The author glosses over my biggest question "Who might you have to fight?" with a informative "Queen’s enemies."
Might his squadron be called in to quash civil disturbance? Sent to the next Iraq? Is it reserved for defending the UK from invasion?
Might his squadron be called in to quash civil disturbance? Sent to the next Iraq? Is it reserved for defending the UK from invasion?
To some extent your question is in the same category as the above. It decontextualizes the situation entirely. He lives in a democracy. He obviously believes that society is less worse than some visible alternatives. He therefore believes he can fight on its behalf based on what the democratic leadership determine. It's obviously possible for him to morally re-evaluate that at a later point: it might even cost him his life to do so. But his actions are morally considered whereas I think the question is morally thoughtless.
In the US, for example, part time opportunities are either in the reserves or the national guard, with the former having a foreign focus and the latter having a domestic focus. Plenty of guardsmen ended up doing tours in Iraq, but more recently, guardsmen helped staff overwhelmed medical facilities during the height of the pandemic.
The thoughtless comments basically express the idea that no one should be in any military, whereas thoughtful questions acknowledge that not everyone has the same red lines.
But it doesn't really matter what my intention with the comment was, clearly I touched a nerve and most folks are replying on the ethics of the issue. That probably means that it is actually an interesting topic of discussion.
This is, at best, a naive portrayal of how London and Washington start wars.
See the infamous Downing Street Memo [1].
In Washington, which often leads the rest of the West in military adventurism, Congress hasn't approved a military operation since 2002, despite a US-led coalition destroying sovereign Libya in 2011 and occupying Northern Syria since 2015.
Indeed, the 2002 AUMF authorized by Congress for the Iraq War is still in effect 20 years later [2], and used by the executive branch to dictate any military operation, bypassing Congressional approval.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downing_Street_memo
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Milit...
There must be some serious cognitive dissonance going on in those people who give Congress and the President abysmally low ratings and yet believe in democracy so much that they'd join the military and then trust their elected leaders (who they have such awful opinions of) to "do the right thing" when deciding who to wage war on.
People with blind faith in leaders because democracy are not demonstrating critical thinking.
In actually-existing 21st-century "democracies", the people do not choose who gets bombed. Those choices are made by unelected officials in the MIC and rationalized by think tanks and communications firms funded by the same MIC.
> Implying that people who do believe in the system are stupid or "lesser," is perhaps something you should consider not doing.
Strawmanning isn't cool.
First you say it was "used by the executive branch to dictate any military operation"... ie the executive branch are the ones calling the shots. Now all of a sudden it's "unelected officials in the MIC" who are choosing who gets bombed. So which is it? The author clearly believes elected officials are in charge and he trusts them. Emphasis here on "believes".
I'm not here to make a judgement on whether the article author's *beliefs* are correct or based in reality as defined by you. It's pretty straightforward to see how the author came to his conclusions (described in parent replies in this thread), when you begin with his starting assumptions. Clearly you disagree with those (e.g. whether democracy exists and whether it's worth signing up/fighting/dying for), but that's a real boring conversation.
Also, fail to see how it's "strawmanning" when I'm pointing out your name-calling the author "naive," and how it's not great.
I would disagree with this. Agreeing to fight an as-of-yet undefined enemy is abdicating any moral decisions based on who the enemy is, or how the war is fought. It is delegating personal moral decisions to the masses.
> He therefore believes he can fight on its behalf based on what the democratic leadership determine.
This is basically exactly my point. The soldier doesn't get to decide that it's immoral to carpet bomb El Salvador; they've already agreed to kill whoever their leadership tells them to.
I find it unpalatable under my personal morals, because I believe there is no act with more gravitas than intentionally killing another human. No amount of societal cohesion or democracy can absolve a person of their personal responsibility for that death.
The basis of the question is "How can you morally justify outsourcing your decision of whether it justifiable to kill a person or not?", because many of us simply can't imagine that. Democracies have done a lot of morally unbearable things, from slavery to the rise of Hitler, so they're clearly not infallible.
This is basically just the Nuremburg defense with a veneer of democracy.
People always have a choice. They can refuse.
We’ve had several recent examples of absolutely tragic uses of our military might. Voluntarily putting oneself in a situation where you have to “kill babies” or face serious consequences is itself immoral.
The royalty is still very much in charge in the UK, actively using their constitutionally protected veto power over new laws.
It's only in the vaguest sense a democracy.
Edit: At least read the article. There's documentation that all new law including simple amendments gets passed by the royal family before being voted on, and the royal family asks for major changes of both removals and additions to these laws. Having a monarch who has to sign off on all law and actively participates in the writing of that law is not a democracy, full stop. As a british subject, you are only allowed the laws that the queen thinks you should have, demonstrably, by the uk government's own documentation on the matter.
Absolutely. Especially since they did so to finally wipe out the scourge that were the Neanderthals.
Sorry. I couldn't resist.
I presume you meant 2,500 years rather than 25,000, yes?
Yes, yes, and no. His own explanation mentions Peterloo! He joined the full time army during the Iraq war (although doesn't mention being deployed). This is evidently not something he's curious about.
Ukraine has certainly highlighted the need for a defensive force. It's also made the question of whether all the fighting of the past 20 years has made the world safer or more dangerous - you could argue that Iraq re-established the precedent for aggressive war, and the fallout has made most of the muslim world less safe. Including Russia's war in Syria. Which they used as training for invading Ukraine.
Seems to me that's the big downside to joining the TA - you're putting your life and honour in the hands of professional politicians.
(However, it also says 'many' reservists were deployed as 'individuals' rather than units - presumably meaning they were deployed by choice?)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Reserve_(United_Kingdom)#...
Does he get to choose whether he fights or not? Does he get reasonably and transparently informed about the issues leading to him being deployed?
Having to fight or kill is not something one should consider lightly. It's a responsibility that very few should have to bear and hopefully you should be as informed as possible about why you're doing it when making the decision to bear that responsibility.
— Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes, Minister, March 1980.
If one wants to pick and choose "right" conflicts, one shouldn't serve.
And ultimately... while I know HN has a pretty anti-authority bend... if you don't trust your government to deploy military power, what do you trust them for?
Which isn't saying that uses of military power in reality are always right or justified, but is saying that effectively every other government power rests on top of its having the authority to use force to enforce compliance. And a military is a major component of that.
I don't trust the government to use force responsibly, especially on people who are not part of a social contract with it. The government's authority comes from the consent of the governed, not by force
What happens when roads are destroyed or barricaded for tolls, taxes aren't paid, or healthcare and education are withheld from anyone who isn't a white man? (to offer a few hypotheticals)
Also, by current legal standards, soldiers are supposed to refuse orders if those lead to genocide and such. It is so after Nuremberg after WWII.
I am very fine with the rare Russian soldier refusing to fight Ukraine. The one following orders when "filtering" or killing civilians should be prosecuted.
My point that the very existence of laws (any laws!) is predicated on access to force.
Without force, you can only have those rules to which everyone voluntarily agrees, and continues doing so.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Rock_Nine#National_Gu...
I would point out that segregation itself was hold by forces. The particular unit went there, because local ones were onthe other side.
> if you don't trust your government to deploy military power, what do you trust them for?
Do you have to trust them for anything? It's not like it's a viable option to decide that you don't want to designate any government as "yours". Good luck surviving in no man's land if you do. What makes government "theirs" for lots of people is just the threat of organized violence or exclusion.
It didn't work for those convicted in the Nuremberg trials because the Nazis lost. Had the Third Reich persisted with a truce, do you really think they would have been charged, convicted, and sentenced?
Legal liability gets pretty hazy when applying it in a non-sovereign arenas (i.e. international matters). Yes, there are treaties [0], but what are treaties without enforcement?
> Do you have to trust them for anything?
People are welcome to move to areas where government interaction is less or non-existent. They generally choose not to. Largely, because the economies in places like that suck, because it's hard to employ capital in an anarchist, solely-"might makes right" environment.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_war#International_tr...
Pre Nuremberg expectations on soldiers were blind obedience nazi or not. Nuremberg set the expectation on soldiers from then on. WWII changed that.
It could not happen due to their own ideology. It did not allowed for lasting compromise which everyone else knew. Third Reich would not prosecuted those people, because by their ethical standards they were doing right thing.
Then again, Pablo Escobar believed he is cool guy by own standards too.
Bullshit. Who was prosecuted for the firebombing of Dresden or Tokyo?
How many of the German rocketry experts scooped up during Paperclip were convicted?
How many US military members have been delivered to the ICJ?
Neither of these is comparable for what Germans did and you know it.
> How many US military members have been delivered to the ICJ?
US did not signed membership.
A couple tens of thousands of dead civilians seems pretty serious to me.
By your metric, how many dead civilians are sufficient to warrant prosecution?
> US did not signed membership.
The US did sign membership, and then withdrew in 1986 because it didn't want to be bound by rulings.
I also conjecture that once you turn a non-governed area into an El Dorado, "might makes right" will push it right back into a government. I don't feel a regular person has any choice if they want to thrive but to surrender themselves to some government regardless of trust.
* Nuremberg and "just following orders" was about actual orders to specific individuals to do things that were literal war crimes, and those individuals carrying those orders out. One country designating another country an enemy is not, in fact, a war crime.
>> Do you have to trust them for anything?
I mean, yes? Even when you live in a libertarian fantasy land it turns out you need to have some level of trust in a government. You trust the road you're driving on won't collapse and that the folks at fire department know which end of the hose the water comes out of. You trust that because you trust that the gov that pays for that made the right choices. You can pretend you can have a society without relying on an organized collective of people who live in that society but I cannot logically see how that would work.
But an illegal war of aggression is a crime against humanity, right?
However, all the soldiers fighting in such an illegal war of aggression are not considered responsible for that crime. For "simply" fighting a war and killing uniformed enemy soldiers "I was just following orders" actually is a legitimate excuse, and should not result in any convictions (of e.g. murder) unless they commit some explicit war crimes, e.g. murdering captured civilians.
But, that is not how those wars happen. Like, literally none of those wars was limited to killing uniformed enemy soldiers. That might be Hollywood idea of war. But pretty much all of real ones involved units killing/torturing locals. Sometimes more and as a strategy, other times less so. But it happens literally every time. It is not that all armies are the same, they are not. Some are much much better then others.
But, in general, worldwide, "simply" fighting a war and killing uniformed enemy soldiers is not what war is.
Building roads, schools, and fire stations are pretty high on the list.
Anyway if they won't say it I will: signing up to fight without knowing who or why you'll be fighting is morally compromised at the extreme very best.
Modern economic powers like the UK do not use their militaries for self-defense. Someone able to write with his sophistication about the military knows what they use them for. In serving, and even in writing this piece of pro-military propaganda, he's supporting imperial violence.
Modern economic powers have militaries and alliances that make attacking them unattractive. They have sufficient teeth to dissuade conflict.
If you are fortunate enough to live in a Western democracy your safety and security is preserved by the actions of those who you call morally compromised.
I'm asserting that by far the most likely use of a wealthy nation's military is going to be a bad one. Encouraging people to join the military in that context is bad.
People have an incredibly wide range of reasons for joining or supporting militaries, and I would absolutely not universally condemn all of them. Just this one.
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That aside, just because I benefit from something doesn't make it ok. What kind of first grader ethics is that?
Just that everyone who signs up for the military of a developed nation is morally compromised at the extreme very best. Can you square that statement with believing in the moral existence of a military for a developed nation?
> By far the most likely use of a wealthy nation's military is going to be a bad one
And yet, as I said, developed nations require a military for defence. The world is not a nice place, as Russia is current proving, and modern conflicts cannot be fought successfully with poor quality untrained troops recruited on the fly for a particular conflict, where those signing up know what they are going to be doing in advance. Developed nations therefore need a well trained standing army. In signing up for this army, people put their lives on the line, and in doing so protect you, me and others from harm. I do not consider doing this for that ideal morally compromised.
You are right that nations have engaged in wars of aggression that should not have been fought. Living in such a nation I bear some of the responsibility for those wars, as do the soldiers who fought in those wars, but much less than the politicians and dictators who declared them for their own or their nations strategic gain in the first place.
Unfortunately nice binary moral choices are few and far between.
> That aside, just because I benefit from something doesn't make it ok. What kind of first grader ethics is that?
My point was not to suggest that because you benefit from something that makes it ok, as you well know.
Seriously, how do people miss this. The US Military is currently advising the Ukrainian armed forces while Germany has their thumb up their ass spending billions on Russian hydrocarbons. Unfortunately conscientious objection only works in the world we all wished we lived in. Somebody has to hold the guns and spend the money on this shit.
~ Lawrence La Croix, a squad leader in Charlie Company in Mỹ Lai
My point isn't to defend the actions of war criminals, but instead point out that relying on foot soldiers to become conscientious objectors at the spur of the moment against the structural pressures against that is well documented to not be a great strategy for reducing war crimes.
Nor is excusing all those as a result of them all being scared of forced to do them. A lot of those are committed, because soldiers on the ground in fact want to commit them. Sometimes you have no choice and would be shot otherwise. And many times you do have choice and can choose to not rape or not kill that civilian. That is something that former soldiers report on too - if you read their accounts.
> but if I do, the US has pledged to literally invade countries that try to investigate us war crimes, and don't have a great track record of internally policing war crimes" is pretty clear.
For all US faults, US actually has better track record that ISIS or Russia or China. They are not bunch of angels, plenty of sociopaths all around.
But specifically in US army, you are unlikely to die or be tortured of you don't commit war crime.
The whole idea of fighting for your life is completely alien to me. But then again i guess the people in Ukraine weren't expecting to be invaded for the longest time either.
Humans are animals.
I come from a military town so my view may be different to some but I believe you need to be able to fight when you are threatened and to do that you need to be prepared. It's very hard to be prepared if you don't have a military and competent, motivated and well trained people to fight in it.
I can't believe people still fight for royalty. Ants fight their queen's enemies. Free human being should fight for themselves, their families, etc.
What is means in practice is they fight for their country and its allies, just like any other military. While technically the Queen's representative in Australia (the Governor-General) is the chief of Australias armed forces (as defined in the constitution) this has never been used in practice (and would probably be ignored at this point).
I'm sorry it offends you but nobody in Australia is overly motivated to change something that has no practical impact and given you don't seem to be from a Commonwealth country I don't think you are entitled to complain about it either.
It's why some people freak out when someone "disrespects" their flag, why judges wear special clothes and why courthouses/government buildings are so frequently built to look impressive.
Such symbols perpetuate attitudes of deference and subservience to what the symbols represent... not for everyone, but they are effective on a lot of people, which is why they're still being used.
Or, Australians, Canadians, British etc _explaining_ the nuance to you, because they understand it?
0. https://history.army.mil/html/faq/oaths.html
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_the_United_Kingdom