Starting a War is Criminal
Around the world, up through the mid-20th century, it was pretty much dog-eat-dog. Until the 19th, according to legend, nations attacking one another gave the peasantry something worthwhile to do with their lives and provided entertainment for the Nobility. Until the 19th, legend was a bit weak on the details. Then, history and photography came along and screwed everything up. Turns out, far from being splendid, wars were too awful to even think about.
WWI dispelled the splendid war myth for all except maybe a few frat boys from Harvard and Yale. Its horrors, its utter senselessness, catalyzed consensus on the need to prevent wars; consensus that is only as long as it didn’t impair the right of the powerful to wage war; deny them the right to hold on to old animosities. Change without changing is impossible.
Notwithstanding its limitations and flaws, The League of Nations was a big step in the right direction.
Due in large part to these limitations and flaws, The League couldn’t prevent WWII. WWII should have been the final straw. Hence the acts of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, only the most Dulles faction of patricians believed that it was OK for one nation to invade another. Following WWII, anyone, no matter their pedigree or lack thereof, who starts a war is de facto a war criminal. This should be (is in fact) a law. Alas, a law is only the law if it is enforced.
Because some of the members didn’t want to give up power; the League depended on these ‘Great Powers’ for enforcement. With a slight reshuffling of the cards, for the same reasons, so does The United Nations (UN). The UN relies on the Great Powers concept because: The United States wanted to retain the right to act unilaterally. So did Russia and China. Change is hard. Especially when you don’t want to change.
Separation of power for all but the Great Powers, forever! Result: No independent judiciary, no equal enforcement of the law. Both of these were to proceed at the discretion of the five permanent members of the Security Council. The United Kingdom and France, no longer Great Powers, are unlikely to be invading anyone anytime soon. But The United States, China, and Russia are likely to; have.
The United States’ (George W. Bush’s) 2003 invasion of Iraq was a war crime not charged but for its being one of the five. (US involvement in Vietnam was probably a war crime). Russia’s (Vladimir Putin’s) invasion of Georgia (2008), and of Ukraine (2020), were war crimes. {The Soviet Union’s invasion of Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968), involvement in Vietnam (1964-75), and invasion of Afghanistan (1979-89) were probably war crimes}. It will be a war crime if China (Xi Jinping) invades Taiwan. His treatment of the Uhygurs and his actions of late in Hong Kong were likely war crimes. {China’s actions Battle of Chambo (1950) against Tibet and those during the first Taiwan Strait Crisis (1954-19955) were probably war crimes.}
A law is only the law if it is enforced. To stop war crimes, we must hold those committing them accountable. The sooner, the better. When Putin invaded Ukraine, there should have been immediate international sanctions imposed on Russia; draconian sanctions in effect until Putin was handed over to international law enforcement, and the invading forces completely withdrawn. The same for The United States’ 2003 invasion of Iraq. Not doing so gives license to the Assad(s) and Netanyahu(s) of the world. No nation can be above the law.
Any head of state who deliberately initiates conflict is a war criminal. Any head of state who orders the invasion of another nation for reasons other than defense is a war criminal. Any head of state or government official who acts to provoke war is a war criminal. Wars take too many innocent lives; cost too much. Wars cause lasting damage to those who fight them and to their families; the costs of wars go on for generations. Wars need to be stopped before they get started. The price for starting a war should be made to be too high to even contemplate.
In an effective international court, no country can be above the law. For this to be, there can not be veto power granted to any one country. The court must be separate politics — be independent. International law enforcement, too, must be independent of political influence. No nation can be above the law, and the law must apply equally to all nations.
— A nation’s sovereignty does not extend beyond its borders; does not allow it to invade another nation. —
The comments about China are false and malicious, reflecting only prejudice. Truly saddening prejudice. Shameful prejudice against a 5,000 year old civilization of 1.4 billion.
@ltr,
The comments about China are factual, reflecting only history and evidence. How does being a 5,000 year old nation of 1.4 billion exempt China from criminal behavior? In addition to the crimes cited, there’s the millions of their own innocent citizens killed during the “Great Leap Forward” and the “Cultural Revolution.” China is no better than most nations.
The comments about China are factual, reflecting only history and evidence….
[ This is of course false. Mere prejudice. ]
The comments about China are false and malicious, reflecting only prejudice. Truly saddening prejudice. Shameful prejudice….
Also too:
“In February 1979, Chinese forces launched a surprise invasion of northern Vietnam and quickly captured several cities near the border. On 6 March of that year, China declared that the “gate to Hanoi” had been opened and that its punitive mission had been accomplished. Chinese troops then withdrew from Vietnam.”
Not a full-scale war, but an act of war by China against a sovereign neighbor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War
If I remember correctly, the Vietnamese kicked the Chinese out rather handily. Vietnam was still coming off the high of kicking out the US. I’m guessing Vietnam could do this again, but things may have changed.
NVA was pretty experienced and successful at several levels of operations and in spring 1975 took Saigon.
Apparently they kept a core set of battalions active in Laos, Cambodia and north Thailand so that in 1979 they pushed the PLA around with not much news covered.
And this:
“A fellow socialist state ruled by an authoritarian Communist Party, Hanoi is under growing pressure from China, particularly around overlapping sovereignty claims in the South China Sea. While China has not threatened an invasion of Vietnam like Russia’s of Ukraine, sometimes deadly maritime skirmishes between the two Asian countries have taken place. It is not unthinkable that an incident at sea could spill over onto land, disrupting the decades-long peace at their shared border. To the contrary, such a scenario is more likely than an invasion of Taiwan any time soon.”
https://www.rand.org/blog/2022/03/taiwan-isnt-the-ukraine-of-the-indo-pacific-try-vietnam.html
didn’t want to give up power; the League depended on these ‘Great Powers’ for enforcement
“
KM
a nation’s free lunch is derived from re-employment of unemployed people. there are two roads to this lunch. the first road can be taken by each nation on this planet, and the second can be taken only by the USA.
1, The transaction between vendor and customer drives re-employment by depleting the vendors inventory. Falling inventory prompts the factory manager to hire an extra shift of workers. Such hiring increases both capacity utilization, and factory economy of scale. Later, when the rehired workers are paid they consume more, spend more, the multiplier effect.
On the other side of the transaction is the vendor who because of the multiplier effect is now raking in more revenue. At the margin he also sees that his profit margin increases 9 times faster than his revenue, MME, margin multiplier effect. However, as he begins to expect accelerating-inflation he tends to instinctively hoard his inventory by preemptively raising his price to take advantage of the margin multiplier effect. As factory managers see his hoarding, channel stuffing they layoff one shift of workers, who are also customers. As customers disappear revenue drops, margins plummet, prompting vendors to dump inventory to avoid catastrophic losses.
the trick is to increase the customers inflationary expectations but decrease the vendors inflationary expectations and increase the vendors deflationary expectations but on closer inspection you see that the customer has no MME, margin multiplier effect whereas the vendor does. so that on balance you can easily increase the deflationary expectations of all players in order to maintain high output and full employment.
2. the second Road to free lunch to be used only by the USA is called the EP, extraordinary privilege of printing up then exporting the world’s Reserve currency for 99% profit margin. the second Road can easily be sustainably maintained by a policy of constant deflation of the reserve currency.
Caveate :
Any Nation who has this extraordinary privilege will be a target for all other nations which means that we must always maintain military superiority, any easy task when both roads are enhancing our tax base.
This gets one into the “You and what army?” problem and the even more serious issue of the possibility of some organization with an army powerful enough to clobber any national army. I think the US squandered a lot of moral high ground when it invaded Iraq. It didn’t even bother to set up a proper puppet government as it did in Vietnam.
When you apply a broad standard, it is hard to find a nation on earth that hasn’t committed war crimes. There just aren’t a lot of clean hands out there, and larger, more powerful nations are more likely to have committed war crimes than smaller, less powerful ones, but, again, that depends on your war crimes definition.
St Augustine’s ‘Just War Doctrine’: 6 or 7 points in the Doctrine define when a Christian can participate in state sanction killing of other humans.
War in and of itself is ugly.
Pretty sure starting a war is violation of the doctrine.
Starting a War in the name of god is blasphemy …
Wikipedia: starting a war of agression is criminal
To initiate a war of aggression … is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. Article 39 of the United Nations Charter provides that the UN Security Council shall determine the existence of any act of aggression and “shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security”. …