Finnan Westcott

English 110

Professor Metenko

October 13th, 2021

Rules and Troubles of War

War, it is the act of engaging in armed conflict. It takes place between two or more adversaries, they can be countries or factions within a country. The purpose of war is murder, on the largest scale possible until one side submits to its opponent. War has been a constant in human history. Often brutal and traumatizing for those who fight or are forced to fight. War changes everyone and everything it touches. Rules have been introduced, agreed upon by the countries of the world, to make the qualities of war more fair and less cruel. Despite these efforts nothing can be done to alter the fundamental goal of combat, victory through death.

Where do wars come from, why do they start? History is a series of events that can all be traced back to one origin. In fact every war doesn’t just begin, it is the result of all the previous wars ever waged. A waning Ottoman empire loses its hold over the Balkan States in Eastern Europe. The countries within the Balkans are in national limbo, being pulled this way and that by European, Middle Eastern, and even Asian influences. Richard C. Hall explains in his book Consumed by War: European Conflict in the 20th Century events in Bosnia that lead to one of the deadliest wars in human history. In 1908 a reform group called the Committee for Union and Progress (commonly the Young Turks) seized power in Constantinople with the intent to modernize the Ottoman Empire for the purpose of reinstating their independence. Austro-Hungary the territory since 1878 and saw this as a threat to their influence. Austro-Hungary, after discussing with their ally Russia, annexed Bosnia (Hall 8-9). This precipitated a very significant event in the history of the Balkans, Europe and the entire world. In 1914 it was announced that the Archduke of Austro-Hungary, Franz Ferdinand would pay a visit to Sarajevo, the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina. One man, a native of Bosnian, would take action against what he saw as his colonial rulers. When the Archduke and his wife were on a public drive through the city, Gavrilo Princip assassinated both in an act of rebellion. The fallout of the event sent through Europe and a series of cataclysmic events that gave some countries an excuse to take up arms against each other in the interest of taking over the continent. The action of but one man from what was considered to be an inconsequential territory by many world powers, caused a war the likes of which the world had never seen.

With the advent of the Geneva Conventions, there seems to be a line we cannot cross anymore in times of war. Soldiers, when the time is appropriate, are to be taken as prisoners, their lives spared in the interest of humanitarianism. “Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention. In particular, no prisoner of war may be subjected to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the prisoner concerned and carried out in his interest.” (The Geneva Conventions of 1949, 87). The convention generally denotes a ‘Prisoner of War’ as a member of an opposing force that is detained by the enemy Power (Geneva Conventions of 1949, 82-83). Often though, these rules will be shirked by a force and ‘prisoners of war’ will be tortured or even killed by their captors, sometimes after the victim of such treatment is given trial for alleged crimes, sometimes after not being granted a trial. In the first case, prisoners may be tried for crimes committed in the war, in the second case, an army may be so cruel as to grant its prisoner no rights. When prisoners were to be killed in direct disobedience to the Geneva Conventions, they often met their end at the hands of firing squads. They would be bound, blind folded, and shot by a group of men to insure death. It turned out to be cruel to everyone involved in the act. Members of the firing squads became overwhelmed with guilt and shame for committing murder in such a way. An interesting fact was found in soldiers. While engaging in combat, not wanting to kill, even in the face of the enemy and gunfire, a soldier might intentionally aim his gun too high to hit enemy soldiers. In fact, a study found that only up to twenty percent of American soldiers fired their weapons in the Korean War and even less shot to kill. Soldiers would do this because most people cannot come to kill another human. So when faced with the task of firing upon a helpless person point blank, the burden became too great. A method was employed by the facilitators of these firing squads, to fill one or more of the guns with blanks. A blank is a round that can be fired by a gun that mimics gunfire but without firing anything. The soldiers forced into firing squads wouldn’t be told what gun was filled with blanks so that after the act all of those involved could convince themselves that they were not responsible for murdering someone.

Once, wars were fought with sticks and stones but as human ingenuity advanced, it was applied to fighting. Muskets were replaced with automatic weapons that could fire rounds at a time and didn’t take minutes to reload but seconds. Germany employed gases to disable and kill groups of tens or hundreds of enemy soldiers in the first World War. A mind-boggling tactic was used by the Japanese Empire in World War II. Translated to English the name means Divine Wind, the Japanese word for it is Kamikaze. Allied forces couldn’t understand a pilot intentionally sacrificing their life in the hopes of killing more of the enemy. It was a method of combat that confounds military thinkers and historians to this day. Another technology introduced to battle: explosives, used to dismember and blow up your enemy and they grew larger and larger until one day a major step was taken. In the same war that saw Japanese pilots exploited to the point of sacrifice, a key to physics was found. The United States government assembled some of the greatest minds of the day to figure out a problem. The problem was how can man split the atom? Richard Feynman, a physicist who contributed to the invention of the first atomic bombs put the scientific discovery like this in his book The Meaning of it All, “to every man is given the key to the gates of heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell,” (Feynman 54). On the one hand, harnessing the power of physics to such a degree could create clean energy for millions and avoid pollution. On the other, the unlocking of atomic power could become a force of utter destruction, waste, and death. In a last ditch effort to save their cause, Japan sent pilots on missions which they wouldn’t return from, and that was the point. The United States, with the upperhand already in the Pacific in World War II, wanted to test its new weapon on an adversary and in doing so on Japan in particular, end the war with one enormous, devastating, and final blow.

Pitting man against man has been the way of war for thousands of years but we have seen a paradigm shift in the way we wage it. Described in an opinion piece published in MIT Technology Review, In 2001 the first drone strike was executed by the United States and its allied forces on Kandahar, Afghanistan. The city was then the Taliban’s capital and the aim was to kill the supreme leader of the regime, Mullah Muhammad Omar (Feroz, 2021). Omar avoided the attack and went on to lead the Taliban for several years. The United States, unsuccessful, went on to continue its use of remotely piloted drones for years to come. The advent of manless fighting, at least on one side, brings about many questions about the nature of war. If man, of flesh and blood, is not needed to fight a war and to risk his or her life in the course of battle, what is the ultimate goal of war and should it have ever been fought to the death? The introduction of non-human soldiers makes the idea of ever killing for the purpose of war arbitrary and almost absurd. Why not decide issues between countries by a boxing match or a game of chess?

War is extremely complicated. Arms are taken up for a multitude of social, economic, and political reasons that collide to create a unique motive that would only make sense in the context of the time period. But when all of that is worked out by the people who are powerful enough to decide to come to blows, war becomes a dynamic duo, like a flint and a steel. War becomes man and technology. Whichever side has the better of the two will prevail. Brighter thinkers, strategic and ingenuitive, will outsmart the foe. Morbidly though, the superior factor may be the man power behind a side. The side which can say, “we have more men and women to kill your men and women,” or “our superior numbers that we can dispose of will overwhelm you,” will win. Victory in war goes to the last murderer.

Bibliography

Hall, Richard. Consumed by War: European Conflict in the 20th Century. 1st ed., The University Press of Kentucky, 2009.

Greenspan, Jesse. “The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.” HISTORY, 12 Feb. 2020, www.history.com/news/the-assassination-of-archduke-franz-ferdinand.

The World Community. THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS I-IV and PROTOCOLS I-III. Nmgb#025-D, New Media Garage (R), 2013.

National Geographic Society. “Oct 25, 1944 CE: First Kamikaze Strikes.” National Geographic Society, 15 Sept. 2014, www.nationalgeographic.org/thisday/oct25/first-kamikaze-strikes.

Feynman, By Richard. The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist (Paperback) – Common. BASIC BOOKS, 2021.

Feroz, Emran. “After 20 Years of Drone Strikes, It’s Time to Admit They’ve Failed.” MIT Technology Review, 7 Oct. 2021, www.technologyreview.com/2021/10/07/1036456/opinion-afghanistan-drone-strike-warf are-failed.