soldiers with confidence of moral purpose which then translates to greater morale in the field. This is almost entirely specific to western militaries where we tend to think we’re the good guys fighting for good guy higher ideals - russians, chinese etc don’t care about any of these things, they just fight either for greed, self preservation, or just because they have been told to at the tip of a gun, and as such they do not care about any rules.
>>62958743I brought up christian values because it were christian saints that further developed the concept of just wars and the proper conduct in war from roman basics and shaped western thinking from the medieval period onwards. While it can be argued that this had an influence on what we consider war crimes other cultures nonetheless didn't have the same influence and, at least in the past, will have different views.As for the USSR; disregarding what is morally right doesn't change what it means to act morally right.And yes how the western world, and allies in particular, interacted and reacted to the USSR would have been considered sinful by some church scholars in medieval times.
>>62951392JAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJA
