Suppose you are fighting barbarians. When firing at them would endanger civilians, you are reluctant to fire. What incentives does this create?
32 thoughts on “Civilization, Barbarism, and Incentives”
It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face…And you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared.
They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces…Seems a thousand centuries ago…We went into a camp to innoculate the children. We left the camp after we had innoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn’t see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every innoculated arm. There they were in a pile…A pile of little arms. And I remember…I…I…I cried…I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized…like I was shot…Like I was shot with a diamond…a diamond bullet right through my forehead…And I thought: My God…the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters…These were men…trained cadres…these men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love…but they had the strength…the strength…to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral…and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordal instincts to kill without feeling…without passion… without judgement…without judgement. Because it’s judgement that defeats us. “
Obviously it incentivizes me to develop more precise means of opposing the barbarians and for them to try to undermine that and put civilians in harms way.
It’s impossible to figure out the equilibrium in the abstract. Maybe I fire less and less civilians die with the barbarians gaining an advantage, maybe I develop more precise weapons and less civilians die, maybe they succeed at hiding among civilians but my preference for killing barbs is stronger than my preference for saving civilians and we get mass death.
Meanwhile, the civilians are also a agents with a range of possible reactions.
Any attempt to reach a conclusion in the abstract is doomed. You need more context.
Right. I see a lot of people denouncing the Israeli action in Gaza as “collective punishment.” When non-uniformed combatants hide amongst a population of civilians, the only alternative is basically “no punishment at all,” right?
But Hamas and Gazan civilians are both oppressed classes and the Israelis are an oppressor class, so a different set of moral standards is applied to each of them.
The legal standard is that, when initiating an attack, the likely military advantage has to be proportional to the likely risk to civilians. Collective punishment is when the objective of the attack isn’t military at all, it is to directly harm civilians in order to force concessions out of them.
Not a bright line, obviously, but it is perfectly rational to complain about collective punishment and still acknowledge that combatants can kill civilians.
I guess I should clarify that while the offensive in Gaza has been denounced as a form of collective punishment because civilians are dying, I don’t really agree with that description, and I think that many of these people are just having a visceral reaction to the death of civilians (which, to be fair, is in fact awful) without considering the consequences of adopting rules of engagement stipulating that you can’t undertake any real military action if it poses a risk to significant numbers of civilians.
And to be more clear myself, my point is that the smartest critics of the invasion (ie, international humanitarian lawyers) aren’t arguing that it is bad because civilians are dying, they are arguing that it is bad because the principles of proportionality and possibly distinction are being violated. More circumspect attacks designed to kill less civilians would be fine, even if they killed civilians. Just so, bigger attacks that killed more civilians would be fine if they had more decisive military objectives.
I don’t know enough about the facts on the ground to agree or disagree with that, but it’s a closer question than when peaceniks advocate a “no civilian deaths ever!” Claim. Both the IDF and IHL lawyers are in agreement about the standard by which you judge collateral damage, the disagreement is over application.
That is fair. My rejoinder to that would be that these principles of proportionality prevent both sides from achieving victory, and therefore amount to prolonging the conflict and potentially increasing the death toll. The Israelis cannot inflict enough damage to eliminate Hamas, and Hamas, meanwhile, can use these principles to continue their attacks while insulating themselves from the risk of catastrophic defeat, such that they will seemingly never have to say to themselves “we have been defeated militarily. We must now capitulate to our enemies and cease hostilities, lest they completely annihilate us.” So everybody keeps fighting. Well-intentioned humanitarians are inadvertantly creating conditions of perpetual war while being used, much like the Comintern’s Useful Idiots during the ’30’s and ’40’s, by a violent terrorist organization. Bleh.
Operation Human Shield would by the correct answer, no?
Of course my mind immediately jumped to Gaza as well — but then I noticed that Arnold had tagged this with “Three-Axes Model”, which got me thinking: the scenario also suggests a winning strategy for “barbarians” in the so-called Culture War who might be interested in shifting the Overton Window.
For the barbarians, it creates an additional incentive / temptation to endanger their own civilians by using them as human shields
For the civilized armed forces, it really depends on the nature of the reluctance.
Iron dome is symbolic of an advancing civilization.
Actually there is an interesting thing to consider about the discourse surrounding these kinds of conflicts.
The oppressor-oppressed axis side will say things like Israel is being deontologically wrong in this conflict, and usually they are being much more critical than that.
But then the civilization-barbarism side will ask, “Ok, what do you expect Israel to do that would deontologically correct with regard to these rocket and tunnel attacks?”
And one doesn’t get any clear answers at all. It’s not so much a failure of ‘fluency’ between the languages, the opp-axis speakers know what the civ-axis speakers are trying to get at and the point they are trying to make, but they will not make the leap. It’s strange; as if they feel entitled to never have to engage or think outside of their frame.
Maybe Hanson would say something like their exclusive use of one political language is just a clever way for them to conceal their favoritism and hypocrisy on the matter while pretending to apply universal rules fairly and impartially.
My new favorite commenter. Good stuff.
There is an incentive for “the more civilized” to come in after all the carnage and slaughter to provide some care.
Suppose you are fighting barbarians. Suppose killing civilians while firing at them carries no penalties or stigma. What incentives does this create?
Operating under a more restrictive set of rules is the very thing that separates civilization from barbarism. There is an “incentive” to abandon civilized behavior when fighting barbarians. This incentive should be resisted.
+1
Suppose you are occupying, blockading, and killing a people in disproportionate numbers. Suppose you are aware that retaliation inevitably means massive civilian casualties, and that even if you believe the other side is ultimately to blame you will anger and radicalize the other side by bombing schools, hospitals, and children playing on beaches. Suppose you attempt to discredit and delegitimize all forms of non-violent dissent. What incentives does this create?
They are all evil oppressors who deserve everything bad that happens to them and who have no right to respond and so they should just sit there and suck it up because any act by the innocent and blameless oppressed freedom fighters is necessary and just.
Suppose that every time you wage “proportionate” war in defense of barbarian attacks you achieve a point where a ceasefire is arranged and hostilities abate for a while. But the barbarians subsequently always regroup and rearm and resume hostilities at a time and in a method of their choosing. And this script is followed time after time after time, each time with civilian casualties on both sides.
But suppose that you decide to change your strategy to waging all out war on the barbarians, to the point of unconditional surrender & total disarming, with the goal of permanently depriving the barbarians of the means and will to make war; such that civilians on each side would no longer have to fear that they would be subject to future hostilities.
Well the civilians on the Palestinian side certainly wouldn’t have to fear that they’d be subject to *future* hostilities, that’s for sure.
Not sure there’s a better example of begging the question than the continued use of “barbarians” in this conversation.
By the way, your comment seems to suggest there is a way for Israel to wage an all out war against Hamas that leads to unconditional surrender and total disarmament while leaving the civilian population intact. If that is the case, why do the Israeli government, the IDF, and Israel’s supporters claim they cannot even wage a small, restrained, proportionate defensive war without running up lopsided civilian casualties? Can you explain what the remains of Gazan society would look like after a total war? How long would civilians remain civilians after witnessing Israel wiping out their leadership?
Suppose you are fighting barbarians. When firing at them would endanger civilians, you are reluctant to fire. What incentives does this create?
This creates an incentive for the barbarians to exploit your reluctance to endanger civilians by conducting operations near civilians, using civilians as human shields and disguising themselves as civilians. This provides the barbarians with both a tactical advantage and a PR advantage, as they can portray you as deliberately harming civilians.
Due to your enemy’s advantage, you have an incentive to counter or neutralize that advantage. Methods of attacking only the barbarians without harming the civilians (precision weapons, selective fire, etc.) can help alleviate the PR battle, but will not solve the underlying problem: the barbarians still maintain their tactical advantage. To remove the tactical advantage held by the barbarians, you must make the cost the barbarians bear by endangering civilians outweigh the benefits they obtain from doing so.
The barbarians (and civilians, too, for that matter) know that you will do everything possible to prevent harming the civilians. But when you begin to fight without regard to the civilians, the barbarians will quickly realize that they have lost their usefulness as a tool. In fact, in the long run, maintaining a policy of disregarding civilians will actually lower civilian casualties because the barbarians will learn that they provide no tactical advantage. They may even become a detriment to their ability to fight.
The civilians will now have a new incentive that they did not previously have: they will likely prevent themselves from being used by the barbarians whenever possible because they know that you will not hesitate to fire on them if they come between you and the barbarians. By attempting to not harm the civilians, you are really doing them a disservice.
I too support war crimes and crimes against humanity because, you know, we wouldn’t want to let the barbarians win or anything.
This comment section is absolutely terrifying. “By attempting to not harm the civilians, you are really doing them a disservice” is beyond Orwellian.
Aidan,
Thanks for participating. I would say that attempting not to harm civilians could be doing them a disservice, if the terrorists are sufficiently ruthless. That is because attempting not to harm civilians gives the terrorists a sanctuary, allowing them to inflict more casualties, leading ultimately to more retaliation.
I still believe that one should try to uphold civilized values by trying not to harm civilians, but I want to emphasize how the ruthlessness of the terrorists can create a dynamic that is, to use your term, Orwellian.
I continue to fail to see how Israel could effectively wipe out the “barbarians” while leaving alive enough civilians to have them benefit from being rid of Hamas and no longer having to fear that they would be subject to future hostilities.
Gaza is so densely populated and subject to a blockade. Where are the civilians supposed to go to separate themselves from the total warfare being waged against their territory with the fifth highest population density in the world? How can you reconcile this with Israel’s position during the current war that they are trying as hard as they can to prevent civilian casualties yet can’t do any better than killing 1.5 more children than militants?
What is left of Gaza after this total cleansing? How do you construct a functioning society out of the pieces going forward?
No one has precise figures, obviously, but what do you suppose are the following ratios: number of Hamas fighters killed divided by the total number of Hamas fighters; number of Gaza civilians killed divided by the total number of Gaza civilians. Do your estimates support the use of the phrases “total warfare” and “total cleansing”?
Those phrases were made in reference to the suggestions of multiple people in this comment section. One comment I replied to advocated that Israel “begin to fight without regard to the civilians,” another advocated “waging all out war on the barbarians, to the point of unconditional surrender & total disarming.” I am responding to the scenario you raised in your post, Idon’t know why you are trying to conflate that with the current war.
I don’t know for sure how many fighters Hamas has, but I have seen the estimate that they have “10,000 full-time soldiers and another 10,000 policemen who have wartime mobilization orders.” The ratio of Hamas fighters killed to Hamas fighters is obviously higher, as it would be in any conflict. We’re also talking about .01% of Gaza’s population in the fifth most dense population in the world. I’m not sure what your point is.
Incentives: for the Barbarians, to spread out one’s military capabilities within the civilian population, and to coerce the civilians to stay in harms’ way.
For the civilized, to develop better intelligence and assassination capabilities, or to redefine “civilized” to a more 19th-century version, where deaths of barbarian civilians don’t really matter.
I would think it would create the incentive for barbarians to use civilians as shields. That seems to be proven out with actual experience.
I also think it would create the incentive for the civilized to shame the barbarians for such behavior, but that doesn’t seem to be proven in out with actual experience. I call that ‘blame disorder’. Some people seem especially inept at assigning blame correctly.
I’m another who thinks it would create the incentive for barbarians to use civilians as shields. But barbarians do love their children not less than the civilized, and dont enjoy their children being employed as human shields. They are unarmed captives of their cruel rulers. If the pressure is kept up, I presume there must be a tipping point where civilian barbarians rebel against their capturers. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was that kind of situation and it cost the Romanov their heads.
“waging all out war on the barbarians, to the point of unconditional surrender & total disarming.”
IIRC, most recently (let’s call it “modern times”), the 19th and 20th centuries were multiple years of intra- and inter-nation wars briefly interrupted by episodes of peace. The world only experienced the reverse when “barbarians” who chose war-making above all were near-annihilated.
Simplistically and for example only, it was not until Union forces had laid waste to the [civilian] Confederacy that they were they able to bring the Southern armies to the point of surrender, and to bring U.S. Civil War hostilities to an end & begin to reconstruct a re-United States. It was not until the [civilian] populations of Japan and German suffered appreciable casualties and/or deprivation, that Allied forces were able to beat the Axis into unconditional submission, and that a “reconstruction” of their respective peaceable governments was possible.
I’m not saying that it is or should be a goal to kill civilians during hostilities, but history indicates that, IF HOSTILITIES ARE TO BE BROUGHT TO A PERMANENT ENDING, then reducing civilian support for war-making (by making that support the less-desired alternative, via either mortality rates or material deprivation) is an effective means to that end. Once the war-makers no longer have the (voluntary or involuntary) support of the civilian population, only then might they be vanquished & may peace have a chance of permanence.
Hey, I’m neither an historian nor a student of war, but this is just what my common sense tells me. I’d be happy to be proven wrong — have at it.
“On some basic level, you forfeit your right to be called civilians when you freely elect members of a terrorist organization as statesmen, invite them to dinner with blood on their hands and allow them to set up shop in your living room as their base of operations. At that point you begin to look a lot more like conscripted soldiers than innocent civilians. And you have wittingly made yourself targets.” (WSJ, via Andy McCarthy’s Ordered Liberty).
Read the whole thing: http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2014/07/22/palestinians-chose-mass-murder/?singlepage=true
It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face…And you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared.
They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces…Seems a thousand centuries ago…We went into a camp to innoculate the children. We left the camp after we had innoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn’t see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every innoculated arm. There they were in a pile…A pile of little arms. And I remember…I…I…I cried…I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized…like I was shot…Like I was shot with a diamond…a diamond bullet right through my forehead…And I thought: My God…the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters…These were men…trained cadres…these men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love…but they had the strength…the strength…to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral…and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordal instincts to kill without feeling…without passion… without judgement…without judgement. Because it’s judgement that defeats us. “
Obviously it incentivizes me to develop more precise means of opposing the barbarians and for them to try to undermine that and put civilians in harms way.
It’s impossible to figure out the equilibrium in the abstract. Maybe I fire less and less civilians die with the barbarians gaining an advantage, maybe I develop more precise weapons and less civilians die, maybe they succeed at hiding among civilians but my preference for killing barbs is stronger than my preference for saving civilians and we get mass death.
Meanwhile, the civilians are also a agents with a range of possible reactions.
Any attempt to reach a conclusion in the abstract is doomed. You need more context.
Right. I see a lot of people denouncing the Israeli action in Gaza as “collective punishment.” When non-uniformed combatants hide amongst a population of civilians, the only alternative is basically “no punishment at all,” right?
But Hamas and Gazan civilians are both oppressed classes and the Israelis are an oppressor class, so a different set of moral standards is applied to each of them.
The legal standard is that, when initiating an attack, the likely military advantage has to be proportional to the likely risk to civilians. Collective punishment is when the objective of the attack isn’t military at all, it is to directly harm civilians in order to force concessions out of them.
Not a bright line, obviously, but it is perfectly rational to complain about collective punishment and still acknowledge that combatants can kill civilians.
I guess I should clarify that while the offensive in Gaza has been denounced as a form of collective punishment because civilians are dying, I don’t really agree with that description, and I think that many of these people are just having a visceral reaction to the death of civilians (which, to be fair, is in fact awful) without considering the consequences of adopting rules of engagement stipulating that you can’t undertake any real military action if it poses a risk to significant numbers of civilians.
And to be more clear myself, my point is that the smartest critics of the invasion (ie, international humanitarian lawyers) aren’t arguing that it is bad because civilians are dying, they are arguing that it is bad because the principles of proportionality and possibly distinction are being violated. More circumspect attacks designed to kill less civilians would be fine, even if they killed civilians. Just so, bigger attacks that killed more civilians would be fine if they had more decisive military objectives.
I don’t know enough about the facts on the ground to agree or disagree with that, but it’s a closer question than when peaceniks advocate a “no civilian deaths ever!” Claim. Both the IDF and IHL lawyers are in agreement about the standard by which you judge collateral damage, the disagreement is over application.
That is fair. My rejoinder to that would be that these principles of proportionality prevent both sides from achieving victory, and therefore amount to prolonging the conflict and potentially increasing the death toll. The Israelis cannot inflict enough damage to eliminate Hamas, and Hamas, meanwhile, can use these principles to continue their attacks while insulating themselves from the risk of catastrophic defeat, such that they will seemingly never have to say to themselves “we have been defeated militarily. We must now capitulate to our enemies and cease hostilities, lest they completely annihilate us.” So everybody keeps fighting. Well-intentioned humanitarians are inadvertantly creating conditions of perpetual war while being used, much like the Comintern’s Useful Idiots during the ’30’s and ’40’s, by a violent terrorist organization. Bleh.
Operation Human Shield would by the correct answer, no?
Of course my mind immediately jumped to Gaza as well — but then I noticed that Arnold had tagged this with “Three-Axes Model”, which got me thinking: the scenario also suggests a winning strategy for “barbarians” in the so-called Culture War who might be interested in shifting the Overton Window.
For the barbarians, it creates an additional incentive / temptation to endanger their own civilians by using them as human shields
For the civilized armed forces, it really depends on the nature of the reluctance.
Iron dome is symbolic of an advancing civilization.
Actually there is an interesting thing to consider about the discourse surrounding these kinds of conflicts.
The oppressor-oppressed axis side will say things like Israel is being deontologically wrong in this conflict, and usually they are being much more critical than that.
But then the civilization-barbarism side will ask, “Ok, what do you expect Israel to do that would deontologically correct with regard to these rocket and tunnel attacks?”
And one doesn’t get any clear answers at all. It’s not so much a failure of ‘fluency’ between the languages, the opp-axis speakers know what the civ-axis speakers are trying to get at and the point they are trying to make, but they will not make the leap. It’s strange; as if they feel entitled to never have to engage or think outside of their frame.
Maybe Hanson would say something like their exclusive use of one political language is just a clever way for them to conceal their favoritism and hypocrisy on the matter while pretending to apply universal rules fairly and impartially.
My new favorite commenter. Good stuff.
There is an incentive for “the more civilized” to come in after all the carnage and slaughter to provide some care.
Suppose you are fighting barbarians. Suppose killing civilians while firing at them carries no penalties or stigma. What incentives does this create?
Operating under a more restrictive set of rules is the very thing that separates civilization from barbarism. There is an “incentive” to abandon civilized behavior when fighting barbarians. This incentive should be resisted.
+1
Suppose you are occupying, blockading, and killing a people in disproportionate numbers. Suppose you are aware that retaliation inevitably means massive civilian casualties, and that even if you believe the other side is ultimately to blame you will anger and radicalize the other side by bombing schools, hospitals, and children playing on beaches. Suppose you attempt to discredit and delegitimize all forms of non-violent dissent. What incentives does this create?
They are all evil oppressors who deserve everything bad that happens to them and who have no right to respond and so they should just sit there and suck it up because any act by the innocent and blameless oppressed freedom fighters is necessary and just.
Suppose that every time you wage “proportionate” war in defense of barbarian attacks you achieve a point where a ceasefire is arranged and hostilities abate for a while. But the barbarians subsequently always regroup and rearm and resume hostilities at a time and in a method of their choosing. And this script is followed time after time after time, each time with civilian casualties on both sides.
But suppose that you decide to change your strategy to waging all out war on the barbarians, to the point of unconditional surrender & total disarming, with the goal of permanently depriving the barbarians of the means and will to make war; such that civilians on each side would no longer have to fear that they would be subject to future hostilities.
Well the civilians on the Palestinian side certainly wouldn’t have to fear that they’d be subject to *future* hostilities, that’s for sure.
Not sure there’s a better example of begging the question than the continued use of “barbarians” in this conversation.
By the way, your comment seems to suggest there is a way for Israel to wage an all out war against Hamas that leads to unconditional surrender and total disarmament while leaving the civilian population intact. If that is the case, why do the Israeli government, the IDF, and Israel’s supporters claim they cannot even wage a small, restrained, proportionate defensive war without running up lopsided civilian casualties? Can you explain what the remains of Gazan society would look like after a total war? How long would civilians remain civilians after witnessing Israel wiping out their leadership?
Suppose you are fighting barbarians. When firing at them would endanger civilians, you are reluctant to fire. What incentives does this create?
This creates an incentive for the barbarians to exploit your reluctance to endanger civilians by conducting operations near civilians, using civilians as human shields and disguising themselves as civilians. This provides the barbarians with both a tactical advantage and a PR advantage, as they can portray you as deliberately harming civilians.
Due to your enemy’s advantage, you have an incentive to counter or neutralize that advantage. Methods of attacking only the barbarians without harming the civilians (precision weapons, selective fire, etc.) can help alleviate the PR battle, but will not solve the underlying problem: the barbarians still maintain their tactical advantage. To remove the tactical advantage held by the barbarians, you must make the cost the barbarians bear by endangering civilians outweigh the benefits they obtain from doing so.
The barbarians (and civilians, too, for that matter) know that you will do everything possible to prevent harming the civilians. But when you begin to fight without regard to the civilians, the barbarians will quickly realize that they have lost their usefulness as a tool. In fact, in the long run, maintaining a policy of disregarding civilians will actually lower civilian casualties because the barbarians will learn that they provide no tactical advantage. They may even become a detriment to their ability to fight.
The civilians will now have a new incentive that they did not previously have: they will likely prevent themselves from being used by the barbarians whenever possible because they know that you will not hesitate to fire on them if they come between you and the barbarians. By attempting to not harm the civilians, you are really doing them a disservice.
I too support war crimes and crimes against humanity because, you know, we wouldn’t want to let the barbarians win or anything.
This comment section is absolutely terrifying. “By attempting to not harm the civilians, you are really doing them a disservice” is beyond Orwellian.
Aidan,
Thanks for participating. I would say that attempting not to harm civilians could be doing them a disservice, if the terrorists are sufficiently ruthless. That is because attempting not to harm civilians gives the terrorists a sanctuary, allowing them to inflict more casualties, leading ultimately to more retaliation.
I still believe that one should try to uphold civilized values by trying not to harm civilians, but I want to emphasize how the ruthlessness of the terrorists can create a dynamic that is, to use your term, Orwellian.
I continue to fail to see how Israel could effectively wipe out the “barbarians” while leaving alive enough civilians to have them benefit from being rid of Hamas and no longer having to fear that they would be subject to future hostilities.
Gaza is so densely populated and subject to a blockade. Where are the civilians supposed to go to separate themselves from the total warfare being waged against their territory with the fifth highest population density in the world? How can you reconcile this with Israel’s position during the current war that they are trying as hard as they can to prevent civilian casualties yet can’t do any better than killing 1.5 more children than militants?
What is left of Gaza after this total cleansing? How do you construct a functioning society out of the pieces going forward?
No one has precise figures, obviously, but what do you suppose are the following ratios: number of Hamas fighters killed divided by the total number of Hamas fighters; number of Gaza civilians killed divided by the total number of Gaza civilians. Do your estimates support the use of the phrases “total warfare” and “total cleansing”?
Those phrases were made in reference to the suggestions of multiple people in this comment section. One comment I replied to advocated that Israel “begin to fight without regard to the civilians,” another advocated “waging all out war on the barbarians, to the point of unconditional surrender & total disarming.” I am responding to the scenario you raised in your post, Idon’t know why you are trying to conflate that with the current war.
I don’t know for sure how many fighters Hamas has, but I have seen the estimate that they have “10,000 full-time soldiers and another 10,000 policemen who have wartime mobilization orders.” The ratio of Hamas fighters killed to Hamas fighters is obviously higher, as it would be in any conflict. We’re also talking about .01% of Gaza’s population in the fifth most dense population in the world. I’m not sure what your point is.
Incentives: for the Barbarians, to spread out one’s military capabilities within the civilian population, and to coerce the civilians to stay in harms’ way.
For the civilized, to develop better intelligence and assassination capabilities, or to redefine “civilized” to a more 19th-century version, where deaths of barbarian civilians don’t really matter.
I would think it would create the incentive for barbarians to use civilians as shields. That seems to be proven out with actual experience.
I also think it would create the incentive for the civilized to shame the barbarians for such behavior, but that doesn’t seem to be proven in out with actual experience. I call that ‘blame disorder’. Some people seem especially inept at assigning blame correctly.
I’m another who thinks it would create the incentive for barbarians to use civilians as shields. But barbarians do love their children not less than the civilized, and dont enjoy their children being employed as human shields. They are unarmed captives of their cruel rulers. If the pressure is kept up, I presume there must be a tipping point where civilian barbarians rebel against their capturers. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was that kind of situation and it cost the Romanov their heads.
“waging all out war on the barbarians, to the point of unconditional surrender & total disarming.”
IIRC, most recently (let’s call it “modern times”), the 19th and 20th centuries were multiple years of intra- and inter-nation wars briefly interrupted by episodes of peace. The world only experienced the reverse when “barbarians” who chose war-making above all were near-annihilated.
Simplistically and for example only, it was not until Union forces had laid waste to the [civilian] Confederacy that they were they able to bring the Southern armies to the point of surrender, and to bring U.S. Civil War hostilities to an end & begin to reconstruct a re-United States. It was not until the [civilian] populations of Japan and German suffered appreciable casualties and/or deprivation, that Allied forces were able to beat the Axis into unconditional submission, and that a “reconstruction” of their respective peaceable governments was possible.
I’m not saying that it is or should be a goal to kill civilians during hostilities, but history indicates that, IF HOSTILITIES ARE TO BE BROUGHT TO A PERMANENT ENDING, then reducing civilian support for war-making (by making that support the less-desired alternative, via either mortality rates or material deprivation) is an effective means to that end. Once the war-makers no longer have the (voluntary or involuntary) support of the civilian population, only then might they be vanquished & may peace have a chance of permanence.
Hey, I’m neither an historian nor a student of war, but this is just what my common sense tells me. I’d be happy to be proven wrong — have at it.
“On some basic level, you forfeit your right to be called civilians when you freely elect members of a terrorist organization as statesmen, invite them to dinner with blood on their hands and allow them to set up shop in your living room as their base of operations. At that point you begin to look a lot more like conscripted soldiers than innocent civilians. And you have wittingly made yourself targets.” (WSJ, via Andy McCarthy’s Ordered Liberty).
Read the whole thing: http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2014/07/22/palestinians-chose-mass-murder/?singlepage=true