Poll: All's Fair In Love and War?

[Anton P. Nym]

Yes but what about all the over armies over history that have attacked civillians and tortured prisoners.

They tend to lose. Committing atrocities raises the local populace against the occupiers, accellerating the guerrilla campaigns by essentially giving them a free supply of recruits. The occupying army then has to watch its back for partisans cutting supply lines, sniping, and waking up in your bedroll to see your buddy's severed head next to you.

The Crusaders couldn't keep Jerusalem because they were hated. The Germans in WW I couldn't keep Belgium because their anti-partisan atrocities just led to more partisan activity behind their lines. The Japanese couldn't keep Korea or Manchu-Kuo. The Nazis couldn't keep the Balkans or the Ukraine because they were hated even more than Stalin, and that's saying something. The French couldn't keep Algeria or VietNam, and the US didn't fare to well in 'Nam either, because they made themselves hated by the locals.

There's more to war than dropping bombs and firing rifles.

-- Steve

 

[John Galt]

Rules in war can be made but in times of need they'll be broken. If two nations find themselves at a stalemate, the one who starts using terror tactics will win.

Which is, of course, why we all speak Japanese now and bow to the chrysanthimum throne. Or German. Or Persian, all honour to the great Xerxes and his immortal line.

Sorry, but assuming that first to terrorise in a conflict wins is a very bad and repeatedly-disproven assumption.

-- Steve

Ouch, you got me there, but you must admit, using tactics that the enemy had not anticipated because they didn't think you'd "go there" will make victory easier for you. It won't guarantee it but it will give you an advantage.

 

[Lazzi]

this is war we speak of. We've already tried every thing else befor we resort to war. Now we simply get what ever we need by any mean nessisary.

 

[KefZ_X]

How about no war? ....... Ha what are the chances of that happening?

 

[John Galt]

How about no war? ....... Ha what are the chances of that happening?

So long as someone is different form someone else, whether culturally or economically, people will quarrel like this. The only way to eliminate conflict is to eliminate identity. Since we've no efficient way of doing that, we'll always have wars.

 

[Saskwach]

Rules in war can be made but in times of need they'll be broken. If two nations find themselves at a stalemate, the one who starts using terror tactics will win.

Which is, of course, why we all speak Japanese now and bow to the chrysanthimum throne. Or German. Or Persian, all honour to the great Xerxes and his immortal line.

Sorry, but assuming that first to terrorise in a conflict wins is a very bad and repeatedly-disproven assumption.

-- Steve

Ouch, you got me there, but you must admit, using tactics that the enemy had not anticipated because they didn't think you'd "go there" will make victory easier for you. It won't guarantee it but it will give you an advantage.

That's more a general theory of surprise tactics that can include brutality than a theory of how brutality wins wars.

 

[John Galt]

Yes, but brutality wins wars through shock and terror, much like surprise. Brutality in war is generally a method used to shock a populace into submission. When confronted with nerve gas or subjugation, the populace will go with the latter. However, this only applies to a nation going up against a nation ill-prepared for brutality. If the opposing nation has the infrastructure to avert disaster when faced with brutal means, then the aggressor must rely on surprise to defeat the enemy before they're able to make sufficient use of their defense.

 

[General Ma Chao]

I voted No Opinion. "You should take care when fighting monsters lest you become one yourself."-Nietzche

"Peace will come if you all just submit to the supreme master." The supreme master usually being whoever happens to be talking.

 

[ShyWinter]

This might be in bad taste. But without war we wouldn't have any half decent first-person shooters (said with much sarcasm). I think regardless of how we feel about this question war is a great thing to watch on TV and talk about because it make our balls feel big. But war has this nasty habit of getting VERY shitty if the end credits don't roll after two hours. All of us have been, or will be, in support of military action somewhere along our lifeline. Likewise, all of us have been, or will be, in defiance of military action somewhere along our lifeline.

With all the supposed advances in technology, it's almost enough to make us think that wars are fought with missiles and robots and indestructible suits of armor and AT-STs and shit. Suddenly we act surprised to see that war is all about 5.56 Full Metal Jacket rounds and water torture and proper removal of shrapnel from flesh and widows, lots of them.

I don't think I'm saying anything particularly Earth-shaking here. All of us here at least seem to know the difference between war on Xbox and war on CNN. I also think we can agree that, generally, full on wars should be avoided. As for the idea of world peace, you might as well kill yourself because only the dead have seen the end of war.

Love, however, is much better...mostly.

 

[Saskwach]

I don't want to be the War-monger, because I know that pointless wars are just that. But War unfortunately is sometimes the only option. That or Genocide, which is NOT COOL in my opinion. Do we fight the terrorists in their homeland, or do we use our Neutron Bombs to wipe ALL muslims from the face of the Earth? I like Nuetron Bombs, but still do not support their use on ALL the civilians over there... Ground Troops were the only possible answer.

Uh oh, you mentioned the war.
*jumps into nearest cover*

 

[Pseudonym2]

I'd argue that all war is unnecessary. Even WWII could have been easily avoided if we avoided that "peace in our times" nonsense.

People would like to sound tough and say that we must do anything possible to win. I'm sure they would feel quite different if an enemy of their country arbitrarily killed, tortured, or raped them.

"All's fair in love and war" is just an excuse to help people sleep at night.

 

[werepossum]

j-e-f-f-e-r-s-, as Anton so ably pointed out, bombing Nagasaki was not a whim; we were at war and facing an invasion. Japanese soldiers had fought to the last man, inflicting terrible casualties, on many an island. Japan indicated it was amenable to a negotiated peace only once its back was to the wall. Since we had already negotiated a peace with Germany only to have war erupt a generation later, since Japan had been particularly brutal on captured soldiers and occupied civilians alike, and since (probably most importantly) Japan had attacked the USA without a declaration of war, the Allies were in no mood to accept less than total, unconditional surrender. Should we accept less from Japan, who attacked the USA without warning or a declaration of hostilities, than we demanded from Germany, who did not? Don't forget (again, as Anton pointed out), we had killed more Japanese with conventional incendiary bombing than with both nuclear bombs together. Additionally, it was very important to the Allies that the Japanese emperor be forced to admit to the Japanese people that he was not in fact devine and infallible, thus limiting his ability to raise troops for another round as had Germany. (Propertyofcobra, we did allow the emperor to stay, but forced him to renounce his claim to divinity; thus he was just another leader asking you to kill and die for his glory, not a divine being with a divine right to order you to do so. Big difference.)

The whole matter of bombing Japan really gets up my nose. If we are fighting enemy soldiers, are not the people and factories producing his bullets and tanks and rice also our enemy? Were our citizen-soldiers less deserving of life than the Japanese civilians? Should our Allied politicians have sent a million boys to their deaths to avoid bombing Japanese civilians? Personally I think not. I am all for not intentionally targeting civilians when at all possible. I am most emphatically {i}NOT[/i] in favor of sending soldiers to die to avoid bombing the factories producing war materials simply because they are manned by civilians.

And Lukeje - I can't even answer you. Your questions just make me sad.

"A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
John Stuart Mill

 

[miawallace]

This is the most intelligent internet discussion I've ever seen.

 

[Saskwach]

@werepossum: totally agree. I've only just read an essay about this and the conclusion was the effects of any other Allied plan would have been so much more catastrophic for both sides that the nukes turned out, sadly, to be the best option. Of course, this was assuming America wouldn't take a conditional surrender from Japan but I totally understand that.
Japanese forces on the homeland outnumbered American forces in the Pacific. Invasion does not work with those numbers.
Japan depended on a handful of railways to transport food. If these were cut- as any sensible invasion force would have, to slow transportation of soldiers, munitions, supplies etc- the result, especially considering that 1946 was a bad enough year for crop yields anyway, would have been starvation greated than the deaths of both atomic bombs. This was part of the bombardment and blockade plan developed as the only alternative to invasion and atomics.

 

[Fire Daemon]

Yes but what about all the over armies over history that have attacked civillians and tortured prisoners.

They tend to lose. Committing atrocities raises the local populace against the occupiers, accellerating the guerrilla campaigns by essentially giving them a free supply of recruits. The occupying army then has to watch its back for partisans cutting supply lines, sniping, and waking up in your bedroll to see your buddy's severed head next to you.

The Crusaders couldn't keep Jerusalem because they were hated. The Germans in WW I couldn't keep Belgium because their anti-partisan atrocities just led to more partisan activity behind their lines. The Japanese couldn't keep Korea or Manchu-Kuo. The Nazis couldn't keep the Balkans or the Ukraine because they were hated even more than Stalin, and that's saying something. The French couldn't keep Algeria or VietNam, and the US didn't fare to well in 'Nam either, because they made themselves hated by the locals.

There's more to war than dropping bombs and firing rifles.

-- Steve

I think the main reason why invaders are hated by the locals is foremost because they are invading. While atrocities do help fuel the hate, that hate is not created purely because of the atrocities but because their country is filled with the enemy.

It should also be noted that many towns in Brittany and France accepted English occupation because it opened trade to England. Granted they did hate the rape, destruction of the buildings and the general killings.

Also, just because something must be done to earn victory that does not mean the victory is final. Defeat can arise from winning too many battles.

 

[Fire Daemon]

I agree with werepossum, anyone that fuels the war effort is an enemy to the other side. However when the people fueling the war effort are children, the elderly, women or a combination of two it does become hard to know what an enemy really is.

In the end dropping the two bombs was better for Japan as far as deaths (on both sides go) are concerned but there is no arguing that by dropping the bombs America committed two horrible atrocities. Still any course of action would be a terrible Atrocity, that?s war I suppose.