The War in Ukraine

[GR66]

Personally I’d have a tough time justifying a hospital as a target. It would need to be used for something offensive to remove its protected status.

And HAMAS certainly IS offensive

 

[GR66]

Bradley 1 - Lancet 0

Bradley armor saves lives amidst Russian Lancet attack

A Russian Lancet loitering munition, better known as a suicide drone, struck a Ukrainian Bradley, but the infantry fighting vehicle's armor saved the crew and prevented significant damage. During the engagement, a Russian Lancet drone targeted a Ukrainian Bradley fighting vehicle. However, the...

defence-blog.com

 

[Kirkhill]

Personally I’d have a tough time justifying a hospital as a target. It would need to be used for something offensive to remove its protected status.

How many hospitals were damaged or destroyed in those cities I mentioned - especially Hiroshima?

 

[KevinB]

How many hospitals were damaged or destroyed in those cities I mentioned - especially Hiroshima?

True, scope and scale of attacks matter, as if your just bombing a hospital it is fairly indefensible (unless again it's being used for purposes that remove it's protections), but if a hospital is destroyed as collateral damage in a much larger attack for military purposes, it's a different animal.

Moral: Go big or go home?

 

[Brad Sallows]

How many hospitals were damaged or destroyed in those cities I mentioned - especially Hiroshima?

You're comparing 1945 to today? Irrelevant.

 

[Kirkhill]

You're comparing 1945 to today? Irrelevant.

Depends on your moral code.

 

[KevinB]

Depends on your moral code.

Potentially that is @Brad Sallows point.

For the majority of the Western world that has changed — partially due to no requirement to dig deep into the animal brain as we really haven’t faced an existential threat.

 

[brihard]

True, scope and scale of attacks matter, as if your just bombing a hospital it is fairly indefensible (unless again it's being used for purposes that remove it's protections), but if a hospital is destroyed as collateral damage in a much larger attack for military purposes, it's a different animal.

Moral: Go big or go home?

I’ve spent some time in a couple hospitals this year… They tend to be fairly large and fairly distinct from neighbouring structures/facilities. I’m going to suggest that if your attack is so large and widespread that a hospital just casually gets smoked as part of collateral damage, odds are your attack is far too disproportionate and indiscriminate to be justified. Shit we could and would do in the 1940s just doesn’t fly today.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

We used to send uniformed armies to battle each other on behalf of their nations.

Now we fight people while they are dressed in mufti.

It is not the fault of an army who dresses like soldiers.

It's the fault of terrorists dressed in civilian clothes, to allow them to hide amongst the population, that are at fault for collateral damage. Building command centres and arms caches below hospitals and storing and firing missiles from schools. It's even worse when it's the duly appointed government (Hamas) doing it, knowing full well of the consequences. They have, in fact, drafted their population into their strategic plan. When that population complies, with that government, instead of turfing that government out, they are knowingly complicit.

 

[WinnipegFella]

We used to send uniformed armies to battle each other on behalf of their nations.

Now we fight people while they are dressed in mufti.

It is not the fault of an army who dresses like soldiers.

It's the fault of terrorists dressed in civilian clothes, to allow them to hide amongst the population, that are at fault for collateral damage. Building command centres and arms caches below hospitals and storing and firing missiles from schools. It's even worse when it's the duly appointed government (Hamas) doing it, knowing full well of the consequences. They have, in fact, drafted their population into their strategic plan. When that population complies, with that government, instead of turfing that government out, they are knowingly complicit.

Respectfully, what does this have to do with the discussion of peer/near-peer conflict that this thread is about? This is about two uniformed armies in conflict. The rules of war apply here. If you bomb so indiscriminately that hospitals which are clearly marked both on maps and from aerial observation are being decimated and result in civilians deaths and suffering, and you knowingly give those orders, frankly you should be dancing at the end of a rope at the end of the war as far as I'm concerned.

This isn't 1940 anymore, we have the tech to not just carpet bomb cities and it's probably more effective in this day and age to use targeted strikes on high value targets. We do not need a repeat of the barbarism of the 20th century. With our modern technology such violence would result in incomprehensible bloodshed.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Bear in mind that carpet bombing was the solution to a particular problem: in simple formulation, to attack built-up concentrations of industry without a reliable precision bomb sight that could be employed without undue risk given the conditions expected over a defended target. We now know more about which particular targets to select (rather than massive acreages of buildings and yards) for maximum effect, and we have the means to strike those targets with a high degree of discrimination.

Terror bombing was just a visceral and unhelpful angry reaction to provocations.

 

[mariomike]

It is why Coventry, Dresden and Hiroshima looked different in 1945 than they do today.

Not to compare 1945 to 2024.

But, since Dresden has become part of the discussion, it reminds me of something I read about the briefing of an RCAF bomber squadron on the night of the raid.

As far as Dresden goes, that was the first time the Station Commander came and gave us a political reason for the raid. It only happened just prior to take-off at the briefing for the Dresden raid.

He explained that the Nazis had convinced the German people that at the end of WW1 their armed forces had remained still on foreign soil and basically undefeated, and that they, the German forces of WW1, had been betrayed by politicians at home. "He then pointed to the cord running across the map to the city of Dresden, and said, 'There are going to be a lot of people in Dresden tonight who are going to find out that war can be a very nasty thing. Never again will any future German government be able to say that the country was fairly well intact but still defeated.' "

"Incidentally, it will show the Russians when they arrive what Bomber Command can do."

Battlefields in the Air: Canadians in Bomber Command page 152.

 

[Skysix]

And drone swarms = WMD, apparently...

Symposium on Military AI and the Law of Armed Conflict: Drone Swarms as Weapons of Mass Destruction​

Conclusion

Drone swarms are the newest weapons of mass destruction. Due to their scalability, they have the potential to meet any threshold in terms of mass destruction. Furthermore, the impossibility of a human operator to effectively control every action of the swarm renders them prone to be indiscriminate and disproportionate.

Thusly, their deployment during any armed conflict, whether international or not, would likely result in the commission of war crimes, and during peacetime their use would meet the threshold of a widespread attack, configurating the commission of crimes against humanity.

Conclusively, the implications of categorizing drone swarms as WMD are not minor. This classification would deter or at least caution States to approach the use of this attack method with the necessary precautions, and highlight the importance of their regulation, or ideally prohibition. In this regard, last October, the UN Secretary General and the International Committee of the Red Cross issued a landmark joint call urging States to launch negotiations of a new legally binding instrument to set clear prohibitions and restrictions on AWS by 2026. The author largely celebrates this visionary effort to protect all of humanity from these technologies, and further proposes that said negotiations aim to include a ban on drone swarms, to prevent the proliferation of yet another WMD.

Symposium on Military AI and the Law of Armed Conflict: Drone Swarms as Weapons of Mass Destruction

[Jimena Sofía Viveros Álvarez serves as the Chief of Staff and Head Legal Advisor to Justice Loretta Ortiz at the Mexican Supreme Court as well as a member of the UN Secretary General’s High-…

opiniojuris.org

Of course there is no influence or agenda from those that will ignore any such declaration anyway, right?

 

[Skysix]

Bradley 1 - Lancet 0

Bradley armor saves lives amidst Russian Lancet attack

A Russian Lancet loitering munition, better known as a suicide drone, struck a Ukrainian Bradley, but the infantry fighting vehicle's armor saved the crew and prevented significant damage. During the engagement, a Russian Lancet drone targeted a Ukrainian Bradley fighting vehicle. However, the...

defence-blog.com

So why aren't we "scrapping" hundreds of them to a contractor in Poland who can update, repair and send on to Ukraine for the actual (delayed) demilitarisation/scrapping?

 

[KevinB]

So why aren't we "scrapping" hundreds of them to a contractor in Poland who can update, repair and send on to Ukraine for the actual (delayed) demilitarisation/scrapping?

We did stop it. From my understanding the plan was canceled and those A2 versions have been now planned for release to Ukraine.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Canada owes the inception of it's armour force to the US "scrapping" 300+ 6 ton tanks.

 

[brihard]

We used to send uniformed armies to battle each other on behalf of their nations.

Now we fight people while they are dressed in mufti.

It is not the fault of an army who dresses like soldiers.

It's the fault of terrorists dressed in civilian clothes, to allow them to hide amongst the population, that are at fault for collateral damage. Building command centres and arms caches below hospitals and storing and firing missiles from schools. It's even worse when it's the duly appointed government (Hamas) doing it, knowing full well of the consequences. They have, in fact, drafted their population into their strategic plan. When that population complies, with that government, instead of turfing that government out, they are knowingly complicit.

What you’re describing something that negates the usually protected status of a hospital or church or what have you. That‘s not what ai was taking about. I was referring to hospitals being destroyed collaterally in the course of flattening (or burning) an entire portion of a city.

If you take out a military command centre buried under a hospital, the hospital isn’t just collateral damage; you’re choosing to hit it because it’s protection is gone and because the military objective is necessary and the means used to strike are proportionate. Versus if you firebomb or caper bomb a city Dresden or London or Tokyo style and you’re taking out medical facilities because you’re taking out everything. The latter is what I argue just couldn’t be defensible anymore

 

[McG]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1785224494182797428

 

[Maxman1]

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_225160.htm

 

[Maxman1]

Latvia announces new military aid package for Ukraine, includes air defense

Latvia has approved the delivery of a new military aid package to Ukraine, Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina announced on April 30.

kyivindependent.com