Targeting Civilians (Was Re: War: Russia vs. Ukraine?)

[Annaamarth]

The biggest difference between NATO/US/Etc and Russia is that Russia doesn't mind collateral damage. In fact some might say they specifically target civilians.

I'm sorry to say that I think this is true; this, along with the systemic abuse of civilians - which is not to say that Ukrainian forces haven't committed a few war crimes too, but it seems systemic on the Russian side, from Bucha to Mariupol to Kherson and Kharkiv - seems to be a terror tactic, a methodology encouraged, or at least allowed, in the hopes that it will somehow "break" Ukrainian spirit.

It is worth noting that these techniques have seldom worked over the long term.  The tendency is for such abuses to strengthen resolve - it may be interesting to compare to the US usage of drones in the middle east and how those may have provided a direct pipeline into Islamist recruitment.

[TheGlyphstone]

That would actually be an interesting thing to discuss/debate in a separate if it could be kept civil - specifically, are deliberate attacks on civilian populations more damaging to long term interests than blatant disregard for civilian collateral damage? Perhaps I dont move in the right circles, but the most critical opinions of US drone strikes I've read fell into the second category.

[GloomCookie]

From a practical standpoint, the targeting of civilians is generally a way of targeting the war production of a population. The civilian sector is largely responsible for being the ancillary support of each and every soldier, from the next generation being raised at home to producing the food, clothing, ammunition, and other necessities of modern warfare. However, that doesn't mean it's always effective since most civilians, even in a total war economy like was the case in World War II (and is most certainly NOT the case in Ukraine and most other nations) the majority of civilians are in no way associated with the production of war material.

Back in the 1930's, both the United States and United Kingdom both issued statements that attacks on civilian personnel was both savage and ruthless.

... against international law to bomb civilians as such and to make deliberate attacks on the civilian population.

Any general bombing of an extensive area wherein there resides a large population engaged in peaceful pursuits is unwarranted and contrary to the principles of law and humanity.

However, that would change after Nazi Germany began launching attacks on London, targeting civilians. Winston Churchill ordered night bombings against German cities and towns, later joined by the United States Army Air Corps to bomb the targets almost constantly day and night. In the Pacific theater, there were numerous US bombing campaigns against the islands inhabited by Japan, including the Japanese mainland itself in 1945. There were numerous projects associated with that, including Project Manhattan that developed the first atomic weapon and Project X-Ray to use small bats outfitted with incendiary backpacks that could roost in the paper and wooden buildings used by the Japanese to detonate long after the bombers left (Note: Project X-Ray's only 'success' was against an American town in New Mexico when a batch of the bats got free and flew into nearby civilian homes).

The targeting of civilians was also a favorite of the Wehrmacht in areas such as Poland and the Soviet Union. It's theorized that had the Germans welcomed civilians fleeing the terror of Stalin's Soviet Union, most would have been happy to assist the Germans in their march on Moscow and the Baltic. Instead, their brutality and indiscriminate use of terror on civilians, combined with orders from Stalin himself that crucial areas such as Stalingrad were not allowed to evacuate civilians, turned such places into abattoirs of death. The war was so brutal that up to 80% of all males born in the year 1923 were dead by 1945.

”There must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured."

It is not official United States policy to target civilians, but that hasn't exactly stopped it from happening. Articles like this one: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/19/us/politics/afghanistan-drone-strike-video.html show that drone attacks can and do kill civilians. Are they tragic casualties in war? Sometimes, but it's difficult to be certain in the confusion of war. What is known is there are several instances that while the 'official' policy might be against the targeting of civilians, it can and does happen. Just take a glance at the Mỹ Lai massacre during the Vietnam War to see where it can occur.

My personal belief is that targeting civilians does nothing but brew resentment that then turns into radicalism and perpetuates generations of hatred between groups. The deliberate targeting of civilians, which Russia certainly seems to be doing, is only going to drive a wedge between them and the people of Ukraine, one that won't heal anytime soon.

[Vekseid]

The US assassin-drone program is somewhat different. Instead certain degrees of civilian losses were acceptable under various situations. There was a set limit under Bush (30, IIRC). Obama instituted a number of rules limiting strikes (which Trump reverted, naturally), and only Biden actually stopped it outside of war zones.

The primary difference is the US program was actually effective in achieving at least one of its goals, namely disrupting the group training to attack the US proper. So at least in the moderate term, it was successful.

Directly targeting civilians as a policy seems to backfire dramatically if your opponent has means of fighting back (see Battle of Britain). I think the long term effects are more about the sorts of cultural memories created. What this can mean varies dramatically, but Russia and China have been in the business of making these memories for a lot longer than the US has.

[Relikai]

When it comes to collateral damage and civilians targeted in war or 'police actions' I personally (And only me in this view) find it ironic that the United States of America gets to condemn while their drone operators and soldiers get away literally scot-free, taking for example the latest incident of the Kabul Drone Strike.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59647065

"The US has said no American troops or officials will be held accountable for a drone strike that killed 10 people in Afghanistan in August."

Just because they can, and will, continue indiscriminate bombing, or murder, for American Self-Interests. (Note that this isn't targeted against American citizens, the average Infantryman, or the Drone Service Wing, but rather against policymakers, faulty Intelligence, and the disciplinary committee involved.)

As Veikseid stated, if you have control or a presence in Social Media, or have a means of Fighting Back, or isn't one of those painted as 'Evil' (Non-Israeli Middle Eastern, Chinese, Russian, etc), then the consequences would be vastly different.

The Battle of Britain, or the Terror Bombing of London (Part of the BoB) started with the British bombing/Blitz of Berlin, which actually saved the Royal Air Force (Bombs were not cratering RAF airfields, destroying barracks/hangars, targeting the crucial Radar Stations)


Targeting civilians has been a tactic to scare the populace and the political leaders of the target nation. If two nations are balanced and one razes a city to the ground, they only strengthen the resolve and repercussions of the soldier whose home was razed to the ground. Soldiers are always briefed that they are not killing for their country, but rather defending their homes and families as a psychological seed.

Also the bombing of a city within the area of operations is but unpractical. Stalingrad was reduced to rubble and the Soviets simply used the ruins as cover against small arms and vehicles. Dresden was fire-bombed and it slowed the progress of US troops through the city during their advance through Germany. Not only are roads reduced to rubble, we are trained to use rubble to create new blind spots for ambushes where possible.

That said, with Ukraine owning the social media waves with their extremely efficient victory in the airwaves and media, I as a trained conscript who has two years of my life, education, career, lawfully taken away to be a 'soldier', sincerely hope that Ukrainian soldiers aren't using civilian areas to house weapons such as MANPADs, Mortars, and Reconnaisance, given that civilian urban infrastructure is extremely prime locations to commit these operations from. A Russian airstrike/counterbattery operation with no proof from the Ukrainian side that Ukrainian soldiers were there is direct evidence of Russian munitions expended on a civilian area.

[Dashenka]

Civilian casualties in war are never 100% preventable other than stopping the war al together.


I think the difference between the US in places like Kabul, Syria, etc was that they target terrorists. Said terrorists often hid in civilian areas, basically using innocent people as a human shield. The target, or the goal, has never been to kill civilians.

Russia's policy is different. They actively seek to kill civilians to strike fear into the Ukrainian people. Shelling a block of flats has nothing to do with tactical intervention or a misplaced missile, it's just pure unadulterated genocide.

So where the US and others have tried to take out terrorists or soldiers to save the civilians, Russia's just trying to wipe out Ukraine, or as they call it, de-nazify.

Much like Hitler was doing to the Jews.

[Relikai]

Russia's policy is different. They actively seek to kill civilians to strike fear into the Ukrainian people. Shelling a block of flats has nothing to do with tactical intervention or a misplaced missile, it's just pure unadulterated genocide.

I do wonder actually, and so does a few others, that since the airwaves belong to Ukraine after shutting Russia off, the pictures and news we are getting isn't edited by Ukraine to stir in the hearts and minds of viewers. We all saw the destroyed blocks of flats from artillery strikes, I sincerely hope, since a block of flats are considered strategic even in a tactical setting/grid of 1 x 1 kilometers, that before the Russian shelling, the Ukrainian Army isn't positioning weapons and units among the area thus invalidating the location as a 'civilian' target since it has been used for military purposes.

The fog of war affects not only soldiers on the ground, but also the many viewers who supported and spread the many myths from the first weeks of the war. Even Ukrainian political offices supported myths which while is an important boost of morale for the troops and foreign aid in the form of money, is eventually a myth which is wartime propaganda.

[GloomCookie]

I do wonder actually, and so does a few others, that since the airwaves belong to Ukraine after shutting Russia off, the pictures and news we are getting isn't edited by Ukraine to stir in the hearts and minds of viewers. We all saw the destroyed blocks of flats from artillery strikes, I sincerely hope, since a block of flats are considered strategic even in a tactical setting/grid of 1 x 1 kilometers, that before the Russian shelling, the Ukrainian Army isn't positioning weapons and units among the area thus invalidating the location as a 'civilian' target since it has been used for military purposes.

The fog of war affects not only soldiers on the ground, but also the many viewers who supported and spread the many myths from the first weeks of the war. Even Ukrainian political offices supported myths which while is an important boost of morale for the troops and foreign aid in the form of money, is eventually a myth which is wartime propaganda.

You're not wrong to question the narrative, but unfortunately this does fall in line with how Russia, both in the 20th century and before, operated. Russia is a brutal nation, and was largely agricultural prior to the USSR. The Bolshevik Revolution by Lenin was a brutal war between the Tsar's forces (The White Army) and Trotsky leading the Red Army. It's estimated that over 10 million people were killed in the civil war, the bulk of them civilians who were rounded up by the Bolsheviks and executed for perceived ties to the Tsar.

I think part of the problem with the invasion of Ukraine on Russia's part is that their generals have become yes men for Putin, to the point that they'll do whatever Putin says because to do otherwise leads to a free ticket to a gulag somewhere. Plus, his military commanders follow his lead in skimming funds and resources, leaving next to nothing for the average soldier to use and leaving them without the basic necessities to fight a war, which leads to looting. Since every single soldier in the Russian Army could probably pool their paychecks and still have less money than Putin spends on caviar in a month, they're not exactly well trained or equipped, forcing them to scavenge in the field for anything they can get their hands on, since the bulk of Russian supply convoys die shortly after driving into Ukraine.

This is not uncommon, by the way. Napoleon's army did the same thing, forced to try and steal anything that wasn't nailed down trying to put food in their bellies after marching into Russia. Russians have for centuries relied on their vast lands to stage withdrawals into their own territory, torching anything and everything of use and letting the invaders stretch themselves too thin. Too bad for the peasant farmers left with nothing but burnt crops and memories of getting to eat as winter sets in, that's their problem. This general attitude that civilians are expendable has been ingrained into Russian military doctrine for centuries, so I think it's very likely they don't see a problem with it. Civilians are just soldiers who haven't picked up a rifle yet in their minds.

[Dashenka]

You're not wrong to question the narrative, but unfortunately this does fall in line with how Russia, both in the 20th century and before, operated. Russia is a brutal nation, and was largely agricultural prior to the USSR. The Bolshevik Revolution by Lenin was a brutal war between the Tsar's forces (The White Army) and Trotsky leading the Red Army. It's estimated that over 10 million people were killed in the civil war, the bulk of them civilians who were rounded up by the Bolsheviks and executed for perceived ties to the Tsar.


This is not uncommon, by the way. Napoleon's army did the same thing, forced to try and steal anything that wasn't nailed down trying to put food in their bellies after marching into Russia. Russians have for centuries relied on their vast lands to stage withdrawals into their own territory, torching anything and everything of use and letting the invaders stretch themselves too thin. Too bad for the peasant farmers left with nothing but burnt crops and memories of getting to eat as winter sets in, that's their problem. This general attitude that civilians are expendable has been ingrained into Russian military doctrine for centuries, so I think it's very likely they don't see a problem with it. Civilians are just soldiers who haven't picked up a rifle yet in their minds.

This isn't something specifically uncommon for that era. Holy Crusaders executed everybody who didn't believe in God, Vikings raped and plundered for the fun of it. Being executed for being 'on the wrong side' is not that strange for that era.

The second bit is your perception and opinion, one I do not share or agree with.

But when it comes to Russia targetting civilians in order to get things done, there is a much greater example of how ruthless Russian leaders can be.

It's called the Holodomor. Stalin created a man made famine in Ukraine to eliminate Ukrainian indepence movement in which about 5 million people died of malnourishment or starvation. Basically the same thing is happening now. Ukraine wants to connect to NATO and Europe, Russia tries to eliminate that 'threat'.

And again, they blocked the grain supply coming out of Ukraine.

What Russia is doing, is not collateral damage. It's well thought out, planned, man made executions of civilians, which is also called genocide. Targetting soldiers and having civilians is a war, execution people because they are Ukrainian, which is what Putin is doing, is genocide.

[Vekseid]

As Veikseid stated, if you have control or a presence in Social Media, or have a means of Fighting Back, or isn't one of those painted as 'Evil' (Non-Israeli Middle Eastern, Chinese, Russian, etc), then the consequences would be vastly different.

Social media wasn't a factor in America restoring relations with Vietnam, Japan, and Germany. It wasn't responsible for the breakdown in relations with France. The US and Britain before her tend to leave the fuck alone after a number of decades.

I was referring instead to the thousand-plus year beef between China and Vietnam. The centuries-long struggles between Russia and its neighbors. These things seem to take on a genetic tone.

It's estimated that over 10 million people were killed in the civil war, the bulk of them civilians who were rounded up by the Bolsheviks and executed for perceived ties to the Tsar.

I have not seen anyone claim the Cheka slew the 'bulk'. Also, it is incredibly hard to separate the casualties of the civil war from World War I.  Ten million seems to be the upper bound. Though the famine and economic collapse that followed points to the harrowing cost.

[Humble Scribe]

The Battle of Britain, or the Terror Bombing of London (Part of the BoB) started with the British bombing/Blitz of Berlin, which actually saved the Royal Air Force (Bombs were not cratering RAF airfields, destroying barracks/hangars, targeting the crucial Radar Stations)

WWII bombing was indiscriminate because it was wildly inaccurate. Dive bombers could achieve some measure of accuracy, but were very vulnerable to a prepared enemy with fighters and/or anti-aircraft guns. Fleets of level bombers could just about hit a city, but couldn't be much more precise than that, especially if you're flying at high altitude and/or at night to evade countermeasures. Area bombing/Morale bombing/Terror bombing (take your pick - when we do it's 'morale bombing', when the enemy do it it's 'terror bombing') was an attempt to make a virtue of a necessity. All you could hit was cities, so you sold it as an attempt to disrupt enemy industry and 'break the will to fight'. In no case did the morale bombing ever succeed, of course, but the effect on industrial production definitely worked.

Most of the London Blitz began as an attack on the docks and commercial and industrial areas of London, and could be justified as hitting 'military targets' even if that also meant 'accidentally' plastering most of the eastern residential side of the city with bombs, though the Nazis did have exaggerated ideas about the effectiveness of 'terror bombing' based on Guernica, Warsaw and Rotterdam. There was another attempt in 1944 using the 'wunderwaffen' of the V1 and V2 rockets, which were even less accurate and had to be fired at a target as large as London as they couldn't hit anything else. By the time we got to Dresden, Hamburg and Tokyo, though, there wasn't much pretence about doing anything except trying to incinerate as many of the enemy as possible, and not distinguishing between military and civilian. It's a line of thinking that led to Hiroshima and Nagasaki - neither attack actually as deadly as the Tokyo fire raid.

Precision strikes are only as good as your target intelligence of course. It's fine to be able to hit a single building with GPS guided precision, but if you're using an out of date map you may get the Chinese Embassy instead of a Serbian communications hub.

I wonder about how much of Russian targeting policy is deliberate 'terror' attacks - I suspect not much - maybe the odd missile lobbed at Kyiv or Kharkiv to remind civilians there's a war on - the rest is likely just doctrine; using mass artillery to suppress the enemy and not much caring about civilians who haven't got out yet - that's the enemy's problem as far as they're concerned. The shooting of civilians in Bucha and similar places behind the front line strikes me as more a combination of indiscipline, frustration, paranoia about snipers, guerillas and hit and run ATGM tactics (which Ukraine was definitely using) and again a kind of callous disregard for civilian life rather than a deliberate policy from the top down. It's more like My Lai than the kind of systematic 'ethnic cleansing' we saw in Yugoslavia. That doesn't make it any less reprehensible or the need to prosecute those responsible any less keen, but we ought to try and avoid getting too caught up in the understandable propaganda coming out of Kyiv on this.

[GloomCookie]

I have not seen anyone claim the Cheka slew the 'bulk'. Also, it is incredibly hard to separate the casualties of the civil war from World War I.  Ten million seems to be the upper bound. Though the famine and economic collapse that followed points to the harrowing cost.

I will concede that point as the October Revolution was during WWI and caused Russia to pull out of the war to focus on the struggle at home.

[Annaamarth]

I wonder about how much of Russian targeting policy is deliberate 'terror' attacks - I suspect not much - maybe the odd missile lobbed at Kyiv or Kharkiv to remind civilians there's a war on - the rest is likely just doctrine; using mass artillery to suppress the enemy and not much caring about civilians who haven't got out yet - that's the enemy's problem as far as they're concerned. The shooting of civilians in Bucha and similar places behind the front line strikes me as more a combination of indiscipline, frustration, paranoia about snipers, guerillas and hit and run ATGM tactics (which Ukraine was definitely using) and again a kind of callous disregard for civilian life rather than a deliberate policy from the top down...

So, as ex-military and "You know, I'm something of an ethicist myself" willemdafoe.jpg, at a certain level whether the callous disregard for civilian life is a low-level cultural thing or a deliberate policy from the top does not matter - because it is permitted to continue.

I'm going to do the "well, both sides" whataboutism argument for a moment, then I'm going to underline some differences.

In the recent mid-eastern forever-wars that the US has been involved in, US armed forces have been involved in a number of atrocities and war crimes.  Putting aside the drone strike program, I'm going to use examples more similar to what we see in Ukraine - like Abu Ghraib, the Maywand district murders, and the Kandahar massacre.  In each of these cases, US armed forces violated US military law and international law to do bad things to people.

In each of these occasions, the people who did bad things were charged and jailed.  In many cases, the units who were involved were then black-balled and restricted from redeploying - I know a guy who was a tank mechanic who never went anywhere for his four year hitch, because his unit wasn't allowed to.  The US took steps to correct and limit such overreach.  Did they do an adequate job?  That's debatable, but steps were taken.

Compare the Russian pattern - from Bucha to Kherson to Kharkiv to Mariupol to Odessa, the state has instead deflected, claimed false flags and denied.  My position is this: That is tacit and implicit endorsement.

This is why the "muh both sides" arguments fall flat, as far as I can see.

If good order cannot be maintained, that is the government's problem.

[Dashenka]

I wonder about how much of Russian targeting policy is deliberate 'terror' attacks - I suspect not much - maybe the odd missile lobbed at Kyiv or Kharkiv to remind civilians there's a war on - the rest is likely just doctrine; using mass artillery to suppress the enemy and not much caring about civilians who haven't got out yet - that's the enemy's problem as far as they're concerned.

Except civilians are not the enemy... they are the target.