There's a line, definitely this side of executing children, but probably the other side of quitting your job at Subway because the six inch sub is only 5 inches long.

Management has the ability in case of war to even diffuse that responsibility. So who fries for the execution is the person who gave the orders. In a hierarchical system, the person who gave the order and all his higher ups are responsible. That's how it works in the military. There is a chain of command, and those who are doing the commanding are the ones responsible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_by_firing_squad#Blan...

Except what I remember is something about finding a scapegoat at the bottom, and all the higher ups seem to have never been involved, and you blame the goat, and everyone else goes home happy but the goat. The military thrives on goatism.

Actually, you just bounce it between goats and brass until everybody who had skin in the game is dead or dead bored.

The problem with always deferring culpability upwards is that it usually leads to no culpability.