Comments by "MarcosElMalo2" (@MarcosElMalo2) on "Anders Puck Nielsen"
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We are talking about two things: criminals being tried and criminals being punished. The ICC can try accused criminals in abstentia, but of course it cannot force extradition of convicted criminals to face justice and punishment.
As far as a top level leaders being tried, convicted, and punished for war crimes, this can happen when total victory is achieved, in the sense that a country would be occupied and surrender unconditionally. This also might happen if there is a change in leadership and it is desirable or convenient to the new leadership to give up the old leadership.
But even in the case of a country losing or being forced to cease its war activities, there is no formal mechanism to force a war criminal to face justice. I am thinking of U.S. National Security Advisor Dr. Henry Kissinger in this case, who ordered specific operations in Cambodia that were almost certainly war crimes.
It’s notable that the U.S. did in fact prosecute and convict a low level officer for the My Lai atrocity. Unsurprisingly, the officer’s superiors were never charged despite evidence that they were also culpable. It seems like a symbolic gesture (although I’m sure it wasn’t symbolic to the officer in question, Lt. William Calley.)
The international community was never in a position to force war crimes trials on the U.S. And given that this was during the Cold War and the U.S. was the main supporter of NATO, it wasn’t politically possible.
It is entirely possible that Russia will sacrifice some lower level officers and soldiers in a peace deal, but I think it’s unlikely Putin or any high level Russian leaders will ever be convicted and punished, regardless of moral correctness.
And I’m sorry to say that Putin has a letter-of-the-law defense for the bombing of civilian infrastructure, despite our opinion. It’s probably a moot point anyway.
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@marvinegreen Hey, Marvin. I was just a kid at the time of the Vietnam War. Maybe I was more aware of it than some at the time. I remember that the older brother of my best friend was in high school ROTC, and he was very informed of events, and would tell us about the conflict, including the tactics being used.
His father was Korean War vet, and his grandfather was a code talker in WWII. A couple of the family’s older cousins had served or were serving tours in VN. (Just as an aside, you won’t find Americans more patriotic and more willing to lay their lives on the line than Navajos.) Anyway, the older brother was quite hawkish, up until the time he graduated. I think his family members with war experience had been trying to break through his idealism to tell him the realities of war. And now that it was going to be his turn soon, they finally got through to him. He didn’t become anti-war, but his ardor cooled.
Anyway, he enlisted and went through officer training and was sent to Germany. By that time we were drawing down. It was the period of Vietnamization, Nixon’s policy of turning more and more of the war to the South Vietnamese.
I also remember my father, a liberal and active Democrat. Despite being a Democrat, he always said, “Respect the President”. (This was pre-Watergate). He was a veteran of WWII, and he also said, “Whether you agree with the policies of the government, we support the troops.” To be clear, he was firmly a liberal but he was not a dirty hippy. He was a fierce centrist liberal Democrat. But he gradually became anti-war as the conflict dragged on.
As I grew older and went to college, I studied the Vietnam War more in depth. I try to keep my childhood memories in a separate category from what I later learned, and not let it color my opinion. And here it is. Our leaders didn’t truly understand the nature of the war we were fighting. They thought it was one thing, but really it was another. They understood the nature of the Cold War, but they didn’t understand Vietnam.
Sure, they understood that it was an insurgency, but they didn’t fully understand the nature of that insurgency at a fundamental level. They didn’t understand Vietnam and its history. They didn’t understand that the North Vietnamese communists could be fiercely communist, but with an independent streak a mile wide. The bottom line is that if your policies are based on a false appraisal of the nature of the war your military strategy will not succeed.
With regard to the current conflict in Ukraine, the obvious parallels are obvious. The less obvious parallel is that Russia doesn’t understand the nature of the war they are fighting. They don’t understand who they are fighting. They don’t understand at a fundamental level the nature of Ukrainian resistance, nationalism, and independence.
The Russian leadership really believes its own propaganda and ideology. They don’t get why their domino theory of NATO expansion is flawed. They don’t understand that Ukraine’s primary motivation is its independence and survival as an independent nation. If they did, they would withdraw. Because they don’t, their strategies will always be flawed and insufficient.
Now we come to the thing you don’t understand. Why is “NATO North” more enthusiastically supporting Ukraine than is “NATO South”? Why are they more enthusiastic members of NATO? One reason might be that they have joined NATO more recently. But I think the strongest reason is how much they suffered under the Soviets.
Thanks for reading my overly long spiel.
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@terrysullivan1992 Use of tactical nukes by Russia actually fortifies the Western alliance, whereas Russia wants to weaken the unity of the West, decrease cooperation, and drive wedges between the Western democracies. (I use “West” as an institutional democracy descriptor, not geographical.) Russia doesn’t want to face additional sanctions, nor does it want direct military confrontation with NATO forces, whether in Ukraine or other places of our choosing.
Or at least we hope that Russia wants to avoid these consequences. So let us consider the tactical benefits of using tactical nukes. If used offensively, tactical nukes help with breakthroughs. If used defensively, tactical nukes are good for destroying troop concentrations. Tactical nukes are good against infrastructure targets. But in none of these cases will a tactical nuke deliver a knock out blow.
So let us hope that Russia maintains some operational rationality, no matter how psycho its internal politics get, because there is no rational reason for Russia to use a tactical nuke.
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