"This is especially important in what's called asymmetric warfare, when one side vastly outguns the other and can always dominate in terms of people, personnel or munitions."
An ethical country with an ethical army would not engage in asymmetric warfare where they would completely dominate their "enemy." Period. That is called being disproportionate, and it is a war crime. Say a country is attacked by a force that is far weaker, and a response is necessary to stop that weaker force from carrying out more attacks. In that situation the stronger force must do an extensive analysis into what caused the attack. Does the weaker force have a logical or legitimate grievance? Rarely does a weaker force attack without having such a grievance, because they run the risk of being annihilated. In that case, "self-defense" on the part of the stronger force is completely unethical. The solution is to address the grievance and find some other way of having the weaker force atone for their attack. That ethical response is not only more effective, it has the advantage of making the stronger state feel better about themselves and impresses the world. It has no down side.
I agree! I think the "just war theory" principles that Simon was describing is something we rarely see in modern warfare and the concept of a moral army exercising ethical restraint is hard to come by. Of course, he has much more experience with this having worked with military ethics and the Australian defense forces for 30 years but in highly controversial and critical contexts such as the Palestine-Israel one, I don't think much of these principles apply, if any. I rather perceived what he described as how things are supposed to work rather than how things are.
I accept the criticism, I should have pushed back on some of the things Simon said, specifically about Israel, hopefully next time I'll have the moral courage to do that.
"This is especially important in what's called asymmetric warfare, when one side vastly outguns the other and can always dominate in terms of people, personnel or munitions."
An ethical country with an ethical army would not engage in asymmetric warfare where they would completely dominate their "enemy." Period. That is called being disproportionate, and it is a war crime. Say a country is attacked by a force that is far weaker, and a response is necessary to stop that weaker force from carrying out more attacks. In that situation the stronger force must do an extensive analysis into what caused the attack. Does the weaker force have a logical or legitimate grievance? Rarely does a weaker force attack without having such a grievance, because they run the risk of being annihilated. In that case, "self-defense" on the part of the stronger force is completely unethical. The solution is to address the grievance and find some other way of having the weaker force atone for their attack. That ethical response is not only more effective, it has the advantage of making the stronger state feel better about themselves and impresses the world. It has no down side.
I agree! I think the "just war theory" principles that Simon was describing is something we rarely see in modern warfare and the concept of a moral army exercising ethical restraint is hard to come by. Of course, he has much more experience with this having worked with military ethics and the Australian defense forces for 30 years but in highly controversial and critical contexts such as the Palestine-Israel one, I don't think much of these principles apply, if any. I rather perceived what he described as how things are supposed to work rather than how things are.
Failure .
I accept the criticism, I should have pushed back on some of the things Simon said, specifically about Israel, hopefully next time I'll have the moral courage to do that.