Re:What If We Replace Guns and Bullets with Bows and Arrows?
by denton-scratch on Friday November 10, 2023 @09:52AM
(#38219553)
> If you investigate all banned weapons though, you'll find it's more to do with practicality+cost+optics than some high minded agreement.
The only "banned" weapons that aren't still being used routinely are nukes.
I don't think it makes sense to ban weapons of war. People don't go to war for fun; they fight out of desperation, whether it's a desperate struggle for national survival, or a desperate struggle for the political survival of some despot. If they can't buy precision glide-bombs and cruise missiles, they use barrel-bombs and gas. Rape as a weapon of war is banned as a warcrime, but it happens in every war, because killing seems to give men a stiffy.
Waging war on civilians is a warcrime, but all wars are fought against civilians; siege warfare is as old as warfare itself, and is the epitome of war against civilians. The same applies to carpet-bombing, and most kinds of economic sanctions. Armies don't usually go to war - countries go to war.
(The situation in Sudan looks anomalous to me; the warring parties seem to be two branches of the same military force, fighting over control over illegal mines).
The only "banned" weapons that aren't still being used routinely are nukes.
I don't think it makes sense to ban weapons of war. People don't go to war for fun; they fight out of desperation, whether it's a desperate struggle for national survival, or a desperate struggle for the political survival of some despot. If they can't buy precision glide-bombs and cruise missiles, they use barrel-bombs and gas. Rape as a weapon of war is banned as a warcrime, but it happens in every war, because killing seems to give men a stiffy.
Waging war on civilians is a warcrime, but all wars are fought against civilians; siege warfare is as old as warfare itself, and is the epitome of war against civilians. The same applies to carpet-bombing, and most kinds of economic sanctions. Armies don't usually go to war - countries go to war.
(The situation in Sudan looks anomalous to me; the warring parties seem to be two branches of the same military force, fighting over control over illegal mines).