...When the British people heard of Dresden, they were up in arms. They were furious. They were at war with Germany but that did not mean they had lost their feeling of humanity for other civilians and quite rightly so. Because of this WC withdrew and pretended it had little to do with him and those who were involved incurred no honours.
If it were something which came from the people - that is the people supporting the army to degrade it's humanity with regard to it's duty of care for civilians and proportionality then that would be something which on the level of humanity we would all need to take a pause and view very soberly.
If we lose our humanity it does not matter who we are ruled by. We simply have no humanity.
Alexa,
A number of thoughts:
1. The British people were rightly furious. IMO, the firebombing of Dresden was not necessary. The industrial facilities were located outside the city. The relentless assault served no strategic military purpose. Nevertheless, what happened provides an illustration of how things can evolve when a conflict becomes one of total war. The Allies, and by no means the UK only, saw their effort spiral into a situation where they sought total destruction of the enemy (too broadly defined).
2. There is a real need to uphold the Laws of War e.g. those that bar indiscriminate bombardment, deliberate targeting of civilians, attacks on military objectives when the expected harm to civilians is excessive relative to the military advantage expected to be gained, etc.
3. Application of those laws has become more difficult in an era of asymmetric warfare. Military planners face an unenviable task. In the past, if military forces acted honorably, they would be readily distinguishable from civilians. Today, non-state actors (terrorist organizations) and some states use civilians as human shields, so to speak. They do not wear uniforms. They make no effort to distinguish themselves from civilians. They live and hide among civilians, hoping to be immune from attack. That reality creates grave problems for military planners. Even as weapons sytems have grown far more precise, that precision has been negated in many cases by the new tactics that are deployed in numerous conflicts. In the future, weapons systems improvements and new combat techniques might be able to offset some of the problems associated with today's tactics. But, as always, there will remain risks of error, accident, etc. All military forces retain the obligation to make the best effort possible to deal with these realities. But even then, one cannot expect perfection. So long as they make a good faith effort to abide by the Laws of War--particularly in protecting civilians and refraining from the commission of war crimes--they will retain their humanity.
4. Barring a dramatic change in human nature, there will also be some actors who ignore the Laws of War, prefer victory (on their terms) to peace, devalue human life, etc. To the greatest extent possible, other countries should ignore the temptation to resort to similar tactics when engaged in conflict with such actors.
5. I prefer diplomacy to war. Nonetheless, there will always be some states (or non-state actors) that put ideology ahead of compromise, leading to a fundamental clash of interests at a level where war is the only resort. I do believe that diplomacy can probably go farther than it often does if power is brought to bear early on--not in warfare, but in persuading an adversary that a state (or combination of states) possesses the power and willingness to use that power to defend its critical interests. Then, if deterrence is achieved, the costs associated with conflict would be perceived as unacceptable relative to what opportunities might exist. With such a calculation by a would-be aggressor, negotiation would have a better chance to become the preferred method of conflict resolution and trade-offs necessary to reach agreement would look relatively more attractive.
Needless to say, there will always be some revolutionary actors for which negotiation is unacceptable or that the status quo, which might be quite stable/prosperous, is something to be smashed. In such cases, deterrence is particularly important. Otherwise, when the opportunity presents itself, the revolutionary actor(s) would be willing to take risks to exploit any actual or perceived weaknesses.
