Afaik, soldiers don't get to choose. The queens enemies is pretty much good description, because his guess is as good as yours.
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.
> 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.
* 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.
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.
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.
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.
---
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.