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Aswad -> RE: Rethinking the rules of war (11/23/2012 11:59:12 AM)
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ORIGINAL: JeffBC
tweak... I say this in a not mean-spirited way but I gotta tell you that you seem hopelessly naive to me.
I always thought that was one of her more enamoring qualities, reminiscent of someone sitting in the couch next to me. [:D]
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Those standards will go right out the freakin window when they are involved in an actual war that actually threatens their lives, freedom, or sovereignty.
Dude, you're comparing force projection to national defense. Those are two very different situations, and Israel is in the former situation, as per my analysis, while Palestine is in the latter situation, again as per the same. In the course of national defense, Palestine is lobbing glorified fireworks at Israel, whereas if this had been an actual national defense situation, the IDF would have invoked national defense in fact and not words. I'm assuming you're familiar with IDF doctrine on actual national defense of the sort you're referring to.
Iron Dome priority sorts incoming ordnance on the basis of asset loss weighting scores for the projected point of impact, which basically comes down to probable casualties from a successful hit. This has to do with its real military function, in which a barrage may outstrip the available intercept capacity and so require the most important ordnance to be stopped. To conserve capacity, anything that doesn't run a risk of causing casualties is flagged as below threshold and no intercept attempt is made. Actual intercept efficiency is exceedingly high.
I mention this to point out that the conclusion supported by the IDF's own data is that one third of the attacks from Gaza constitute a small risk of casualties, while the remaining two thirds constitute no risk whatsoever. If we have a look at the casualty figures, it's clear that the drawing used by kdsub is precisely the opposite of the real situation.
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Really, much as folks may or may not like this, in the end might really does make right -- or close enough to it that it hardly matters.
No argument there.
«Those who beat their swords to ploughshares will farm for those who don't.»
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You're thinking of war as some far off, distant, optional thing that happens when some country wants to be a bully.
Arguably, it sometimes is optional, like in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza and so forth.
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Conversely, the more powerful force would very much LIKE to fight by the rules since the rules were written by them and favor them strongly.
Which is what is so perverse about the conflict down there.
That Hamas ignores the rules is a given, because (a) they're defending, (b) they're weaker, (c) they've nothing to lose, (d) they've nowhere to go, (e) they're not a party to the rules, (f) Palestine as a nation is denied the national equivalent of nationhood. That the IDF ignores the rules, on the other hand, costs them and doesn't work in their favor in any way, unless they go for genocide, which they have been unwilling to do. Essentially, it's turned upside down.
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In other words, the thing you are wishing for is a wonderful thing and I wish for it also. I just recognize that reality prevents it from being possible.
More like reality prevents it from happening on a regular basis.
Properly defined, what we're talking about is maintaining morality in the presence of violent conflict, which is arguably hard, but arguably also not impossible. It comes down to doing the job (e.g. suppressing the Taliban) in a manner that doesn't needlessly fuck up everything else (e.g. maintaining a requirement of reasonably certain positive identification, porportionality and so forth).
I've not claimed Norway has some "high" standard for national defense. Indeed, if necessary, the entire civilian population is considered to be expendable toward the goal of restoring territorial sovereignty, as noted in "the poster on the wall". The same goes for making the prospect of incursion as costly as possible, with as little potential gain as possible.
I've stated that we have a standard for force projection, and abide by that.
"Just because we're killing them doesn't mean we can't be civilized."
IWYW,
— Aswad.
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