World History: Europe, Asia, and NA

[Nicolette]

Sounds like a justification for genocide.

 

[smalls]

my point exactly

 

[Auron X]

Sounds like a justification for genocide.

Can you honestly say that Japan wouldn't of used a bomb on the US or any of the other allied forces if they were the firsts to create it? And Japan has been the cause of many genocides before so don't even fucking start with that.

 

[Rorschach]

Man, I wish I got more of this in World history back in High School. All we got was the general idea of WW2 with the involvement of Germany and very little of Japan other then Pearl Harbor. And when the US came in the class was 5 min and was pretty much just this:

 

[Skaw]

Man, I wish I got more of this in World history back in High School. All we got was the general idea of WW2 with the involvement of Germany and very little of Japan other then Pearl Harbor. And when the US came in the class was 5 min and was pretty much just this:

[xyoutube]rq2_YKQGE_U[/youtube]

 

[Celvantes]

They should have just asked how well this worked on the Native American populace.

There's a difference between the general moral attitudes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the twentieth, Nicolette.

Unlike the Japanese, we got better. Over the next two hundred years, we changed from a nation of people that came to the New World for "G-d, Gold, and Glory." to a nation that stood for the ideals of freedom and democracy. Imperial Japan, by contrast, only sought to conquer its side of the world.

By WWII, we were using our power (in the form of money and the blood of our young men and women) for the good of others, even after our own borders had been secured.

ANY OTHER GREAT CIVILIZATION OF THE PAST, given our level of power compared to our neighbors, would have used that power to conquer, like the Japanese did. What did we do after the war? We GAVE AWAY what would be trillions of dollars in today's currency to rebuild the very nations we had defeated.

That is what makes us America, and not the American Empire. We seek to stabilize and not to rule. Yes, we have our fingers in every pie, but the fingers are there to make sure the pie is OK, not to take it for ourselves.

Have we slipped up in the past and acted like an empire? Yes. But these have been isolated incidents and generally attributed to the ambitions of one man rather than the will of a nation.

To foreigners who accuse us of trying to take over the world, and to weak-willed Americans who insist upon feeling guilt over what we are, I simply say this:

If we really were, the "evil American Empire," we wouldn't have an illegal immigration problem. Our borders would (at a minimum) stretch from the arctic circle to Cape Horn.

Raes, I tried to rate you up - but it wouldn't let me

 

[Sharpe]

Sounds like a justification for genocide.

What, like the Japanese were doing in places they controlled?

 

[Raesvelg]

my point exactly

Genocide is rarely the answer. Sometimes it has to be, in order to ensure the survival of a nation, but it tends to be over-applied throughout history.

To borrow a phrase from a movie, wars are fought in the will. If you can break the will of the people to fight, you've won. Breaking that will is, in fact, preferable to killing everyone, since there is a distinct tendency for people to look poorly upon genocide, and a nation that practices it runs the risk of suffering it when they finally run into someone strong enough to take them down.

In the short term, breaking the will of a nation's military will suffice. The first Gulf War is a prime example of this. The downside is that this leaves the door open for further aggression on the part of the defeated nation. Even a negotiated peace after a long war can lead to difficulties, particularly if there are harsh punishments imposed. The Versailles Treaty was viewed by many Germans as both excessively punitive, and by many others as premature. There was a strong faction of Germans who would rather have fought on to a more advantageous settlement, and many of those people would go on to join the Nazis.

In so-called "Total War", however, the situation becomes more complicated. The concept of total war is simple: The entire nation's economy is bent on the waging of war and the production of war materials. In that sense, there are no civilians in a total war, something that was embraced by all sides in WWII, though in many cases hidden behind euphemisms and double-talk. The British weren't firebombing German civilians, they were conducting a "De-Housing Project".

In some cases, the defeat of a nations military and the capitulation of its leadership will suffice, though the people will probably have suffered extensively by this point in a total war regardless. Japan serves as something of a prime example in this case: While the home islands were never invaded, and though military casualties were fairly high, civilian casualties were less than a third that suffered by Germany, and a something like 1/30th that of China. But by breaking the will of the government, shattering key facets of Japanese culture, and basically scaring the crap out of people, Japan capitulated with relatively little post-war bloodshed during the occupation and reformation.

On the other side, however, there are places like Iraq and Afghanistan, where defeat of the government and the armies cannot guarantee a successful resolution to the conflict. There are a variety of reasons for that, mostly revolving around the concept that in Muslim countries, there are typically two sources of authority, political and religious, and given the history of the western world, we are strangely loathe to attack the latter. When the man who claims to speak for the people says surrender, and the man who claims to speak for GOD says fight, a populace with strong religious beliefs will almost invariably side with the latter, on at least some level.

Short of attacking the religion directly, there is, in fact, relatively little you can do to fight religious fervor. In a widespread religion, attacking it becomes significantly more difficult, of course. Force one religious leader to capitulate, and another will decry them as a traitor/apostate/insert term here, and the war will continue largely unabated. Kill them, and they become a martyr. You are basically left with two options: Either treat it as a total war, attacking all members of a given religion wherever they might live (which is obviously extremely impractical), or simply hunker down and wait for a religion to "mellow" out some. Stomp on the local brush fires, keep the depredations of the extremists to a minimum, and hope that eventually the majority will come to their senses and police their own societies.

 

[Nicolette]

Genocide is rarely the answer. Sometimes it has to be, in order to ensure the survival of a nation, but it tends to be over-applied throughout history.

Sorry, i'm done with this conversation. I have no middle ground with people who think that genocide is an acceptable military tactic.

re:sharpe No, but I do know that the only nation to ever actually use nuclear weapons was the US.

re: Celvantes I was discussing the similarity in tactic (disease ridden blankets) not the general moral climate. But i'd challenge you to define the difference between God Glory and Gold, and whatever you think the "ideals of freedom and democracy" are.

 

[smalls]

when i said "my point exactly" i didnt mean it was acceptable and i dont think thats what raes was saying either. i meant what you said just proves you are unwilling or unable to accept the reality of war. although even if it isnt acceptable sometimes it is the only option

 

[Nicolette]

I don't believe genocide is the "reality of war" or "sometimes the only option." I think that the people who think that way are monsters not men. The kind of monsters we go to war to stop.

 

[Raesvelg]

when i said "my point exactly" i didnt mean it was acceptable and i dont think thats what raes was saying either. i meant what you said just proves you are unwilling or unable to accept the reality of war. although even if it isnt acceptable sometimes it is the only option

Even to consider the use of genocide as a tactic requires enormous thought and consideration. It's the sort of thing you pretty much would only even consider applying to someone who was willing to commit genocide upon you, to be honest.

On an amusing (and off-topic note), mass genocide is one potential answer to Fermi's Paradox. Great book called The Killing Star if you can find it in a library or used bookstore, definitely worth reading.

As an imaginary scenario, however, consider the situation of Israel. Surrounded by hostile countries, with a long history of conflict and mutual hatred. Another general war between Israel and their Muslim neighbors could spiral into the sort of situation where, in order to preserve the lives of their populace, the Israeli government authorized the use of nuclear weapons on military and civilian targets.

While the military targets (Counter-Force, in some lexicons) are the preferred target, civilian infrastructure (Counter-Value) has its own rationale. Personally, much like the US government, I vastly prefer a counter-force approach whenever possible. The Soviets, on the other hand, embraced a counter-value policy largely out of necessity. Their nuclear weapons were/are insufficiently accurate to attack most US military installations without striking nearby towns.

Another, more understandable scenario would be the one posed in Lucifer's Hammer. Cometary strike, vast tracts of land are poisoned with salt, winter is going to hit extremely hard for years to come, etc etc. Without enough resources to survive, and ecological damage so catastrophic that human contributions would be almost irrelevant, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for nations that were not heavily damaged to decide that preemptive nuclear strikes upon their soon-to-be-starving neighbors was an acceptable option.

To deny even contemplating genocide is a luxury that the leaders of a country cannot embrace. It may be a tool of last resort, something used only when there are simply no other options, but it is the responsibility of a government to protect its people at any cost.

 

[Nicolette]

To consider using genocide as a tactic doesnt require thought and consideration - it requires madness.

And you're giving Niven as a rationale? The book with the comet strike and cannibal christian army? Hey I have an idea. Why don't we, in the face of a global catastrophe NOT work out plans to wage thermonuclear war on whoever is left.

And since you're into wargames.. The only way to win, is not to play.

 

[Rips]

In the province of Ontario in Canada, grade 10 history is just Canadian History. When WWII unit comes along we talk about the role American's played as well, but we mostly focus on ourselves. We talk about the U.S. when we move onto the the Cold War, but that's about it.

Once your in grade 11 or higher, the only other history class you have a choice to pick is World History.

 

[Grandphoenix]

Canada did something in WW2?

 

[RaidrX]

Canada is actually a country with their own military?

 

[Tristam Green]

Canada? Yeah, we allow them to exist.

I'm just saying.

 

[Raesvelg]

The Canadians kicked a fair amount of butt in WWI and WWII, actually. Say what you will about the modest size of the Canadian armed forces, they generally do a pretty good job.

Pity that their funding has been cut back as far as it has, but that's not surprising when you live next door to the 1000lb gorilla who happens to be exceedingly friendly with you.

 

[Tristam Green]

Pity that their funding has been cut back as far as it has, but that's not surprising when you live next door to the 1000lb Sleeping Dragon who happens to be exceedingly friendly with you.

I didn't say it, Yamamoto did.

 

[Raesvelg]

I didn't say it, Yamamoto did.

Technically it was sleeping giant, iirc, not to mention that the quote is pretty much entirely apocryphal.

Still, the sentiment is basically the same, and definitely something Yamamoto believed.

/nitpick off