Ukraine invasion

[Ryujin]

True, but, there are some very important differences.

When Canadian soldiers beat a Somali kid to death, they went to jail (although, probably more of them should have) and the Airborne Regiment was disbanded. Canada, thirty years later, still doesn't have an Airborne Regiment. After the events, they started investigations throughout the Forces to identify and weed out bad actors. To varying degrees of success, fair enough, but, the attempt was at least made.

The Americans, for all their faults, have been remarkably restrained in their military actions since Viet Nam. And, again, I'm struggling to recall American run rape camps. While there have always been civilian casualties, and that's a tragedy, the US has been pretty good about keeping them to a minimum, compared to virtually any other armed forces in history.

The whole "war crimes happens" thing isn't really true anymore. There's a reason we have reporters embedded with US and allied units in war zones. We actually trust that our soldiers aren't animals. Ask yourself why we never see embedded Russian reporters. Ever. Or Chinese reporters, ever. Or Saudi reporters, ever.

The rise of the professional soldier in the latter half of the 20th century has resulted in armed forces that aren't commiting a litany of war crimes every time they get deployed. And that's a good thing.

There was more to the disbanding of the Canadian Airborne Regiment being disbanded than the Somalia incident. There were extensive hazing rituals and incidents, that were uncovered during the investigations. Leaving people tied to a tree and out in the rain overnight sort of thing. My uncle had been Airborne, but was out and moved into Procurement long before the Somalia incident.

 

[billd91]

The Americans, for all their faults, have been remarkably restrained in their military actions since Viet Nam. And, again, I'm struggling to recall American run rape camps. While there have always been civilian casualties, and that's a tragedy, the US has been pretty good about keeping them to a minimum, compared to virtually any other armed forces in history.

Well, we tried to hold war criminals accountable recently - but a certain set of presidential pardons got in the way.
I wouldn't hold us up as an example. Too many civilian casualties, sorry, "collateral damage" from drone strikes. Plus, our blatant refusal to be subject to international organizations on war crimes really counts against us.

The whole "war crimes happens" thing isn't really true anymore. There's a reason we have reporters embedded with US and allied units in war zones. We actually trust that our soldiers aren't animals. Ask yourself why we never see embedded Russian reporters. Ever. Or Chinese reporters, ever. Or Saudi reporters, ever.

The Soviets used to embed reporters. Vasily Grossman was a particularly prominent example. It depends on how much armies are waging the propaganda war - so they very well might have some there - they're just engaged in the project of pursuing the conflict through the state controlled media. And while we do have embedded reporters, that's also a way of controlling them. Coverage of military action in Vietnam and every engagement since are quite a contrast - the US military learned some lessons from Vietnam, after all.

 

[Mannahnin]

Well, we tried to hold war criminals accountable recently - but a certain set of presidential pardons got in the way.
I wouldn't hold us up as an example. Too many civilian casualties, sorry, "collateral damage" from drone strikes. Plus, our blatant refusal to be subject to international organizations on war crimes really counts against us.

The Soviets used to embed reporters. Vasily Grossman was a particularly prominent example. It depends on how much armies are waging the propaganda war - so they very well might have some there - they're just engaged in the project of pursuing the conflict through the state controlled media. And while we do have embedded reporters, that's also a way of controlling them. Coverage of military action in Vietnam and every engagement since are quite a contrast - the US military learned some lessons from Vietnam, after all.

Yup. The US has taken some bad lessons from Vietnam and put more controls on reporters in recent decades. And yes, it's still an uphill struggle to get war criminals in our armed forces prosecuted and properly punished. Nevermind civilian "security contractors" (ex-mil mercs) and the like.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yup. The US has taken some bad lessons from Vietnam and put more controls on reporters in recent decades. And yes, it's still an uphill struggle to get war criminals in our armed forces prosecuted and properly punished. Nevermind civilian "security contractors" (ex-mil mercs) and the like.

One of the favorite Russian whataboutism's. There's also a kernal of truth there as well.

USA at least is improving and the banana squirrel excuses tend to be a lot less.

Then again I knew expats who didn't believe Abu Gharbi or whatever it was called.
See previous comment about war being a dirty business best case scenario and an armies reputation is as good as it's worst members. Hell my country committed war crimes in several instances and we don't have a reputation for doing it.

 

[Sacrosanct]

True, but, there are some very important differences.

When Canadian soldiers beat a Somali kid to death, they went to jail (although, probably more of them should have) and the Airborne Regiment was disbanded. Canada, thirty years later, still doesn't have an Airborne Regiment. After the events, they started investigations throughout the Forces to identify and weed out bad actors. To varying degrees of success, fair enough, but, the attempt was at least made.

The Americans, for all their faults, have been remarkably restrained in their military actions since Viet Nam. And, again, I'm struggling to recall American run rape camps. While there have always been civilian casualties, and that's a tragedy, the US has been pretty good about keeping them to a minimum, compared to virtually any other armed forces in history.

The whole "war crimes happens" thing isn't really true anymore. There's a reason we have reporters embedded with US and allied units in war zones. We actually trust that our soldiers aren't animals. Ask yourself why we never see embedded Russian reporters. Ever. Or Chinese reporters, ever. Or Saudi reporters, ever.

The rise of the professional soldier in the latter half of the 20th century has resulted in armed forces that aren't commiting a litany of war crimes every time they get deployed. And that's a good thing.

I'm not talking about accountability after the fact, I'm talking about what causes a person to commit a war crime when they wouldn't have done anything like that before being exposed to war.

I think you're forgetting things like Abu Ghraib or Eddie Gallagher.

War Crimes will always happen absolutely is a true thing. As true today as it was 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 1000 years ago. Put people through a meat grinder, and there will be impacts. This isn't a revolutionary thing, and we have data after data that reaffirms that. There's a reason why instances of domestic violence, violence in general, and suicides are significantly higher among war veterans than anyone else.

I also never said or remotely implied that soldiers create a litany of war crimes every time they get deployed. I'd ask you to keep to what I've said, and not argue strawmen.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'll add that I have first hand experience seeing the horrors of war, and how it's affected people. But I will try to avoid any anecdotal references as to why I'm arguing what I am. Most psychologists who have studied the topic agree that situational factors are the leading cause of war crimes (these are easy to google and find). And it's no shocker. Break someone's rational thinking due to stressors of combat, and you're going to have some people react badly, either out of self preservation or revenge. There are some detractors to that line of thinking, such as Matthew Talbert and Jessica Wolfendale's book, War Crimes: Causes, Excuses, and Blame. However, even their book admits grudgingly that stressors lead to war crimes, and their focus seems to be on whether or not soldiers should be blamed and held accountable. They argue that they should be, and there are no excuses. Which is fine, I'm not really arguing against that. I'm simply stating that war itself, and the stressors encountered in war, may cause one to commit war crimes, and whenever you have war, you will find war crimes. And that seems to be near-universally agreed upon.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yup if you don't want war crimes don't go to war. Well sometimes you have to I suppose.

 

[Ryujin]

Yup if you don't want war crimes don't go to war. Well sometimes you have to I suppose.

Like in this case. Ukraine had the choice of going to war, or rolling over and being erased. That's no choice.

 

[Zardnaar]

Like in this case. Ukraine had the choice of going to war, or rolling over and being erased. That's no choice.

Not arguing with that. Wasn't talking about that I'm not a pacifist as such due to realpolitik.

 

[nedjer]

I think it's easy to point to this as the reason we see human rights violations, but I think that ignores the biggest reason: war itself.

Every nation involved in war has members who engage in war crimes. Even the "good" nations. I'm sure I don't need to list the examples. It's one of the certainties in war, along with civilian suffering. War breaks people. It becomes personal. In survival mode, your focus becomes what is immediately around you. If you (general you) keep seeing your buddies getting blown to pieces, many people will completely break and lash out in horrific ways. The first casualty of war is the humanization of "the other side". Those people cease to become people. They become things. Bad things. Things that hate you and want you dead. Dehumanizing them makes it easier to kill them.

When I first joined the military, from day 1 of boot camp they stress how "the enemy" is less than human. I understand the logic behind it. In war, you don't want to hesitate, and people hesitate if they view the other person shooting at them as a human being.

This gets even more complex when you have an environment where if you don't kill those people, or blow up that building of civilians, you get shot yourself. It's really easy for people to immediately leap to "following orders isn't an excuse", but no one has actually been in a position of having a gun to your head, or being told a gun is to the head of your family if you don't.

War breaks people. I suspect if anyone decided to do the research after this war, we'd see a dramatic spike in suicides by Russian soldiers after they get back. The suicide rate among American soldiers is exceptionally high, and we weren't engaged in what the Russian soldiers are.

I want to be very clear that I'm not making excuses or saying that they don't need to face accountability. I'm just sayings its not as simple to say "Russians are bad." I've worked with Russian soldiers before in Bosnia. None of them were like this. They were all the same as everyone else. Just like the soldiers I worked with from other nations that were also there. The horrors of war always takes its toll on humanity, and causes people to do horrific things they wouldn't have otherwise. To every side. It's one of the main reasons I'm so anti-war unless unavoidable.

War certainly leads to war crimes, but with 'good' forces it tends to be a furtive minority acting off the leash, if to some extent they were let off the leash in the first place. Here we have a leadership that condones and celebrates war crimes and a military so brutalised in parts that toddler rapists send video of atrocities home to their wives. Ukraine on the other hand don't shell civilians, have spent years professionalising their military and so seem likely to have occasional incidents but not the wholesale participation in war crimes of some Russian units. We would seem to be dealing not simply with a culture of criminality but a culture set up to collectivise the use of war crimes/ genocide as a supposedly legitimate means of enforcement.

There are plenty of predicaments under such circumstances but there are plenty of Russian units who prefer to sabotage their own vehicles or desert/ surrender and others who are being held for refusing to fight with their CO told to shoot them for desertion but unwilling to do so. In addition, 50,000+ Ukrainian civilians with a choice between fleeing and fighting have preferred to fight while thousands of Russian civilians are in jail for refusing to follow Putin's bidding. Stripping that back imo the Russian oligarchs have so hollowed out functional institutions and so diminished education and training that many troops, mostly drawn from among the most impoverished, are ill-equipped to deal with any of it, leading some to go with what is normalised within their units.

This is maybe where the collapse in Putin's prestige can help, as authority figures are vital to authoritarianism and there is likely to be hugely more dissent as 55% of generals don't make it home and your ships sink whenever they leave port.