Current Events > Ethical dilemma: you are a general in charge of fighting and ending a war.

(+) Yeah! (+)

EpicMickeyDrew posted...

Whats your point here? A conscript is a civilian who didnt get any say in becoming a soldier. Or just because someone has had combat training their lives are worth less?

Also youre not choosing between 500 soldiers and civilians, youre choosing between 500 of your own men vs 500 of the enemy.

Hexenherz posted...

Yes like those professionally trained and equipped Russian conscripts in Ukraine.

Note: Fuck Russia and fuck Putin. But its an example of what happens when you just force people off the street and throw them into a Battlefield with "training".

@garioshi

It's worth noting every country engaging in bombings in WW2 committed the bombings to damage morale and that civilian casualties were the premise of this, not a byproduct. The phrase "not a byproduct" in regards to civilian casualties is a direct quote from the guy in the US running those bombing campaigns.

Anybody assuming that casualties were an unintended side effect are missing that

A: All sides participating said otherwise while they conducted those campaigns.

B: The Allied forces conceded they were ineffective at the goal of morale displacement.

Zero_Destroyer posted...

It's worth noting every country engaging in bombings in WW2 committed the bombings to damage morale and that civilian casualties were the premise of this, not a byproduct. The phrase "not a byproduct" in regards to civilian casualties is a direct quote from the guy in the US running those bombing campaigns.

Anybody assuming that casualties were an unintended side effect are missing that

A: All sides participating said otherwise while they conducted those campaigns.

B: The Allied forces conceded they were ineffective at the goal of morale displacement.

A corollary to this is that if we ever do get into another total war situation between major powers, everyone in the conflict will do WWII level (or worse) strikes against civilians, with precisely the same justifications and official propaganda.

EpicMickeyDrew posted...

@garioshi

They're still in the military; my answer remaons the same.

Garioshi posted...

They're still in the military; my answer remaons the same.

Ok, why do you think a soldiers life is worth less than a civilians, even if they were forced into combat?

EpicMickeyDrew posted...

Ok, why do you think a soldiers life is worth less than a civilians, even if they were forced into combat?

I've made that perfectly clear. Do you think soldiers' lives are MORE important than civilians'?

Garioshi posted...

I've made that perfectly clear. Do you think soldiers' lives are MORE important than civilians'?

No you havent youve just said because they have combat training. So if i combat train a civilian and then shoot him, you think thats better than just shooting him outright because in your words his life is now less valuable

The brutality of the Imperial army and the attrocities they carried out would have continued in their homeland. My priorities are protecting the countrymen I serve with and ending the war as quickly as possible

lol is this a secret Japan and Nuclear bombs thread?

Hexenherz posted...

About 2/3 of the US military in WW2 had been drafted.

The thing with alternatives and options is that we don't know how they would have played out. It's possible Japan would have surrendered before casualties got so high. The fact that they trained kids to be kamikaze pilots indicates that maybe they wouldn't have.

I agree that a demonstration of the atomic bomb in a neutral area or used exclusively against military forces would have been more ethical in forcing Japan to consider its position in the war.

From what I've heard that might not have been as effective though as the Japanese government didn't even believe the atomic bomb was a thing immediately after it was used. So if the US did use it, say on a squadron of ships, the reports about the destruction might not have carried the same weight.

Idk there are a lot of "what ifs" at play

damn. This is complicated

EpicMickeyDrew posted...

No you havent youve just said because they have combat training. So if i combat train a civilian and then shoot him, you think thats better than just shooting him outright because in your words his life is now less valuable

Do you really think there is no difference between a conscript dying in combat, which has rules of engagement, a chain of command and accountability, and any other number of things, is morally equivalent to a civilian dying from a bomb dropped on their house?

This sounds like a job for chemical weapons.

Jagus posted...

So you guys think the atom bombs led to fewer civilian deaths? Sorry if I misunderstood something, just delving into this topic for the first time.

im trying to see if the us had options that would have led to fewer civilian deaths than the atom bomb. Then Im trying to figure out the American soldier death toll of either option. Then Im trying to calculate what was most ethical. I dont know how to weight things though. Were WWII American soldiers drafted?

any help would be cool

It is possible the two nukes led to less civilian deaths. An actual invasion of Japan would have been a long and bloody affair, and at the time civilians were fanatical about the Emperor, so it's possible they'd get involved. That's why the bombs were dropped, to end the war quickly.

However, it is worth pointing out that at the time, no one knew exactly the horrific repercussions of dropping a nuclear bomb. Perhaps if the military leaders at the time knew the actual cost of dropping it they would have dropped it somewhere else less populated as a show of strength.

Garioshi posted...

Do you really think there is no difference between a conscript dying in combat, which has rules of engagement, a chain of command and accountability, and any other number of things, is morally equivalent to a civilian dying from a bomb dropped on their house?

I think its morally worse to take that civilian from his house, send him to a foreign country, make him kill people, and then have him have a slow and painful death bleeding out after getting both his legs blown off, and i certainly wouldnt tell you his life is less valuable than someone else not forced to die for his country just because he received 2 weeks combat training.

I'm protecting my men.

EpicMickeyDrew posted...

I think its morally worse to take that civilian from his house, send him to a foreign country, make him kill people, and then have him have a slow and painful death bleeding out after getting both his legs blown off, and i certainly wouldnt tell you his life is less valuable than someone else not forced to die for his country just because he received 2 weeks combat training.

Yeah, conscription is bad and should be avoided at all costs. Nobody's arguing against that.

Garioshi posted...

This does not apply to the end of WWII. The US had a complete naval blockade of Japan and could have just indefinitely starved them out. Japan had no tools to break it. They were holding out hope for the USSR to negotiate their surrender instead of the US and they surrendered almost immediately after the USSR declared war. Let's say that this wasn't true: Nuclear weapons can't do anything that conventional bombing can't eventually achieve, and conventional bombing can actually be strategically targeted unlike nuclear weapons. Let's say that this isn't true and revealing the existence of a nuclear weapon was absolutely necessary to end the war: You don't have to use it to disintegrate hundreds of thousands of civilians. You can just demonstrate it to the Japanese leadership in neutral and uninhabited territory. You could also drop it over some uninhabited area in Japan where the extent of the destructive capabilities will still be extremely evident. Let's say THAT isn't true and you absolutely need to nuke a city: You don't need to nuke two. You simply cannot be well-informed on the topic and argue for Hiroshima and Nagasaki in good faith.

This is demonstrated to not be true.

The war hawks in the Supreme War Council wanted to fight on. Korechika Anami was fully aware of what the nuclear weapons had done to Hiroshima. His excuse for fighting on? He didn't believe that the Americans had more than one bomb. His goal was that, if Japan could cause a lot of Allied casualties during an invasion of the home islands, that Japan could push for more favorable terms, or even, and this is no joke, keep some of what it had conquered.

Yoshijiro Umezu had the same position as Anami - he wanted Japan to fight hard in an invasion and push for a negotiated peace, as opposed to a surrender.

The last hawk in the Supreme War Council, Soemu Toyoda, literally argued that Japan should defend the home islands to the death.

And yes, these were their positions even after the *second* atomic bomb was dropped. What the atomic bombings did was persuade the Emperor that he had to break the deadlock in the Supreme War Council and force the hawks to agree to a surrender, instead of their ridiculous hopes of a negotiated peace. If it took the atomic bombings of two cities just to get the Emperor to break the deadlock, I cannot imagine that dropping a single bomb over a neutral site would have done the same.

It should also be noted that any discussions of "peace" that were had were not actually about surrender. They were akin to a ceasefire. Japan's military leadership considered territories like Manchuria/Korea/Taiwan to be territories that were gained prior to the actual onset of World War II, and therefore part of Japan's "pre-war territory", and so they were fighting to hold onto as much of those territories as they could. The notion that Japan was "ready to surrender" is total nonsense - what they wanted for was essentially a ceasefire where they would "handle their own disarmament" and "address their own war criminals", which is basically shorthand for "we want a brief pause so we can get a break and try again in 10 years".

It is also important to note that the war was by no means over in the rest of Asia. This guy here is insisting that Japan was blockaded and wasn't fighting anymore, but that simply isn't true. Japan had land forces that were active all over the rest of Asia - they had forces that were still fighting in China and in Burma. Combat in those theaters would have continued had the atomic bombs not occurred, meaning the deaths of more Japanese soldiers, more Allied soldiers, more Chinese/Burmese/Vietnamese civilians, and of course, more Japanese civilians starving to death on the Home Islands as a result of wartime food rationing. Would the war have ended eventually? Yes, most likely. But whether more people would have died? Hard to say. A speedy end to the war may well have lessened the amount of total deaths from the war.

There isn't a general alive that would trade 500 of his men for 500 civilians of the country they're attacking.

K181 posted...

There isn't a general alive that would trade 500 of his men for 500 civilians of the country they're attacking.

https://imgur.com/a/Z2tLZip

I also can't quantify the effect of the atomic bombs in Japan, but it is the only time atomic weapons have been used in armed conflict.

Could you imagine if they had NOT been used in Japan, and multiple countries developed the technology, and conflict broke out again and these weapons were used in even greater number and larger scale?

I am not justifying their use in Japan, just think the concept of mutually assured destruction may have developed differently if there was no such experience from that war.

Garioshi posted...

Yeah, conscription is bad and should be avoided at all costs. Nobody's arguing against that.

No youre just saying that once they are conscripted their lives have less value

For those choosing the option with 500 civilians on the enemy's side being killed, would your choice change if those 500 civilians were all children, and you were aware of that?

Hexenherz posted...

Could you imagine if they had NOT been used in Japan, and multiple countries developed the technology, and conflict broke out again and these weapons were used in even greater number and larger scale?

Yeah. In a way, the fact that they were used did have the effect of scaring the shit out of us, rightfully so, and realizing that it'd probably be good for us to come up with some rules of war so that we don't let something like that happen ever again.

I'm also thinking about another possibility. Imagine if Truman didn't use the bombs. The war continued. Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians on both sides died as a result of this prolonged war of attrition. One of these is your grandfather.

Then imagine, after the war is over, it comes out that the United States had access to a secret bomb that could have ended the war quicker, but opted not to use it.

I do not want to imagine what the fallout (no pun intended) would have been.

EpicMickeyDrew posted...

No youre just saying that once they are conscripted their lives have less value

They objectively do, yes. Killing a conscript is not a war crime whereas killing a civilian is.

Garioshi posted...

They objectively do, yes. Killing a conscript is not a war crime whereas killing a civilian is.

Just because legal conventions give more protections to civilian populations doesn't mean someone's life is inherently more or less valuable than someone else's.

In that my first responsibility is to those under my command, I have to choose plan to minimize my army's casualties as far as the overall plan and it is up to those further down the chain of command to operate under the rules of war regarding civilians to minimize their casualties.

K181 posted...

There isn't a general alive that would trade 500 of his men for 500 civilians of the country they're attacking.

This. And any general that were to seriously entertain the contrary would be very dead, very quickly.

Hexenherz posted...

I also can't quantify the effect of the atomic bombs in Japan, but it is the only time atomic weapons have been used in armed conflict.

Could you imagine if they had NOT been used in Japan, and multiple countries developed the technology, and conflict broke out again and these weapons were used in even greater number and larger scale?

I am not justifying their use in Japan, just think the concept of mutually assured destruction may have developed differently if there was no such experience from that war.

That's the argument I usually make in these topics. As of the near-end of WWII, there were only ever two possibilities for how nuclear weapons would be used in war:

1) Limited use at the end of WWII

2) Massive use at the start of WWIII

For once, the better path was actually taken.

Garioshi posted...

They objectively do, yes. Killing a conscript is not a war crime whereas killing a civilian is.

So if its legal to kill someone their life objectively has less value? Wasnt it legal to kill slaves at one point?

EPR-radar posted...

This. And any general that were to seriously entertain the contrary would be very dead, very quickly.

Also, sometimes it's not always possible to avoid killing civilians. Bill Clinton, for all his faults, stopped genocide in the Balkans. Doing this necessitated bombing Serbia

I think in general I would rather pick a strategy that minimized civilian casualties even if it meant more of a risk to my forces (at least if we're talking a 1 to 1 conversion). But that's somewhat biased by the kind of conflicts that the US has been a part of more recently where one side is far more capable than the other side.

justaguy3492 posted...

https://imgur.com/a/Z2tLZip

There are generals that have no issues throwing lives away, but just out of laziness and not over caring about saving others.

EPR-radar posted...

This. And any general that were to seriously entertain the contrary would be very dead, very quickly.

To be honest, an officer that cavalier with the lives of their men would probably be court martialed or fragged as a junior officer.

EpicMickeyDrew posted...

So if its legal to kill someone their life objectively has less value? Wasnt it legal to kill slaves at one point?

This is bullshit and you know it's bullshit.

The results of this poll are wild. Wtf

Every single soldier should die before a single civilian casualty.

Garioshi posted...

This is bullshit and you know it's bullshit.

Buddy, this is YOUR logic. Maybe your argument just isnt very good if it falls apart at the slightest bit of scrutiny. If youre saying conscripts lives have less value BECAUSE its legal to kill them. Then that must extend to whomever else it is legal to kill, OR that cant be the reason. This is very basic logical form. Maybe calm down and make an actual point.

EpicMickeyDrew posted...

@

Lets say its WW2, you have 500 men who have signed up to fight the nazis, you have 500 civilians who have voted, supported and are in the nazi party. Who are you killing?

The Nazis, obviously. But that's a different variable than simply a regular civilian.

Umbreon posted...

The Nazis, obviously. But that's a different variable than simply a regular civilian.

Is it? "These civilians are the bad ones" doesn't change that they're civilians.

LightSnake posted...

Is it? "These civilians are the bad ones" doesn't change that they're civilians.

Speaking in the hypothetical scenario of knowing that they're all willfully Nazis, their lives were forefit the moment they put on the swastika.

Of course real life is different in the sense you can't immediately tell who's a nazi and who's being forced into supporting them.

Though there's also the danger of falling into the "Killing civilians is okay if ______" mentality. How many justifications can one present, if one even truly exists?

(For the record my initial answer was posted before I saw that TC edited in the fact that this was inspired based off of WW2 bombings)

Umbreon posted...

Speaking in the hypothetical scenario of knowing that they're all willfully Nazis, their lives were forefit the moment they put on the swastika.

What makes this different from most other wars, though? "The nation supported this, they're the bad ones."

You can't decide civilians are fair game for having terrible views.

Yeah, that's why my stance is to minimize civilians casualties. It's Drew that went "But what if they were Nazis?" for whatever reason.

Ending the war the most effective way to end deaths is the only option. Civilian can still refer to someone supporting the enemy, so less of my soldiers that die, the better.

Umbreon posted...

Yeah, that's why my stance is to minimize civilians casualties. It's Drew that went "But what if they were Nazis?" for whatever reason.

If youre the general these are your men, you may even know many of them personally. Its like saying would you kill 500 of your own employees, or 500 people from your hometown

I have a hard time believing any general in history is sacrificing 500 of his own troops to save 500 enemy civilians, tbh.

In some militaries in history, that would probably get you killed.

LightSnake posted...

I have a hard time believing any general in history is sacrificing 500 of his own troops to save 500 enemy civilians, tbh.

In some militaries in history, that would probably get you killed.

only time this is a factor is if its your nations civilians, or there is a VIP you must take in

Perhaps so.

My perspective is that of a civilian who knows nothing of warfare. I'm well aware that my opinion on this matter may be different if I were in the armed forces.

I just think people not involved in the war shouldn't be dragged into it. That's how we end up with public places like schools or churches being shelled.

"But it's okay, because there were terrorists in there!" [Citation needed]

Both options are shitty, which is a reoccurring theme in war.

Umbreon posted...

Perhaps so.

My perspective is that of a civilian who knows nothing of warfare. I'm well aware that my opinion on this matter may be different if I were in the armed forces.

I just think people not involved in the war shouldn't be dragged into it. That's how we end up with public places like schools or churches being shelled.

"But it's okay, because there were terrorists in there!" [Citation needed]

Both options are shitty, which is a reoccurring theme in war.

There's a bit of a difference here, though: "This is a civilian area, don't attack it" is not quite the same as "I will sacrifice my men to save enemy civilians" in such a way to send your own troops into avoidable danger and I don't think any military in history has ever done that in any great capacity.

So heres an interesting alt version of the scenario: what if it wasnt guaranteed your men or the civilians would die, but the odds present high risks of each scenario being true?