I hear a lot of talk these days about the “Laws of War.” I always found that a strange concept. Certain legal principles of what is acceptable killing and destruction prescribe what is and is not included in the presumptive moral basis for proper and improper behavior by troops and their leaders in the conduct of war. In 1949, the Geneva Convention specified unacceptable brutality, especially in relation to civilian populations put in ‘harm’s way’ by warfare, as leaders of the Allies reflected on war in the aftermath of the atrocities and genocide experienced in World War II. However, as every warrior knows, when the fighting starts, all bets are off and unpredictability reigns; war crimes are almost never avoided. Just how are the laws of war to be ‘enforced’? Or, are they, really? To the victor goes sanctified retribution.
Is War a Moral Enterprise?
I am not going to get into the intricacies of the Geneva Convention. I am more concerned here with the culture and political economy of warfare as they are perceived, or not, and made sense of, or not, in various justifications for behavior in war. Most would agree that Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine is a continuing immoral act of unprovoked aggression. For him, Ukraine does not exist, making its destruction a foregone political, therefore military conclusion. Why, he might imagine, would anyone complain?
It seems that Putin’s obsession with re-establishing the empire that was the former Soviet Union, for which he served as a KGB officer, allows him to deny the existence of the nation of Ukraine as anything more than a part of Russia, which is an obvious historical illusion. He is not the first to do so; the history of the region is one of repeated Russian attempts to dominate Ukraine, along with several other eastern European nations.
Of course, Putin’s relentless attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure certainly qualify as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and probably even acts of genocide. The distinctions between these technically different forms of immoral and ‘illegal’ acts of war are easily lost in the bloody mess and devastation on the ground.
An honest look at various ‘modern’ wars reveals that in none of them were atrocities on either side completely avoided. What political or economic goal justifies the death of one soldier, no less countless thousands of innocent civilians? “The right to defend” one’s nation is so often a trope for raw aggression, including both the oppression and massacre of civilians. In modern warfare, the death toll for civilians typically outnumbers that of soldiers, and with each new war the ratio worsens, mostly thanks to the indiscriminate application of remote and more destructive technologies that minimize the threat to the soldiers who deploy them, while increasing the “collateral damage” to civilians and their means of survival. Sometimes, collateral damage appears to be the primary objective.
Immoral War
It may be impossible to venture into war without falling upon an at least partly immoral path. We may reasonably describe Putin as having initiated war directly from his existing immoral intentions. As to Israel, it seems a mixed bag of multiple complications. Ukraine did not threaten Russia except by existing as an independent society/culture/nation-state. Palestine and Israel are the site of rival demands for independence, security, and power, ever since 1948. The ‘death dance’ of their leaders assures mutual insecurity. What about peace? Is that a naïve question? Well it would seem so, but only in the context of the mutually assured hostility of the symmetric intentions of their leaders to annihilate the other in asymmetric ways.
The overwhelmingly superior fire-power of the Israeli Defense Forces over that of the politico-military Hamas regime (which counters Netanyahu’s technologically modern military occupation by the classic guerilla hit-and-run terror tactics of Hamas) makes for a very unstable form of domination, occupation, and resistance. This structure results in extremely disproportionate death and destruction whenever the fighting ensues. That is why they call it ‘asymmetric warfare.’ It is not a war among equals, which adds complex moral dilemmas.
Both political-military hierarchies serve the interests of their power-elites, more than peace and security for their populations. The intentions of ‘leadership’ on each side are parallel toward the other, yet the asymmetry of power makes domination, oppression, and resistance inevitable. None of those intentions can lead to resolution of the conflict.
Netanyahu’s failed policy of ‘containment’ of the entire Palestinian population in the outdoor prison called Gaza has failed to bring the security it intended for the Israeli people. Meanwhile, the continued enclosure and expulsions of West Bank Palestinians by so-called “settlers,” bulldozing of homes, and countless humiliations is no less oppressive than the removal of native populations in the American West under the ruse of ‘Manifest Destiny.’
Breeding anger, resentment, and hatred is not a road to peace; nor does it produce security. One must really trace the abuse, expulsion, violence, and counter-violence back to the beginning, but that only reveals the symmetry of immoral interaction amid the asymmetry of power. There will be no security without peace.
The Only Security is Peace
Netanyahu’s strategy has been a combination of containment and trying to divide the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza, politically as well as geographically, in order to conquer both. That obviously has failed. Defeating Hamas and re-occupying Gaza will bring neither security nor peace. Nor will Hamas ever defeat the Israeli Defense Forces. Don’t they know that? Well, fanaticism operates in its own world.
The standoff can never bring security and offers no path to peace. The only identifiable endgame is annihilation of the Other, which is untenable yet believed in by so called leaders and those who they indoctrinate. At the same time, the continued warfare brings further ecological destruction to the world all of us must inhabit or die. In that, the Hamas/Israel war is no different from Putin’s war on Ukraine. They both accelerate not only the destruction of humans and their infrastructure, but also the destabilization of ecosystems and climate. War is the ultimate polluter.
The other similarity is the asymmetry of the conflicts. Putin, of course, had overwhelming military superiority, even with his rag-tag massive but broken down post-Soviet army and equipment. However, the NATO alliance saw the threat to Europe, so the European nations and the U.S. have supplied Ukraine the firepower to match their will to survive and drive out the Russian invaders. With NATO backing Ukraine, as long as the Americans don’t back out, Russia’s war against it is stalled, leaving it no path to victory. In ways, the Israeli-Hamas fight is far more complicated by the extremism that has characterized the leadership on both sides and by the complex history of mutual hatred, leaving little to be thankful for this American holiday season.
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 
I wonder if my post prompted yours, although mine had another point, not about abiding by rules but at the very idea of having rules for atrocities. Mine said, “Suffice here to point to the rules of war, that makes me wince for how it sanitizes what should be unthinkable. Even the Department of War, that legitimizes killing each other as normal, gives me cause for pause,” from https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/come-with-me-to-another-reality.
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Hi Suzanne,
No, I didn’t read your post, but I will. My commentary however, was also based on the premise, or perhaps observation, that ‘laws of war’ are self-contradictory from the standpoint of any sense of morality. How can there be ‘rules’ for killing? [It reminds me of all the fuss over whether this method or that is a ‘humane’ way to kill a convicted perpetrator of a capital crime.] The distinctions between ‘war crimes,’ ‘crimes against humanity,’ and even ‘genocide,’ are rather arbitrary, other than merely indicating differences in the scale of atrocity. In the ‘on the ground, under fire’ PBS “Frontline” documentary of the siege of Mariupol, Ukraine, by the Russian invaders, the direct witness to the carnage by the Russian invaders of residents and direct attacks of hospitals in real time by the film maker, Mstyslav Chernov and his crew
make such distinctions .irrelevant. S
ome non-state actors such as Hamas do not bother with such distinctions, while other usually larger nation-states, such as Israel, attempt to justify their behavior by PRETENDING to ‘comply’ with such international standards of ‘restraint’ in the killing of civilians. On both sides of this particular ‘intractable conflict,’ however, the goal of each appears to be the total annihilation of The Other.
Best,
RMC
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We are on the same page. Even having a Department of War is an unltimate insanity for our technologically advanced civilization. It is so massively absurd that it’s beyond dealing with how normal such official designation makes it.
And you should be on my mailing list: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/about. We need to stick together. I’m trying to get “us” organized — to be signatory to a coalition for the good. We are not using our tools. We use the outdated ones, like the war machine things, but we have the internet. We could get millions of people, even billions, to unite as a force to influence the power structure — like taking to the streets, but this is easier. I am trying to get power players to get behind things Iike this. Everyone is solo, but we should be putting heads together,
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Yes, after decades of research on social change, I have concluded that especially in relation to instigating climate action, climate justice, and ecological survival strategies, trying to ‘convince’ so called leadership, whether corporate or government, that they must transform institutions, is in itself a futile gesture. It will take much more than rational argument and toothless ‘commitments’ to change.
At this stage, due especially to the deep material commitments of the high executive, political, and investor classes to continuing on the path that made them rich and is destroying our world, the only viable path toward societal transformation to re-stabilize the Earth System is to mobilize a mass movement to force change.
I think it was Bill Moyers who said in an interview that the only way to overcome massive wealth and political power is by organizing large numbers of people to force the change that we need. I am looking into the potential role of strong social networks in creating what Damon Centola calls “complex contagions,” rapidly accelerated social movements based on strong connections and mutual trust.
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