alt Hacker NewsThere was a recent conflict that came up, and there was a debate about whether or not one of the sides was committing war crimes. And I remember thinking to myself and saying in the debate “if this were a video game strategically speaking, I’d be committing war crimes.”
And sadly, I think this logic holds up.
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if you win the war then there really isn't any such thing as a war crime. Worst case is you feel guilty about it, there aren't any other consequences of your actions.
What happens in rimworld, stays in rimworld?
It holds up if you assume war crimes are beneficial to your goals but there is quite a lot of evidence, and sophisticated theory going back to clausewitz, that they mostly aren't.
They can look useful at a certain level of conflict, but once you are thinking of war as being a tool for accomplishing policy goals (how modern nationstates view it), a lot of the things you would "want" to do stop being useful.
Wars that can be won quickly through decisive military action alone are quite rare historically! More often things like support/enmity of the local population, political will in the home state, support for recruiting or tolerance of conscription, influence of returning (whole, dead, injured, all) veterans on the social structure all become more decisive factors the longer a conflict runs.
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I swear I'm not trying to start a flame war, but I think it'd be useful/valuable to know where you're from and what country you live in, as this certainly shapes how we feel about these sort of issues.
I've also been dabbled in such thought experiments with friends lately, and so far we've all landed at very different conclusions, even thought there are some reasons that it might make strategic sense at the moment.