The entire “war has no rules” argument revolves around the Marquis de Queensbury, which applies sport logic to a non-sport matter. The issue of committing atrocities against POWs and civilians doesn’t have quite the same “I’m too tough & cool for rules, dude!” factor.
“War is not a game where there is everything to win and nothing to lose. Those who appeal to the law of force should not complain if its decision is held as final. When men stake their cause on their strongest arguments and fail, it is poor logic to urge weaker ones. And when men make arms their arbiter and are defeated, they can neither expect to dictate terms to the victor, nor to plead with original effect the original rights and privileges which they abandoned for a more decisive trial. What they may claim are the terms which honor may ask of valor or mercy of power.” - Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, 1867
It is not the loser who shows mercy, its the victor. The victor has no need to show mercy save one. To not do so emboldens the loser to fight to the last for they know there is nothing to ultimately lose. History is replete with examples, from Masada to Malmedy.
Tell the class which rules have been enforced by and during war.
Start with much of the budget of the countries of Southewst Asia going for artificial limbs for years after the mid-1970s. Then cover napalm sticking to kids. Work your way back to the war crimes trials conducted after the Hanoi Hilton. Tell us which Chinese were punished for prisoner abuses subsequent to Korea. Then work your way back past Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Dresden, etc. Discuss the hundreds of people prosecuted on both sides for using poison gas in WWI. Then carefully pick your way back in time to the dawn of history, illustrating that farcical contention with the evidence of the hundreds of trials after all of the wars in the panorama of human history, including the victors of such contests against themselves, back to when writing was a stylus on clay tablets, which prove conclusively that war is a rules-based activity. If you're right, history should be drippingly replete with such examples, rather than coming to the conclusion that war is entirely an exercise of the end justifying the means, for all sides, every single time it is attempted.
I'll wait while you gather the evidence for that recockulous contention.
I cited the Marquess and his rules, because only games and sports have rules.
War is not a game. Never has it ever been.
Some may choose to pretend it is for a time, but in the long run, only fools and suckers think otherwise for very long, and repent, either suddenly or at leisure, for that tragic misapprehension of reality.
Wars have maxims that prove useful guidance in their conduct. Hence the writings of its more proficient practitioners, from Rumsfeld back to Caesar and Sun Tzu, and many in between. Those are like the Pirates Code: merely guidelines, more or less.
But "rules" imply some overall arbitration in the here and now, not the hereafter, which does not and has never existed, and war is the ultimate lack of any such thing, for any time frame from seconds to decades.
War is chaos, hell, and death, visited as indiscriminately as a random dice throw, and no respecter of persons. The only "rule" there is that it is always better to give than to receive. Best to write that down on your hand with a Sharpie, lest ye forget.
People ignore that harsh truth to both their own peril, and that of anyone foolishly listening to them, and anyone beckoning others to that viewpoint are like sirens calling ships onto the shoals of doom.
You assertion that "rules" only apply in the here and now is comedically unrealistic. Imagine trying to argue that in a court-martial: "Your Honor, my client deserted his post 3 days ago, but because he wasn't arrested during the act you cannot say there are no rules about deserting one's post."
Enforcement and arbitration of rules is practically always in the hereafter; what you are demanding I prove is some non-human force which restrains humans with free will from doing what they please at that exact moment (or immediately smiting them with lightning). Since that doesn't happen, you proclaim victory without ever actually proving your point.
Hell, even sports players get away with cheating, and rules don't always apply the instant they break them.
In short: you're attacking a straw man, and are seemingly unable to fathom any other possible set of rules for warfare besides the Marquis de Queensbury's!
War is indeed chaos and death, and Murphy's Law and the Law of Unintended Consequences love to chime in. However, the fact that there are no referees in a firefight does not mean there are no rules for war. War is more than just combat, and those who think "everything goes/the end justifies the means" tend to suck at war. Sure, they'll win battles. But they'll be too short-sighted to actually win the war against a competent opponent. Ask the Confederacy (who gleefully enslaved northern blacks and pillaged northern towns) how that worked out for them. Or Nazi Germany, who massacred villages yet couldn't beat the Red Army at Stalingrad. Or the Viet Cong, who could bury 3000 people alive in Hue yet lost the Tet Offensive and were only a nuisance afterwards.
Which brings me to your litany of vaguely-defined MdQ Rules. No, Strategic bombing is not a war crime under the rules of warfare. No, using napalm is not a war crime under the rules of warfare; there is a substantial difference between children caught in the crossfire and deliberate targeting of civilians. No, Dresden was not deliberate targeting of civilians; don't mix it up with the bombing of Warsaw. Nor is the use of WMDs or Agent Orange a war crime, unless you are the MdQ. When Germany tried to claim shotguns were against the rules of warfare, everybody laughed because the bar was so much higher.
As for the Hanoi Hilton and Chicom treatment of prisoners in Korea, that is not proof that there are no rules, it is proof that the west was in a cowering, morally-equivocal mood. It's akin to saying that there are no rules against school shootings because the Uvalde Police chickened out and refused to enforce them/stop the shooter.
Oh, and by the way, for most of history the successful military powers did have a code of conduct, including for pillaging. Since war was fought by small warrior castes rather than mass conscript armies (which are an industrial-era phenomenon), the aristocracies rarely wanted to wipe out the limited supply of potential allies (defeated armies would often join the victorious ones, including in civil wars). Plunder was a way to pay soldiers, and even the Old Testament has regulations for distributing it among the men. Those who engaged in massacring prisoners tended to have their allies desert them, their opponents team up against them, and be isolated and destroyed. Why would strong civilized men make peace with those who commit atrocities? Trying to use Afghanistan as a counterpoint doesn't work because multiple empires did, in fact, conquer it and the Afghans were a nuisance rather than an existential threat. Its reputation as "Da Graveyard of Empyres" is greatly overblown, and their military prowess is only at the smallest scale. If a battalion of American troops couldn't destroy a platoon of enemy soldiers, everyone would rightly say we suck at war. Yet the Afghans repeatedly failed to do that for 20 years.
So no, rules are not what separate the foolish from the winners. They're what separate the short-sighted from the winners. Tactical success is fleeting; war is won by strategy. There is a reason Jayne Cobb isn't the captain of the Serenity.
You're comically clueless if you think there's a controlling authority for war here on earth. That there are wars at all proves exactly the opposite theorem.
I'm differentiating "here and now" with the "hereafter"; that obviously sailed right over your head.
I also didn't say "rules apply only here and now" nor anything like; in point of fact you've completely reversed my position with such a ham-fisted attempt.
My entire point is that rules DON'T apply in the here and now. Maybe saying that ten different ways and times was too subtle for you?
But hey, prove me wrong: Name the arbitrating authority who decides what is just and unjust, with plenipotentiary power to judge on God's behalf, here on earth, and has done so, since Cain slew Abel.
While you stew on that, you're going to have to do better than trying to merely gainsay any number of war crimes you think you've been given the authority to adjudicate on behalf of the Almighty.
If the only place war has rules is after death, tell the class the difference between that, and accusations of preaching "pie in the sky, by and by." Compare and contrast that with the phrase "Justice delayed is justice denied."
War is not a game. And it manifestly has no rules. Suggesting otherwise is merely someone's end, trying to justify their means. Say "code of conduct for pillaging" in front of the mirror without laughing out loud at the lunacy of the concept. Then, tell us how those same "rules" should be the same today. Then consult all contemporary accounts of how well such "rules" were honored, if at all, even at the time. If merely writing something down qualifies as citable "rules", no one would ever drive over the speed limit, would they?
And if the rules are mutable over time, what claim can anyone make for them being rules at all? Was gravity weaker once? How about the speed of light?
Maybe explain the organized rape of captives - civilians one and all - by the same Soviet Army you hail as an exemplar of those following the "rules" in war. Which took place in living memory. Your abject ignorance of actual history there is no excuse.
Then tell us whose flag flies over Hue today, while you lecture on who sucks at war. In point of historical fact, horrible people using horrible acts win wars all the time, and ever have since it's been written down. Ask around in China, Cuba, Cambodia, or anywhere in Eastern Europe, just for openers. (cont.)
(cont.) If there really are rules, why would their enforcement fall solely on the disposition and inclination of the United States? Aren't rules rules?!? Show all work.
Dresden wasn't a "deliberate" targeting of civilians?!? In what universe? So you're saying wiping an entire city off the map in a three-day firestorm orgy of destruction was just "collateral damage"? Pure unforeseeable and accidental coincidence?? "Oopsie, they get a mulligan on that one" because it was justified? Pray, explain how that one works.
The Old Testament also has rules for stoning your children. Tread lightly before leaning on it as a carte blanche proof-text.
Massacres and atrocities are streng verboten in your illusory construct of history? Please explain any dozen perpetrated by the US Army between 1865 and 1900. You knew about those, right? Then, perhaps google the exploits of Dudley "Mush" Morton in the Pacific, awarded a DSC and 4 Navy Crosses. Get back to us when you can discuss his actions in wartime intelligently.
The problem is that you can't come to grips with the harsh reality of war, despite myriad examples, at any point in history, and still choose to think of it in sugar-coated platitudes about the enterprise.
You're in for one helluva shock when it slaps you in the face like a frozen mackerel with its utter indiscriminate brutality, contrary to and completely ungoverned by any illusory "rules". Which is pretty much the definition of "war".
It's quaint and cute when youngsters have a childlike faith in things that are pure fantasy, let alone too horrible for most people to contemplate or witness, and from which most attempts at civilization successfully shield them during their minority. But it's unseemly for an adult to pretend the reality of the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, or "rules of warfare", for which there is no evidence extant in all of human history. Every attempt at any such thing invariably reveals the lack of any such thing, and the impossibility of the very idea. It's like yelling at the wind in the face of a hurricane.
AFAIK, there's only one man who ever rebuked a storm and made it stick. And no one who laid down rules for war and made them stick, nor will until the end of time.
Many years ago my daddy taught me that there is no such thing as a fair fight. I have taught my children and grand children these wise words.Spread the word.
@Aesop You bounce between so many mutually-contradicting straw man arguments, it's quite the sight to behold.
#1
First you say, and I quote: "But "rules" imply some overall arbitration in the here and now, not the hereafter[...]" Then you say: "I also didn't say "rules apply only here and now" nor anything like... My entire point is that rules DON'T apply in the here and now." So, which is it? Both statements cannot be correct. Also, declaring that "rules imply arbitration in the here and now" is a straw man argument.
#2
"You're comically clueless if you think there's a controlling authority for war here on earth. That there are wars at all proves exactly the opposite theorem." This statement is true of all controlling authorities. There is no controlling authority for crime, yet there are still laws and rules against robbing banks. And the authority to punish those who break them. You've essentially applied the same logic to "rules" that Richard Dawkins applies to God: straw-manning based on unrealistic standards, and then unironically proclaim victory when reality plays by different rules.
#3
"Name the arbitrating authority who decides what is just and unjust, with plenipotentiary power to judge on God's behalf, here on earth, and has done so, since Cain slew Abel." Murphy. Flout his Law at your own peril. Up next, Cain killing Abel isn't "war," which makes that a weak red herring. Second, there have been multiple authorities: first it was the aristocracies, then it was the Geneva and Hague Conventions. Before you dismiss these as "not counting," ask why those who don't follow the Geneva Convention still pretend to follow it in public, rather than openly bragging about how they are too cool for rules.
#4
If the only place war has rules is after death, tell the class the difference between that, and accusations of preaching "pie in the sky, by and by." Compare and contrast that with the phrase "Justice delayed is justice denied." Another straw-man argument. Rules apply before and after death, not one or the other. Justice is delayed all the time; that slogan is meant to stir moral men to action rather than dereliction of duty.
#5
"War is not a game." I never claimed otherwise. I even put a quote saying exactly that. "And it manifestly has no rules. Suggesting otherwise is merely someone's end, trying to justify their means." Just try using that at a court-martial. If it were true, then the military would have no jurisdiction/authority to hold court-martials. That statement is the anthem of blue falcons and those who suck at war.
1) You've literally gone hopelessly stupid, had a stroke, or you're just trolling. There is no contradiction between telling you how rules would have to apply if they existed, and then pointing out that there are no such rules, because there's nothing that does, in fact, deliver any such application, and therefore they do not exist You're literally so thick-headed there it's hard to tell if it's an act, or you're really that much of a moron. I'm sorry, but there's no way to sugar-coat that.
2) Tell the class who that controlling authority is that you claim exists. Start with when it was established, then list the judgements it has enforced. The laws and rules against certain crimes are as variable as the weather. Crime is not war. Tell us what controlling authority decreed that poison gas was okay to use. And then rescinded that authority. Are land mines legal now or not? If there are rules and a controlling authority, it cannot be both. Show your work.
3) Cain killing Abel was illustrative of a point in time, not an illustration of war. Don't be a simpleton. If there have been multiple "authorities"...why? Explain their worldwide jurisdiction over all war. Then, now, or ever. If not, why not? None of the ones cited could ever count, because they're entirely voluntary associations, and none of them has ever been universal. Yet you claim there are universal rules in war. How can this be so, if there has never been any universal acceptance of such a fantasy? For but one instance, is (or was) scalping victims ever okay? Why, or why not? Who was prosecuted for it in the 82d and 101st Airborne after doing it on D-Day in 1944? (You knew about that, right?) You've dug yourself quite a hole to get out of. Which countries don't follow the Geneva Conventions, but pretend they do? When last I looked, those who aren't signatories to international conventions make no secret of the fact, then, now, or ever.
4) Which rules apply in war universally here and now? Enforced by whom? Upon whom? Russia killed hundreds of captured Polish officers in the Katyn Forest in 1941. When can we expect someone will take up that case? Which "rules of war" allowed us to sheep dip hundreds of Nazis from 1945-1960, pretend they weren't Nazis, and bring them into America to work on our rocket and space programs? Who's running the prosecution for what took place in the Hanoi Hilton? When can we expect justice for the bodies of American troops mutilated in Mogadischu in 1993? Who's prosecuting the dismemberment of Americans and hanging their body parts on bridges in Fallujah circa 2003/4? Feel free to fill us in on any of those gaping holes in enforcement of "rules of war". For such a universal thing, there doesn't seem to be anyone minding the store, does there?
5) Militaries can have rules. Most do. They alone also get to decide what they take cognizance of, and what they ignore. This is why the Army pinned My Lai on a lowly lieutenant, then closed up the legal machinery, despite Lt. Calley's explicit testimony that he was ordered to carry out the massacre by his company and field grade chain of command, with their full knowledge and enthusiastic support. (cont.)
(cont.) Moreover, you're conflating armies prosecuting criminal conduct, with wars having rules. ♫One of these things is not like the other one...♫
Wars don't have any such thing, which is why militaries can pick and choose what they pretend to notice, and what they actually ignore. If there were actual rules, they'd have to take notice of everything. Yet that never happens.Never. If there were rules in war, the investigation of My Lai wouldn't have ended after finding one lowly scapegoat.
Tell the class about the prosecution of Lt. Ronald Spiers, D company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, for executing captured Germans on D-Day 1944 in Normandy. He admitted doing it. Capt. Richard Winters confirmed he did it. Both at the time, and decades later. There was no secret that it happened. Last I looked, there is no statute of limitations on murder, even in wartime. It was a clear, explicit, and flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions, which had been signed by both Germany and the United States. If there are rules in war, and the military had convening authority, why didn't they do so? Spiers died peacefully in bed, decades later. Where are your "rules of war"? Why isn't murder on the list? Why did the US Army suddenly take notice of shooting civilians at My Lai, but never addressed shooting captives in Normandy? Are the rules asleep? Busy on the toilet? Inquiring minds, and all that.
You're getting your ass kicked around the block on this topic; did you really want me to lay into the next batches of nonsense you posted? I've given you concrete case after concrete case, and you haven't got a leg to stand on.
And BTW, every point you can't refute factually, that totally undermines your indefensible contention, doesn't automagically therefore become a straw-man argument. Words mean things.
You should look that one up, and refresh your recollection, before you slather it over everything like mustarding up a hot dog.
1) You may have meant it that way, but that's not what you wrote. You first wrote that rules, if they existed, would require certain criteria and then said that rules don't have that criteria. Being called names by someone who can't spot their own self-contradictions doesn't hit as hard as you seem to think it does.
As for the rest of your comments, you're still using the same straw man arguments. Let me lay it out for you:
First, you make a ridiculous, unrealistic claim about what constitutes "rules," creating an unconvincing straw man Next, you cling to the straw man and ignore all other possible criteria for what could constitute "rules" Then, you demand that I produce evidence that your straw man is real, and proclaim victory when I say that your criteria for "rules" are ridiculous and unrealistic.
Why are your criteria ridiculous and unrealistic, you ask? Because they say rules can only exist if humans physically can't break them or escape the consequences. This is a fallacy; it is false under all conditions. It is false in war. It is false in police work. It is false in sports. If humans couldn't break the rules, rules would be pointless and not exist. If humans could never escape the consequences, you are dealing with something higher than rules. Trying to prove this is the only possible definition of "rules" by invoking the Laws of Physics is akin to claiming a Toyota Camry is a Ford F-350 because they're both cars with 4 wheels.
My counterargument to your fallacy is that war operates under a different set of rules than the Marquis de Queensbury. Your repeated response has been "show me a Marquis de Queensbury rule humans are incapable of breaking, with a 100% compliance rate in all of history" which is attacking your straw man, not my actual argument. I suggest adjusting your sights before blaming the target for your misses.
My argument is, and always has been, that rules can and do change with time, since war today is very different from war 1000 years ago. Rules are created by human authorities, which also change over time, and require moral men to enforce; demanding I show a rule that enforces itself is a straw man argument.
The rules of war are also based heavily on reciprocation: don't execute my men when they are prisoners, and I won't execute yours. There is a significant difference between soldiers shooting prisoners on their own initiative versus doing so under orders; conflating the two is moral equivocation.
I go further to say that rules are what separate war-winners from the short-sighted men who can win battles but suck at war when the "tough guy" veneer is peeled away. Any gang of muscular, tattooed gunmen can get into a gunfight; war is bigger and more complex than that. Amateurs study tactics, remember?
I'll gladly talk historical examples with you, but don't get too excited. You have yet to come up with an example that disproves my thesis instead of kicking your straw man around the block.
1) I didn't write anything contradictory. "Rules of war" as such do not exist. If they did, they would require certain things which have never existed either. QED It's no more complicated than that.
2) Something you disagree with ≠ fallacy. No matter how many times you wish it so, nor belabor the point.
3) Something you can ignore with impunity, and to no consequences, is not a "rule". It's a wish, perhaps, but it has no force. "There are rules"? Prove it.
I've given you copious examples where imaginary "rules" were flagrantly violated, without any consequence on Earth. Ever. Not only have there never been any citations of rules broken, they were never enforced, anywhere, by anyone.
Let me help you out: RULE: noun 1. one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct within a particular activity or sphere. 2. control of or dominion over an area or people. verb 1. exercise ultimate power or authority over (an area and its people). 2. pronounce authoritatively and legally to be the case.
You seem to want to make "rules" things which can be defined like the Walrus in Alice In Wonderland defined words: something that means anything you want them to mean, neither more nor less.
Unfortunately for your position, words, including the word "rules" have fixed and certain meanings. The imaginary "rules" of war you postulate have never existed. Nor ever could.
There is no list of them. There aren't any which are commonly understood. They have no authority. They have no effect. They don't get to change willy-nilly, to suit whatever the whims of caprice may define them as. One side may choose to constrain itself; that doesn't make what they do a "rule", whether they win or lose. It simply defines their side's rules. Which fails the definition of Rules Of War, which would necessarily have to be generally understood by all sides, beyond all appeal.
(cont.) It's apparently never entered your conception of reality that one side may have different "rules". The very existence of such a situation means there are no overriding, authoritative "rules of war", by the very defintion of words.
Japan did WTF it liked in WW2. They treated captives as dishonored slaves. They punished them randomly with beheading. And if they'd prevailed against us, they would continue to do so unto this day. Our victory didn't change THE rules, (which have never existed), it merely forced them to kowtow to our way of conducting war.
That not only doesn't prove that rules exist, it proves just the opposite: if rules existed, we never would have needed to blow them to hell for 4 years to make the change. Not to see this is idiocy, based on hamfisted attempts at sleight-of-hand.
In 1776, the British thought they were the arbiters of the rules of war. "Troops will be clearly distinguished, march in straight lines, face off, and fire. Shooting officers is wrong, because troops will lose control and go wild." Colonials hereabouts disabused them of that notion. "We shall wear clothing which blends in, shoot from behind rocks and trees as we like, and aim for officers and NCOs as targets of special interest." Eat shit and die, King George.
So, tell the class what the "rules of war" were there. Best wishes with that plan.
Both sides in our Civil War thought the Napoleonic conduct of war = "rules". Then they kept finding out standing in dressed ranks was a recipe for unimagined wholesale slaughter, especially when the other side was ensconced in, for example, a sunken road, and unable to be blasted outright at range. They began trench warfare, a lesson with such impact it re-appeared 55 years later, and made up most of WWI.
Both sides in that war thought massed charges would work, until machineguns informed them (after hundreds of thousands of lessons), that that imaginary "rule" had also been overcome by events. They still tried to ride that horse until one side was too exhausted to continue.
War hasn't "rules", it has tactics. Tactics change. Rules do not, and cannot.
You want to conflate one being the other, which is futile, and frankly stupid.
You cannot name any "rules of war", for now, or ever. You can cite any number of things one or both sides would like to imagine are "rules", but they fail the fundamental definition of rules. They are simply common misconceptions, and history keeps trying to drive home the point that what you or they think is so, isn't. The fact that your imaginary rules change and shift like smoke in the breeze is quite obviously and simply because they don't exist as such, and never have.
Not counting the news outlets or websites along the full range of accuracy and veracity, I follow multiple actual individuals' handwritten blogs. (Bot news aggregators don't thrill me.) Looking them over, many are current serving or former military and a couple are some variation of high-speed low-drag elite forces ninjas. Or just funny as all. Because life without humor is just despair. So in other words, the same folks I trusted in the military not to wet the bed, sh*t themselves, or otherwise run around like headless Nancys, are the same folks I trust on the interwebz, for demonstrating pretty much the same trustworthiness and circumspectly responsible behavior. Color me shocked.
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18 comments:
Only rule will be keep your powder dry.
A man smarter than me was once quoted -- "If you are in a fair fight you F'd up." (Attribution is Lincoln to Steinbeck. Readers choice.)
Yup, it won't be pretty. Might steal that one . . .
The entire “war has no rules” argument revolves around the Marquis de Queensbury, which applies sport logic to a non-sport matter. The issue of committing atrocities against POWs and civilians doesn’t have quite the same “I’m too tough & cool for rules, dude!” factor.
“War is not a game where there is everything to win and nothing to lose. Those who appeal to the law of force should not complain if its decision is held as final. When men stake their cause on their strongest arguments and fail, it is poor logic to urge weaker ones. And when men make arms their arbiter and are defeated, they can neither expect to dictate terms to the victor, nor to plead with original effect the original rights and privileges which they abandoned for a more decisive trial. What they may claim are the terms which honor may ask of valor or mercy of power.” - Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, 1867
Michael,
It is not the loser who shows mercy, its the victor. The victor has no need to show mercy save one. To not do so emboldens the loser to fight to the last for they know there is nothing to ultimately lose. History is replete with examples, from Masada to Malmedy.
Tell the class which rules have been enforced by and during war.
Start with much of the budget of the countries of Southewst Asia going for artificial limbs for years after the mid-1970s. Then cover napalm sticking to kids. Work your way back to the war crimes trials conducted after the Hanoi Hilton. Tell us which Chinese were punished for prisoner abuses subsequent to Korea. Then work your way back past Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Dresden, etc. Discuss the hundreds of people prosecuted on both sides for using poison gas in WWI. Then carefully pick your way back in time to the dawn of history, illustrating that farcical contention with the evidence of the hundreds of trials after all of the wars in the panorama of human history, including the victors of such contests against themselves, back to when writing was a stylus on clay tablets, which prove conclusively that war is a rules-based activity. If you're right, history should be drippingly replete with such examples, rather than coming to the conclusion that war is entirely an exercise of the end justifying the means, for all sides, every single time it is attempted.
I'll wait while you gather the evidence for that recockulous contention.
I cited the Marquess and his rules, because only games and sports have rules.
War is not a game. Never has it ever been.
Some may choose to pretend it is for a time, but in the long run, only fools and suckers think otherwise for very long, and repent, either suddenly or at leisure, for that tragic misapprehension of reality.
Wars have maxims that prove useful guidance in their conduct. Hence the writings of its more proficient practitioners, from Rumsfeld back to Caesar and Sun Tzu, and many in between. Those are like the Pirates Code: merely guidelines, more or less.
But "rules" imply some overall arbitration in the here and now, not the hereafter, which does not and has never existed, and war is the ultimate lack of any such thing, for any time frame from seconds to decades.
War is chaos, hell, and death, visited as indiscriminately as a random dice throw, and no respecter of persons. The only "rule" there is that it is always better to give than to receive. Best to write that down on your hand with a Sharpie, lest ye forget.
People ignore that harsh truth to both their own peril, and that of anyone foolishly listening to them, and anyone beckoning others to that viewpoint are like sirens calling ships onto the shoals of doom.
@Aesop
You assertion that "rules" only apply in the here and now is comedically unrealistic. Imagine trying to argue that in a court-martial: "Your Honor, my client deserted his post 3 days ago, but because he wasn't arrested during the act you cannot say there are no rules about deserting one's post."
Enforcement and arbitration of rules is practically always in the hereafter; what you are demanding I prove is some non-human force which restrains humans with free will from doing what they please at that exact moment (or immediately smiting them with lightning). Since that doesn't happen, you proclaim victory without ever actually proving your point.
Hell, even sports players get away with cheating, and rules don't always apply the instant they break them.
In short: you're attacking a straw man, and are seemingly unable to fathom any other possible set of rules for warfare besides the Marquis de Queensbury's!
War is indeed chaos and death, and Murphy's Law and the Law of Unintended Consequences love to chime in. However, the fact that there are no referees in a firefight does not mean there are no rules for war. War is more than just combat, and those who think "everything goes/the end justifies the means" tend to suck at war. Sure, they'll win battles. But they'll be too short-sighted to actually win the war against a competent opponent. Ask the Confederacy (who gleefully enslaved northern blacks and pillaged northern towns) how that worked out for them. Or Nazi Germany, who massacred villages yet couldn't beat the Red Army at Stalingrad. Or the Viet Cong, who could bury 3000 people alive in Hue yet lost the Tet Offensive and were only a nuisance afterwards.
Which brings me to your litany of vaguely-defined MdQ Rules. No, Strategic bombing is not a war crime under the rules of warfare. No, using napalm is not a war crime under the rules of warfare; there is a substantial difference between children caught in the crossfire and deliberate targeting of civilians. No, Dresden was not deliberate targeting of civilians; don't mix it up with the bombing of Warsaw. Nor is the use of WMDs or Agent Orange a war crime, unless you are the MdQ. When Germany tried to claim shotguns were against the rules of warfare, everybody laughed because the bar was so much higher.
(1/2)
(2/2) @ Aesop
As for the Hanoi Hilton and Chicom treatment of prisoners in Korea, that is not proof that there are no rules, it is proof that the west was in a cowering, morally-equivocal mood. It's akin to saying that there are no rules against school shootings because the Uvalde Police chickened out and refused to enforce them/stop the shooter.
Oh, and by the way, for most of history the successful military powers did have a code of conduct, including for pillaging. Since war was fought by small warrior castes rather than mass conscript armies (which are an industrial-era phenomenon), the aristocracies rarely wanted to wipe out the limited supply of potential allies (defeated armies would often join the victorious ones, including in civil wars). Plunder was a way to pay soldiers, and even the Old Testament has regulations for distributing it among the men. Those who engaged in massacring prisoners tended to have their allies desert them, their opponents team up against them, and be isolated and destroyed. Why would strong civilized men make peace with those who commit atrocities?
Trying to use Afghanistan as a counterpoint doesn't work because multiple empires did, in fact, conquer it and the Afghans were a nuisance rather than an existential threat. Its reputation as "Da Graveyard of Empyres" is greatly overblown, and their military prowess is only at the smallest scale. If a battalion of American troops couldn't destroy a platoon of enemy soldiers, everyone would rightly say we suck at war. Yet the Afghans repeatedly failed to do that for 20 years.
So no, rules are not what separate the foolish from the winners. They're what separate the short-sighted from the winners. Tactical success is fleeting; war is won by strategy. There is a reason Jayne Cobb isn't the captain of the Serenity.
MG,
You're comically clueless if you think there's a controlling authority for war here on earth. That there are wars at all proves exactly the opposite theorem.
I'm differentiating "here and now" with the "hereafter"; that obviously sailed right over your head.
I also didn't say "rules apply only here and now" nor anything like; in point of fact you've completely reversed my position with such a ham-fisted attempt.
My entire point is that rules DON'T apply in the here and now.
Maybe saying that ten different ways and times was too subtle for you?
But hey, prove me wrong: Name the arbitrating authority who decides what is just and unjust, with plenipotentiary power to judge on God's behalf, here on earth, and has done so, since Cain slew Abel.
While you stew on that, you're going to have to do better than trying to merely gainsay any number of war crimes you think you've been given the authority to adjudicate on behalf of the Almighty.
If the only place war has rules is after death, tell the class the difference between that, and accusations of preaching "pie in the sky, by and by." Compare and contrast that with the phrase "Justice delayed is justice denied."
War is not a game. And it manifestly has no rules.
Suggesting otherwise is merely someone's end, trying to justify their means.
Say "code of conduct for pillaging" in front of the mirror without laughing out loud at the lunacy of the concept. Then, tell us how those same "rules" should be the same today. Then consult all contemporary accounts of how well such "rules" were honored, if at all, even at the time. If merely writing something down qualifies as citable "rules", no one would ever drive over the speed limit, would they?
And if the rules are mutable over time, what claim can anyone make for them being rules at all?
Was gravity weaker once? How about the speed of light?
Maybe explain the organized rape of captives - civilians one and all - by the same Soviet Army you hail as an exemplar of those following the "rules" in war. Which took place in living memory. Your abject ignorance of actual history there is no excuse.
Then tell us whose flag flies over Hue today, while you lecture on who sucks at war.
In point of historical fact, horrible people using horrible acts win wars all the time, and ever have since it's been written down.
Ask around in China, Cuba, Cambodia, or anywhere in Eastern Europe, just for openers.
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If there really are rules, why would their enforcement fall solely on the disposition and inclination of the United States? Aren't rules rules?!?
Show all work.
Dresden wasn't a "deliberate" targeting of civilians?!? In what universe?
So you're saying wiping an entire city off the map in a three-day firestorm orgy of destruction was just "collateral damage"? Pure unforeseeable and accidental coincidence??
"Oopsie, they get a mulligan on that one" because it was justified?
Pray, explain how that one works.
The Old Testament also has rules for stoning your children.
Tread lightly before leaning on it as a carte blanche proof-text.
Massacres and atrocities are streng verboten in your illusory construct of history?
Please explain any dozen perpetrated by the US Army between 1865 and 1900.
You knew about those, right?
Then, perhaps google the exploits of Dudley "Mush" Morton in the Pacific, awarded a DSC and 4 Navy Crosses. Get back to us when you can discuss his actions in wartime intelligently.
The problem is that you can't come to grips with the harsh reality of war, despite myriad examples, at any point in history, and still choose to think of it in sugar-coated platitudes about the enterprise.
You're in for one helluva shock when it slaps you in the face like a frozen mackerel with its utter indiscriminate brutality, contrary to and completely ungoverned by any illusory "rules". Which is pretty much the definition of "war".
It's quaint and cute when youngsters have a childlike faith in things that are pure fantasy, let alone too horrible for most people to contemplate or witness, and from which most attempts at civilization successfully shield them during their minority. But it's unseemly for an adult to pretend the reality of the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, or "rules of warfare", for which there is no evidence extant in all of human history. Every attempt at any such thing invariably reveals the lack of any such thing, and the impossibility of the very idea. It's like yelling at the wind in the face of a hurricane.
AFAIK, there's only one man who ever rebuked a storm and made it stick.
And no one who laid down rules for war and made them stick, nor will until the end of time.
Many years ago my daddy taught me that there is no such thing as a fair fight. I have taught my children and grand children these wise words.Spread the word.
@Aesop
You bounce between so many mutually-contradicting straw man arguments, it's quite the sight to behold.
#1
First you say, and I quote: "But "rules" imply some overall arbitration in the here and now, not the hereafter[...]"
Then you say: "I also didn't say "rules apply only here and now" nor anything like... My entire point is that rules DON'T apply in the here and now."
So, which is it? Both statements cannot be correct. Also, declaring that "rules imply arbitration in the here and now" is a straw man argument.
#2
"You're comically clueless if you think there's a controlling authority for war here on earth. That there are wars at all proves exactly the opposite theorem."
This statement is true of all controlling authorities. There is no controlling authority for crime, yet there are still laws and rules against robbing banks. And the authority to punish those who break them.
You've essentially applied the same logic to "rules" that Richard Dawkins applies to God: straw-manning based on unrealistic standards, and then unironically proclaim victory when reality plays by different rules.
#3
"Name the arbitrating authority who decides what is just and unjust, with plenipotentiary power to judge on God's behalf, here on earth, and has done so, since Cain slew Abel."
Murphy. Flout his Law at your own peril.
Up next, Cain killing Abel isn't "war," which makes that a weak red herring. Second, there have been multiple authorities: first it was the aristocracies, then it was the Geneva and Hague Conventions. Before you dismiss these as "not counting," ask why those who don't follow the Geneva Convention still pretend to follow it in public, rather than openly bragging about how they are too cool for rules.
#4
If the only place war has rules is after death, tell the class the difference between that, and accusations of preaching "pie in the sky, by and by." Compare and contrast that with the phrase "Justice delayed is justice denied."
Another straw-man argument. Rules apply before and after death, not one or the other.
Justice is delayed all the time; that slogan is meant to stir moral men to action rather than dereliction of duty.
#5
"War is not a game."
I never claimed otherwise. I even put a quote saying exactly that.
"And it manifestly has no rules. Suggesting otherwise is merely someone's end, trying to justify their means."
Just try using that at a court-martial. If it were true, then the military would have no jurisdiction/authority to hold court-martials. That statement is the anthem of blue falcons and those who suck at war.
Michael,
1) You've literally gone hopelessly stupid, had a stroke, or you're just trolling.
There is no contradiction between telling you how rules would have to apply if they existed, and then pointing out that there are no such rules, because there's nothing that does, in fact, deliver any such application, and therefore they do not exist
You're literally so thick-headed there it's hard to tell if it's an act, or you're really that much of a moron. I'm sorry, but there's no way to sugar-coat that.
2) Tell the class who that controlling authority is that you claim exists. Start with when it was established, then list the judgements it has enforced. The laws and rules against certain crimes are as variable as the weather. Crime is not war. Tell us what controlling authority decreed that poison gas was okay to use. And then rescinded that authority. Are land mines legal now or not? If there are rules and a controlling authority, it cannot be both. Show your work.
3) Cain killing Abel was illustrative of a point in time, not an illustration of war. Don't be a simpleton.
If there have been multiple "authorities"...why? Explain their worldwide jurisdiction over all war. Then, now, or ever. If not, why not? None of the ones cited could ever count, because they're entirely voluntary associations, and none of them has ever been universal. Yet you claim there are universal rules in war. How can this be so, if there has never been any universal acceptance of such a fantasy? For but one instance, is (or was) scalping victims ever okay? Why, or why not? Who was prosecuted for it in the 82d and 101st Airborne after doing it on D-Day in 1944? (You knew about that, right?) You've dug yourself quite a hole to get out of.
Which countries don't follow the Geneva Conventions, but pretend they do?
When last I looked, those who aren't signatories to international conventions make no secret of the fact, then, now, or ever.
4) Which rules apply in war universally here and now? Enforced by whom? Upon whom?
Russia killed hundreds of captured Polish officers in the Katyn Forest in 1941. When can we expect someone will take up that case? Which "rules of war" allowed us to sheep dip hundreds of Nazis from 1945-1960, pretend they weren't Nazis, and bring them into America to work on our rocket and space programs? Who's running the prosecution for what took place in the Hanoi Hilton? When can we expect justice for the bodies of American troops mutilated in Mogadischu in 1993? Who's prosecuting the dismemberment of Americans and hanging their body parts on bridges in Fallujah circa 2003/4? Feel free to fill us in on any of those gaping holes in enforcement of "rules of war". For such a universal thing, there doesn't seem to be anyone minding the store, does there?
5) Militaries can have rules. Most do. They alone also get to decide what they take cognizance of, and what they ignore. This is why the Army pinned My Lai on a lowly lieutenant, then closed up the legal machinery, despite Lt. Calley's explicit testimony that he was ordered to carry out the massacre by his company and field grade chain of command, with their full knowledge and enthusiastic support.
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Moreover, you're conflating armies prosecuting criminal conduct, with wars having rules.
♫One of these things is not like the other one...♫
Wars don't have any such thing, which is why militaries can pick and choose what they pretend to notice, and what they actually ignore. If there were actual rules, they'd have to take notice of everything. Yet that never happens.Never.
If there were rules in war, the investigation of My Lai wouldn't have ended after finding one lowly scapegoat.
Tell the class about the prosecution of Lt. Ronald Spiers, D company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, for executing captured Germans on D-Day 1944 in Normandy. He admitted doing it. Capt. Richard Winters confirmed he did it. Both at the time, and decades later. There was no secret that it happened. Last I looked, there is no statute of limitations on murder, even in wartime. It was a clear, explicit, and flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions, which had been signed by both Germany and the United States.
If there are rules in war, and the military had convening authority, why didn't they do so? Spiers died peacefully in bed, decades later.
Where are your "rules of war"? Why isn't murder on the list? Why did the US Army suddenly take notice of shooting civilians at My Lai, but never addressed shooting captives in Normandy? Are the rules asleep? Busy on the toilet? Inquiring minds, and all that.
You're getting your ass kicked around the block on this topic; did you really want me to lay into the next batches of nonsense you posted? I've given you concrete case after concrete case, and you haven't got a leg to stand on.
And BTW, every point you can't refute factually, that totally undermines your indefensible contention, doesn't automagically therefore become a straw-man argument.
Words mean things.
You should look that one up, and refresh your recollection, before you slather it over everything like mustarding up a hot dog.
@Aesop
1) You may have meant it that way, but that's not what you wrote. You first wrote that rules, if they existed, would require certain criteria and then said that rules don't have that criteria. Being called names by someone who can't spot their own self-contradictions doesn't hit as hard as you seem to think it does.
As for the rest of your comments, you're still using the same straw man arguments. Let me lay it out for you:
First, you make a ridiculous, unrealistic claim about what constitutes "rules," creating an unconvincing straw man
Next, you cling to the straw man and ignore all other possible criteria for what could constitute "rules"
Then, you demand that I produce evidence that your straw man is real, and proclaim victory when I say that your criteria for "rules" are ridiculous and unrealistic.
Why are your criteria ridiculous and unrealistic, you ask? Because they say rules can only exist if humans physically can't break them or escape the consequences. This is a fallacy; it is false under all conditions. It is false in war. It is false in police work. It is false in sports. If humans couldn't break the rules, rules would be pointless and not exist. If humans could never escape the consequences, you are dealing with something higher than rules. Trying to prove this is the only possible definition of "rules" by invoking the Laws of Physics is akin to claiming a Toyota Camry is a Ford F-350 because they're both cars with 4 wheels.
My counterargument to your fallacy is that war operates under a different set of rules than the Marquis de Queensbury. Your repeated response has been "show me a Marquis de Queensbury rule humans are incapable of breaking, with a 100% compliance rate in all of history" which is attacking your straw man, not my actual argument. I suggest adjusting your sights before blaming the target for your misses.
My argument is, and always has been, that rules can and do change with time, since war today is very different from war 1000 years ago. Rules are created by human authorities, which also change over time, and require moral men to enforce; demanding I show a rule that enforces itself is a straw man argument.
The rules of war are also based heavily on reciprocation: don't execute my men when they are prisoners, and I won't execute yours. There is a significant difference between soldiers shooting prisoners on their own initiative versus doing so under orders; conflating the two is moral equivocation.
I go further to say that rules are what separate war-winners from the short-sighted men who can win battles but suck at war when the "tough guy" veneer is peeled away. Any gang of muscular, tattooed gunmen can get into a gunfight; war is bigger and more complex than that. Amateurs study tactics, remember?
I'll gladly talk historical examples with you, but don't get too excited. You have yet to come up with an example that disproves my thesis instead of kicking your straw man around the block.
1) I didn't write anything contradictory.
"Rules of war" as such do not exist.
If they did, they would require certain things which have never existed either.
QED
It's no more complicated than that.
2) Something you disagree with ≠ fallacy.
No matter how many times you wish it so, nor belabor the point.
3) Something you can ignore with impunity, and to no consequences, is not a "rule".
It's a wish, perhaps, but it has no force.
"There are rules"? Prove it.
I've given you copious examples where imaginary "rules" were flagrantly violated, without any consequence on Earth. Ever.
Not only have there never been any citations of rules broken, they were never enforced, anywhere, by anyone.
Let me help you out:
RULE:
noun
1. one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct within a particular activity or sphere.
2. control of or dominion over an area or people.
verb
1. exercise ultimate power or authority over (an area and its people).
2. pronounce authoritatively and legally to be the case.
You seem to want to make "rules" things which can be defined like the Walrus in Alice In Wonderland defined words: something that means anything you want them to mean, neither more nor less.
Unfortunately for your position, words, including the word "rules" have fixed and certain meanings.
The imaginary "rules" of war you postulate have never existed. Nor ever could.
There is no list of them.
There aren't any which are commonly understood.
They have no authority.
They have no effect.
They don't get to change willy-nilly, to suit whatever the whims of caprice may define them as.
One side may choose to constrain itself; that doesn't make what they do a "rule", whether they win or lose. It simply defines their side's rules. Which fails the definition of Rules Of War, which would necessarily have to be generally understood by all sides, beyond all appeal.
That isn't fallacy, that's fact.
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It's apparently never entered your conception of reality that one side may have different "rules".
The very existence of such a situation means there are no overriding, authoritative "rules of war", by the very defintion of words.
Japan did WTF it liked in WW2.
They treated captives as dishonored slaves.
They punished them randomly with beheading.
And if they'd prevailed against us, they would continue to do so unto this day.
Our victory didn't change THE rules, (which have never existed), it merely forced them to kowtow to our way of conducting war.
That not only doesn't prove that rules exist, it proves just the opposite: if rules existed, we never would have needed to blow them to hell for 4 years to make the change.
Not to see this is idiocy, based on hamfisted attempts at sleight-of-hand.
In 1776, the British thought they were the arbiters of the rules of war.
"Troops will be clearly distinguished, march in straight lines, face off, and fire. Shooting officers is wrong, because troops will lose control and go wild."
Colonials hereabouts disabused them of that notion.
"We shall wear clothing which blends in, shoot from behind rocks and trees as we like, and aim for officers and NCOs as targets of special interest."
Eat shit and die, King George.
So, tell the class what the "rules of war" were there. Best wishes with that plan.
Both sides in our Civil War thought the Napoleonic conduct of war = "rules".
Then they kept finding out standing in dressed ranks was a recipe for unimagined wholesale slaughter, especially when the other side was ensconced in, for example, a sunken road, and unable to be blasted outright at range. They began trench warfare, a lesson with such impact it re-appeared 55 years later, and made up most of WWI.
Both sides in that war thought massed charges would work, until machineguns informed them (after hundreds of thousands of lessons), that that imaginary "rule" had also been overcome by events. They still tried to ride that horse until one side was too exhausted to continue.
War hasn't "rules", it has tactics.
Tactics change.
Rules do not, and cannot.
You want to conflate one being the other, which is futile, and frankly stupid.
You cannot name any "rules of war", for now, or ever.
You can cite any number of things one or both sides would like to imagine are "rules", but they fail the fundamental definition of rules.
They are simply common misconceptions, and history keeps trying to drive home the point that what you or they think is so, isn't.
The fact that your imaginary rules change and shift like smoke in the breeze is quite obviously and simply because they don't exist as such, and never have.
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