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this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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Exactly. Armies exist to win wars. That is their purpose. Nobody has time to theorize it out from first principles about what is "right" or "wrong", they raise them because a war has been (edit: planned or) declared and needs to be won.
Then they just keep them around to look spiffy and intimidating.
They will always serve whoever is in charge of them, though, it's just more pragmatic than trying to serve an ambiguous moral principle. This is why we make ours swear an oath to defend a piece of paper from all enemies, to try to help resolve that challenge.
Disclaimer: I did not read the article, so my response is to your comment only.
My two cents: you just described what an NCO might say. Commissioned Officers have the responsibility to manage the violence applied by the NCOs in such a way that civilians/non-combatants (of all nations, even/especially the enemy nation(s) civilians) are not armed whenever that is possible.
That’s the whole “professional” thing. Just like a doctor (a professional) can’t pick and choose who they help, or a lawyer (a professional) can’t decide he doesn’t like his client, so he’ll sabotage his defense, etc. An officier is a professional because he makes sure the violence applied by the members of the military that are under his command do not commit immoral acts (plundering, rape, murder, etc).
Most modern military forces extend that responsibility to NCOs though, so that every members have the responsibility to not follow illegal/immoral orders. But that’s another point…
I agree. My only counterpoint would be that any view that fails to include the armies of dictators as well is fundamentally incomplete.
My view manages to apply to every army in history. This should simply be acknowledged, that's all. We have an important responsibility to be better than that, but we do not always succeed. We are only human.
I would disagree that it's more pragmatic. Decentralised autonomous cells are a key part of modern military strategy, and there are examples of horizontally organised militias being extremely effective against nominally superior centralised forces. Rojava and the Zapatistas are two excellent examples of societies without a ruling class that have defended themselves in spite of extreme opposition.
The centralised command structure is necessary to maintain a military that are goons for the ruling class.
The interesting part of this development is not that they are goons - you're right that that's implicit in the command structure - but that the government has said out loud that they should be goons and nothing else. It's one of those moments where the mask of civility slipped.
Well said. The complexity of the modern battlefield, frankly, completely necessitates the professionalism the other commenter was mentioning, to even be able to deliver competent results.
This is one lesson that could be taken from the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Oof that is true. Turns out hardline centralised authority can result in an absolute clusterfuck on the battlefield, whereas units motivated by an intrinsic desire to do the right thing - like repel invaders - can be extremely effective despite a numerical disadvantage.
Actually one interesting thing I heard from an interview with a returned volunteer in Ukraine was that professional soldiers aren't always the best volunteer soldiers. People with no background were easier to train, but if they trained in an imperial military like the US has for instance, they couldn't understand why they didn't have air support, to which the answer was, "You're not the brass, you're a grunt, you don't get air support." Apparently they tended to give up and go home when they were asked to fight without overwhelming firepower on their side.