Soldiers in combat can kill without moral injury | Hacker News Reader

Soldiers in combat can kill without moral injury

bps.org.uk

37 pointsdomofutu76 comments

> These findings contradict the commonly-held idea that killing is an 'unnatural' act for humans that inevitably inflicts a moral injury on the individual, the researchers write in Armed Forces and Society.

> "There is a widespread belief in society that taking the life of another person goes against human nature, and that this will easily create what psychotraumatology refers to as 'moral injuries'," said Nordstrand in a press release.

I had not thought that that belief was anywhere near as common as this seems to suggest.

prepare for war, western man!

Another common exception is when the collective herd instinct is invoked. When 10-15 folks congregate at a place and unleash their subliminal thought patterns, it becomes much easier to sanction a kill as it's now part of a collective guilt conscious and no one person has to bear any injury, not even a moral one.

The conclusion sounds reasonable and may well be correct. But I’d still be a bit worried about selection effects. The kind of person who signs up for a tour of duty to Afghanistan is probably a bit different than someone who signs up for a UN peacekeeping mission.

So an alternative conclusion / title could be: “Moral injury more common among those with high moral standards”.

There is a whole Wikipedia article about UN peacekeepers committing atrocities. Not sure if claiming that on average they have “higher moral” standards than people who sign up for the Norwegian Army is fair (and they at least occasionally face repercussions for their actions unlike the “peacekeepers”)..

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_abuse_by_UN_peacekeep...

I don’t think people who signed up for the Norwegian army were randomly sent to Afghanistan. It was most likely a voluntary assignment. Thus the strong selection effect.

Overwhelming majority of soldiers (at least non US/UK) deployed to Afghanistan had very few chances to engage in combat. You’d have to be in special forces to get a chance to shot people on a regular basis, and yeah that’s likely a very small and self-selected subset.

I just don’t see the point of equating this with the lack of “higher moral standards” (compared to UN peace keepers at least) I don’t think that many Norwegian (or most other Western/NATO soldiers) were implicated in that many incidents related to rape or looting.

A better title would be "Likelihood of moral injury differs among different combat contexts," though that doesn't serve as quite a catchy title as the original.

The problem with "moral injury more common among those with high moral standards" is that "moral standards" is not what is being observed, rather, the study specifically finds "diverging effects of KIC on veterans from combat-oriented and peacekeeping missions-" making no judgement about personal "moral standards."

Your "high moral standards" bit seems to be an assumption about the difference between peacekeeping forces and combat-oriented forces (which sometimes even overlap) rather than something to do with the actual research article at hand.

This was most definitely not the case with my wife. Before Ukraine, she would never have even considered killing another human being. In the war it was very different. Every dead Russian was one step closer to a safe Ukraine.

Talk about your wife some more?

The emotional churn when watching russians throw their lives away in belligerent assaults in flattened cities, mined fields and the like, is difficult to convey; righteous fury I've never felt in another context.

I have to agree. Evolution seems to have placed human empathy on a spectrum -- some have a lot of it and perform caregiver functions within a community, others have less of it and tend to perform defensive function. While we may not have physically differentiated castes as do ants, it would be unwise to assume that all healthy humans will have the same level of empathy. Layer on top of that, military training designed to further attenuate empathy, and you get a very select group. That said, since that group is basically "soldiers", the claim "Soldiers can kill without moral injury", isn't inaccurate.

> Evolution seems to have placed human empathy on a spectrum

What makes you say the spectrum is caused evolution? I would say, based on what I've seen, it's caused by lifetime experience and parenting/mentoring.

> some have a lot of it and perform caregiver functions within a community, others have less of it and tend to perform defensive function.

Experts consider empathy an essential tool of conflict: it's required to understand the emotions of the enemy, which is necessary to anticipate and understand. Remember that humans evolved without literacy and possibly they wouldn't have understood their enemy's spoken language.

> military training designed to further attenuate empathy

I would guess that it's the opposite, for the reasons above. Also, afaik empathy for others is the same mechanism as empathy for oneself and that is essential for processing emotions, which is essential for handling traumatizing experiences. People with less empathy are much less functional under stress.

They talk tough, though.

Not in my experience.

Did a tour in Afghanistan and Kosovo. Both completely just invasions, IMHO.

Time plays a factor that may not be well controlled for here. As you get older the actions you have taken and the events you have participated in can impact you in new ways.

Yep, fairly common to hear about old veterans who will not discuss what they did in combat, one could guess because they don't want to resurface those memories.

My grandfather was in the Pacific theater during WW2, but only the military knows why he had nightmares.

They won't talk to you about it because you can't understand, and talking to you about it would just make them feel more isolated and alone. Only others like them could understand.

I think there are a lot of different reasons. The thought that other person may not understand could be one, but also that you just don't understand well enough what to say and the mixed emotion of being proud of doing something at a high level with the changing understanding of what actually resulted from those actions.

The risk perhaps not so much moral injury, but that combat and war is almost like a drug. Imagine going back home to a toddler raging about the wrong color cup, a narrow set of civil rules, and flipping burgers after living a life out the back of a pickup truck with nothing but a rifle and your buddies keeping you alive.

Fucking boring.

But I'm no killer, just a guy who spent a few months in a civil war, and met a lot of people who met the Hemingway quote:

  "Those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it never care for anything else thereafter."

Whenever you have these feelings, go watch actual real life combat footage. A great recent one is a knife fight to the death where one soldier admits defeat and asks the first one to leave him to die https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/s/tAUwd2MWqT

Watch that and tell me if you think it's still cool and normal life is boring. I find that it snaps me right back out of "Hollywood war" thinking and makes my stomach turn.

A lot of the guys I met in the YPG had seen way more combat than that and still yearned for it. One of them was retired foreign legion that did this as his retirement. When we were getting shot at one of the older guys would get viscerally excited and joyful, and he had seen many dead.

Junky is a good description of what they were. They wanted another taste. I can't imagine after 5+ years of that life how you would detox from that, not easily I imagine.

See also My War Gone By, I Miss It So - a book about the author’s time as a war correspondent in Bosnia during the Yugoslavian War. After the war, he became addicted to heroin for lack of the excitement that the war brought.

https://septemberpublishing.org/product/my-war-gone-by-i-mis...

I think you have to distinguish between militant groups filled with highly motivated ideological volunteers and state militaries which are often primarily filled with people from poor families who have graduated high school and then don't know what to do with their lives. In war time it's an even uglier picture where you may have armies filled with people who were literally dragged kicking and screaming off the streets and then beat into obedience or death.

there are vets who return from a deployment and can’t adjust to life at home. and they re-deploy many times over. i’m not going to call one cool and one boring, you’ll have to ask those guys what their motivation is

It’s not about it being cool. It’s about it feeling “normal”.

I’m not even sure this is caused by trauma so much as just living a whole other life in a whole other culture with completely different norms, even with combat aside.

Going back into the civilian world is a pretty uneasy experience for a lot of veterans.

It’s kind of a hard feeling to relay to civilians. A very strong culture shock for even many POGs.

I think your advice is better suited to people who glorify war and play too much Call of Duty.

I remember going on leave from right outside Sadr City in 2008ish to a Midwest Walmart a few days later.

A kid there was throwing a tantrum in the isle about his mom not picking the right color toy off the self for him.

It was incredibly jarring for me. At that time events in my life were extremely visceral. If I ate a time or two that day, it was a good day. If I didn't get shot at that day it was a great day. If I didn't get blown up by an IED or RPG, it was an incredible day.

I was eating breakfast one morning and a wild dog had drug the amputated arm from a surgery over from the incinerator that was currently broken, and decided to eat it next to me. The arm still had part of the camouflaged sleeve on it.

The idea of being upset over the color toy your mother was buying you was the most insane thing to me.

Perspective. I guess that Reddit video mentioned above doesn’t seem so graphic after reading your comment.

I try to rationalize it all by knowing that we, especially westerners, largely live in this seemingly safe facade we like to call “our lives”.

But then, behind the curtain, the raw machinations of life happen to keep the facade going.

The facade is nice. It tricks almost everyone into pacification and thus be less of a threat to us.

On the other hand, the machinations behind the curtain keep churning along. We find it horrifying, but it’s just how things really work underneath the veneer.

The facade is kept up by violence, or the threat thereof. You can’t resist following the facade’s rules (eg. laws and in many cases, human norms) without ultimately being the subject of violence, be it from the state or an angry mob.

It’s best to find peace with that.

A lot of men have seen that video and rather than the repulsion that you feel, they wonder _would I have survived?_.

How do you know that? How do you know they don't think both things?

It's certainly not the same revulsion. In the world of men who have not lived their entire lives isolated from danger and conflict in a rules-based society, the Hollywood version of war isn't a consideration. It's no different to Marvel or Harry Potter movies.

It's an open secret many people who experience raw conflict in which actions and not regulations decide outcomes like it. It's the reason why they often go back and it's an age old story.

The GP most likely has led a comfortable life safely ensconced in the bubble of order provided by society and when they are a glimse of the reality of the world, they assume that everyone feels like them that it's a horror to be avoided. It's incomprehensible to them that some see that video and I think I could have done better. Some will have seen that video or others like it and set off for Ukraine to see if they can.

The videos that horrify this cohort are the combat videos where the soldier has no influence over their fate: drones, mines, and artillery.

You're making up a bunch of stuff, from the premise about some specific psychologies, to things about the GP, to assumptions about 'Hollywood' and what is the "reality of the world" (it's well-worn sophistry to depict the other person's version as fantasy and your own as reality), to your conclusions.

There's no basis for it. It looks to me, without basis, like the current attempt to spread the fetishization of voilence and war by the same propaganda leaders have used for eternity.

> It's no different to Marvel or Harry Potter movies.

Indeed.

The GP swung that combat clip like a moral sledgehammer, assuming its rawness would jolt everyone alike. Those who’ve lived such scenes in person rarely feel that shock, so the argument’s force evaporates. You don’t get to pick reality — you only choose whether to look away.

> Those who’ve lived such scenes in person rarely feel that shock

What is that based on?

> You don’t get to pick reality

But there is the major question of, 'what is reality'. Again you try the sophistry of assuming your claim is reality and others are fantasy. That's a fantasy in your head.

> What is that based on?

Personal experience, but desensitisation and psychological callousing are completely uncontroversial.

> But there is the major question of, 'what is reality'. Again you try the sophistry of assuming your claim is reality and others are fantasy. That's a fantasy in your head.

I guess you don't see the irony in your comment.

> Personal experience

That is certainly not a basis for drawing conclusions about humanity. Also (maybe think to yourself - not really appropriate for HN, and much too personal to ask for a response): have you actually experienced killing someone or nearly being killed, or are you speculating on your response based on your response to online videos?

> Watch that and tell me if you think it's still cool and normal life is boring.

I didn't get the feeling that OP was saying it's cool. Rather, that it's intense, and that the intensity itself is addicting.

I was on jury duty for a murder case last year, and it was like living in a different reality. The weight of the responsibility bore down on me hard, it felt like the stakes of what I was doing were higher than anything else in my life. It took me a while afterwards to fully come back down to earth. OP is basically saying that war feels somewhat like that - you come back home and the stakes feel trivial.

That can be applied to people who never went to real war and base their views on Hollywood films.

However the "combat addiction" among people who did go to war is still very real. There are countless stories of people who knowingly chose to go back.

I think it's important to recognize that the idea "if only people knew how awful the war is, no one would go there" doesn't really work.

William George Murray came home from WWI, during that time

  In a letter to his parents, Murray described his participation in the battles at Gallipoli during August 1915.

  Murray wrote about how the advancing Turks were mowed down with machine gun and artillery fire and how it was "great fun and very exciting."

He took up work in the Northern Territory of Australia in stock policing role:

  In April 1919, Murray joined the Northern Territory Police as a constable and was posted to the very remote Ranken River police station on the Barkly Tableland.

Now, mixed race station workers, some white, some aboriginal, camped togther and in a dispute over a woman, an aboriginal man killed a white man over a rape. The rape violated both white and native law, as did the killing in revenge.

There was a single known perpetrator and ways and means to bring them to justice under either of two bodies of law with the cooperation of both groups of people.

Murray got involved ..

  Officially, 31 men, women and children were killed during this police operation, although analysis of the existing documentation and surviving Aboriginal testimonies indicate that somewhere between 100 and 200 people were shot dead.

Coniston massacre (1928): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coniston_massacre

Such was the excess of a shell shocked man with a badge allowed free reign over civilians.

I don't know, man. I am the kind of person who can't help but think "this 1.5-tons metal cage just moved 20 meters while I was blinking" while driving my car on a highway. Needless to say, I don't enjoy driving.

On that truck I would be thinking "we are exposed, an enemy can shoot at us from that cliff" 90% of the time.

To me "fun" is "not having to think those things".

I don't think it's the time. Morality only exists in people who has it. Some already do, some are growing, some never will.

Funny thing is, the individuals who never had morality maybe more mentally healthy than the others, since the consequences of their action never entered their brain. Gankers are happier than the ganked, I guess.

Maybe that's why the armies around the world loves to hire dumb people into their ranks, never think, never thought, and thus ruthless and don't cost much.

I would be surprised if there were any universal sense of moral injury. If the child grows up with warrior morals, they will not worry about opponent's death.

Desperate 18 y.os needing that cosy salary is enough of an incentive. No need for romanticization like warrior morals or something. War is industrialized enough.

> If the child grows up with warrior morals, they will not worry about opponent's death.

What are 'warrior morals' and what is the basis of your claim? It sounds like science fiction or fantasy.

There's a major bias in this study. Many of the people most negatively affected by combat have exactly 0 interest in discussing it, even with those close to them or other veterans. This study observed this bias but seems to have made no effort to go beyond acknowledging it:

---

Combat Study: ... non-responders had more long-term sick leave and social benefits than the survey responders (p < .001). Accordingly, there was a response bias in terms of study participants being in better health and having less need of government assistance than the non-responders. Moreover, there were significant differences in biological sex and age between responders and non-responders (p < .001) such that women and older veterans had higher response rates.

---

Noncombat Study: The responders were significantly older and had significantly lower frequencies of short- and long-term sick leaves, long-term welfare benefits, and sick leave due to mental illness (p < .001). Thus, similar to the trend in the combat-oriented sample, these results show a response bias in terms of responders being in better health and having less need of government assistance than the non-responders.

---

It dismissed the need to consider these biases with: "Although the non-responder analysis revealed some response bias, the overall response rate was high in both studies, and the effect size estimates associated with the observed response bias were small." But that seems questionable. The response rate was less than 60% in both studies, and giving an effect size estimate on an unmeasured and "significantly" demographically different population seems to be a textbook example of begging the question.

One of the greatest achievements of free speech laws is that in Germany one can write the truth "soldiers are murderers" on T-shirts

Wouldn't another possible explanation of these results be that trying to kill someone, or participating in actions with the goal of killing other people causes the same "moral wound" as actually killing someone?

Or seeing people killed.

"commonly-held idea that killing is an 'unnatural' act for humans"

Say what? It may be one of the most natural acts for humans as far as history shows

It’s a natural act for pretty much all animals on this planet

What is an unnatural act?

Doomscrolling

Perhaps you mean only for predators?

A horse or squirrel will kill and eat a bird if hungry and given a chance.

Sounds pretty violent to me.

Why do you mention violence?

I've never seen or heard of what you describe. Horses are herbivores; can they digest meat? Can they chew it? Squirrels reputedly eat nuts.

You have the whole internet in front of you, find some links.

If you're still having trouble in 3 minutes, come back and I will provide some. There are tons.

I don't think killing is a natural act. Most people throughout history died from disease, not war.

In the past, if you killed someone, like in a battle, there is a good chance you're going to die in the next battle of the military campaign. Few soldiers survived the military campaigns of the past. Maybe that's why we don't hear much about PTSD among past soldiers.

Huh? Rome had career soldiers. Don't quote me on the numbers, but a Roman soldier might see 2-5 major battles and dozens of dustups and minor skirmishes. They served for 25 years. Overall death rate was 25-40% but most of that was due to disease or accidents - due to spending 25 years walking around in the woods - not combat. And European medieval wars were fought by part-time soldiers whose main job was making money for their lord. If "few" people survived ancient military campaigns, why would medieval lords fight wars at all? Surely fighting a war isn't worthwhile if at the end of it you have merely a "few" employees left.

> natural act

Most actions do or don't suit circumstances, rather than this being something inherent.

I might take lots of pictures outside at a festival or go pee inside a bathroom, but probably not the reverse.

(See also, the fundamental attribution error.)

Repetition doesn't make it natural. As I said elsewhere, famine also is common but not eating is not natural.

The kind of soldier matters I think. For example Russia has been specifically recruiting prisoners convicted of very violent crimes.

That's why the usual strategy is to dehumanized your enemy by calling them some animal names. The Nazis called them rats, the Hutis in Ruanda called them cockroaches, the Russians and Ukrainians both use the same tactics

> if combat soldiers are, as a rule, psychologically unharmed by killing an enemy, does this increase the risk that they may be willing to kill captives or civilians who they have come to class as 'the enemy'?

It's obviously the opposite: the more traumatized one is, the more likely he is to commit a war crime.

Who the f funds this research?

> "Original data collection for both studies was funded by the Norwegian Department of Defense; however, data extractions were archival and, hence, not funded."

Usually governments, because they want to understand the mental health of their soldiers.

> commonly-held idea that killing is an 'unnatural' act for humans

People killing people is one of the better-documented aspects of human history. If it's really a commonly-held idea, it's a delusional one. I think what they mean is 'unethical' rather than 'unnatural'.

For individuals killing is incredibly rare. Most people will never take a life, and even historically haven't. It also of course doesn't follow that merely because killing happens it doesn't cause moral injury, it's obviously possible for an event to be both common and traumatic.

It is generally accepted that most people will resist to kill and moral injury is very well documented for example in police who have to use deadly force so the result here is actually surprising. Afghanistan might also be an unusual case by historical standards, because close combat was very rare and the fighting much more impersonal.

I agree with your points, and how I interpret "natural" has nothing to do with how often an individual does something. Many humans drive their cars every day. Does this make it a natural thing to do? I can see a definition of the word that makes it so. Still, the way I see it is that driving a car is something very unnatural to do, even if many people do it every day, but killing humans is something very natural, although most humans will never do it.

Most people will absolutely kill another human if the circumstances call for it. It's in our nature to do so.

> Most people will absolutely kill another human if the circumstances call for it. It's in our nature to do so.

What do you base that on?

In one study of WWII soldiers on D-Day, half didn't shoot their weapons because they didn't want to kill someone (my memory of the study is vague). The military had to develop training to make soldiers more likely to kill.

Yet somehow ~70 million died during WWII, curious.

> People killing people is one of the better-documented aspects of human history. If it's really a commonly-held idea, it's a delusional one.

Lots of things are well documented. Famine is too, but it has a big negative impact.

Humans are social creatures that live exclusively in groups; they cannot survive alone psychologically or, usually, physically. Groups are effective when they are at peace; evolutionary psychology, at least, supports not killing each other.

A universal aspect of every human culture is a taboo against killing.

> A universal aspect of every human culture is a taboo against killing.

Exactly! It's taboo. It's morally wrong. It's unethical. But does it make it unnatural? It's taboo to talk about sex and what you do on the toilet, two of the most natural and human things there are.

You’re conflating social taboos with societal taboos.

Isn't each discussed taboo both societal and social (even if murder is much more serious)?

It's kinda crazy how the researchers suggest that we should use this research to make soldiers feel more comfortable with killing when I would characterize nearly every current use of force by western forces as aggression, or in the best case, sneaky bullshit.

A life is a life is a life is a life.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com