The idea is that killing enemy is not necessary, just destroying their ability to fight. And there's incentive to be not too murderous expecting the enemy will do the same.

Until you are losing. At that point the decision makers fear their lives are lost. That's when the rules go out the window.

War is not a polite game of chess played by a nation. It is emotions, fears, consequences for individuals at every level.

When the war goes well you may compromise, you may not. But when survival is on the line everything comes into play - no compromises. What do you have to lose?

> What do you have to lose?

If that were true, all wars would end in genocide rather than treaty.

That they do not* is evidence that often, people —even individually— eventually decide what they have to lose is that which they have not yet lost.

(War, like chess, is a negative-sum game. The same calculus applies to the "victors"; I worry that people in the Old Country often forget this aspect.)

EDIT: also, the point of being either a noncombatant or a recognised combatant (who only followed lawful orders) is that you are then protected at the end of hostilities, so already your "nothing left to lose" has assumed (perhaps correctly!) a world in which the Geneva Conventions no longer have any meaning.

* consider: the US was losing in the Chiến tranh Việt Nam yet left without dropping The Bomb; Great Britain was losing in the US Revolution yet failed to do whatever the XVIII equivalent of glassing the colonies might have been (yes, they were busy globally with France, so they were a tad distracted, but still...)

> why would you pay attention to any "rules" that might limit your murderous psychopathy

The theory is, that as war is just a continuation of peace "by other means", one should not start wars without having an idea of the various ways in which one might end them, and (as the NSDP discovered in 1945) it's a whole lot easier to end them if you haven't been doing war crimes (or "war crimes"; if you intend to end a war short of genocide*, de jure or de facto doesn't really matter) during them.

(yes, I think we both agree that it'd be better to have a period instead of "without" after "one should not start wars", but if one allows for the existence of hawks, is it not better that they have some limits?)

Which part do you consider sheer ego? The distinction between combatants and non-combatants, or the inclusion of medical personnel among the non-combatants?

* compare Goebbels' Freudian slip in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportpalast_speech

The sheer ego is in the idea that all wars are started by gentlemen or aristocrats with options and we should have rules to incentivise them away from the risky inhumane options to the plain inhumane ones.

Or that once a war is started the "idea of the various ways in which one might end them" actually holds up in reality after the enemy get their vote.

I honestly tell you that if someone invaded my country in the manner of Russia with indiscriminate killing and bombardment of cities literally threatening the survival of those I care about then I will not give a toss what any convention says - what good does obeying a rule someone made up if I/my-loved-ones am/are dead?

And at that point, bio/nuke/any-weapons become an option - the rules be damned. I very much know that I shouldn't be trusted with such calls.

> I will not give a toss what any convention says - what good does obeying a rule someone made up if I/my-loved-ones am/are dead?

Essentially the sunk cost fallacy.

Making victims drag other down with them is like 101 Keeping The War Machine Going. Furthermore 'war mongerers without borders' cooperate for atrocities to get out of control.

At some point however the victims will blame their elite instead of the elite their elite blame.

Also, you usually don't lose everyone you care for in one blow. Losing half of your children might decrease the wish to lose the other half for some people.

> Essentially the sunk cost fallacy.

Except where is the fallacy to the individual? As a society/nation you can argue these things but same as corporations, the decision makers are individuals.

And if the individual sees surrender as death (or equivalent, life in miserable prison)- Hamas for example - why would they stop fighting? And if you are outmatched then survival demands using every resource you have - rules be damned.

Hamas hiding in the civilian population is not surprising at all. Israel continuing to bombard them with civilians then harmed is also not surprising. This is war, not a game with rules.

It is terribly sad for the civilians. It is horrifying. And yet predictable.

Ye individuals might value things differently. Some value revenge more than others.

Hamas might be a bad example since Netanyahu supports them. They are manufactured miserables where the point is that they are used as an excuse for ethnic cleansing.

Hamas could be compared to the right wing militias in Ukraine. Like, when they are in the position to pull you down with them, they will, becouse 'traitors'. And I guess both Israel and Russia are easy to "tease" which makes their job easy. And with their absolutist world view there is hard stopping them by talking. The hardline "total victory" types.

In this discussion with you and other threads I have come to realise that my idea of "war" is different to others. Maybe it is an "escalation" thing.

I see war as absolute/total/complete/existential in a sense. Anything less is an exercise in power, military/political/propaganda or otherwise. Not to demean those exercises as being terrible frightful happenings in their own right. Nor to demean their use in deterring what I see as war in the existential sense.

But I think that means I communicate with a crossed purpose.

For example, I see the US in Iraq as a military exercise. Nothing existential about it for the US. Again, to be clear, I'm not trying to demean the efforts or lives involved. There are great heroics and terrible outcomes in any such event. And such an exercise had significant political/social outcomes due to the military statement. For all I know it may have altered outcomes in a manner to avoid a war in the existential sense for the US. What if, per se.

But somewhere I feel that there is a different level, a different meaning, for fighting in the existential sense. World War 2 conveys that level of existentialism to me - many nations and peoples were fighting for continued existence. And it resulted in the age of the atom.

And I think it is this sense of "total war" that I mean when I am deriding the "rules of war". Because to me, the word War is loaded with the idea of there being no rules to begin with because sheer existence is on the line.

And so at this point I cede any debate. And thank you for helping me come to realise a significant point regarding my own views.