War and Law

[Grumbler]

No such thing as "International Law", unless, of course, one stretches the meaning of "Law" in a shape beyond recognition by civilized man.
All law shres one common 'truth';
'The Law does not go where enforcement cannot reach'. It doesn't matter if it's Roman Law, English Common Law, the Napoleon Code, Shiria or International Law, if the violators cannot be arrested and brought to trial, there is no law.
Warfare itself is an act of politics. It can be divided into two broad categories, Restricted and Unrestricted. Restricted Warfare is a new concept, created after the 30 years war (IIRC) where rapine, massacre and Pillage were the order of the day. It was formalized at the end of the 19th century, mainly thru the efforts of America and several European nations. Several treaties were crafted and ratified that attempted to curtail various of the more unsavory aspects of war. None worked. ALL those treaties have been violated by all the signators to those treaties.
Google 'Brand-Kellogg Pact'. That was a treaty that made war illegal. Period, no if's and butts. Within a decades most of the nations that ratified the B-K treaty were busy killing each other's citizens.
Never mind, I did it for you;

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/kbpact.htm

Before the Senate would ratify the BKP, it added a clause that said if attacked, the US was allowed to defend it-self, which made it 'legal' for the USA to fight both WW2 and the current War on Terror. But not Bosnia, Kosovo, or Korea, just to mention a few recent wars.

This drifts me into the area of terrorism. The difference between terrorism and other types of warfare is the target. If the violence is directed at non-combatants, with the intent to maim or kill them, then it is terrorism.
Going back to September 11, 2001, the attack on the WTC was terrorism, the attack on the Pentagon was NOT, the Pentagon being a ligitimate military target. Blowing up a truck full of explosives in a shopping center is terrorism, blowing up a HMMWV with a road side bomb is NOT.

Serious, pile the bodies up to the rafters and then blow the roof off so we can squeeze in a few more, warfare is a result of two social forces; Nationalism and Industrialization. Nationalism provides the bodies to be counted and Industrialiaztion arms them with ever more lethal weapons.

ALL the various treaties that seperate unrestricted warfare from restricted warfare were conceived by Nation/States. They apply only to Nation/States. As the nation/ state slowly collapses, so will mass wars with mass casualties slowly vanish.
I think the Nation state will be replaced by the corporate state over the next several centuries, but that is a different topic. The Corporate State will use violence to protect it's interests, but it won't be the mass violence of armies, fleets, and bomb tonnage. It will be the low level violence of assassination. rumor and sabatoge. After all, a business that kills off it's customers is doomed anyway.

As a part of the 19th and 20th century effort to replace the court of battle with something not so destructive, the League of Nations was created right after the War to end all wars. (AKA WW1, about 20 million dead) . The collapses of the LON led directly to WW2 ( 100 to 200 million dead). The end of that war led to the creation of the UN. The UN has collapsed following 9-11 and the WTC attack. My question is, will we suffer thru another huge war (billions dead) before the UN is replaced, or can we just replace the UN now and skip the war part?

International law can only exist if their is an international policeman to extend the reach of the law. The only possible canidate is the USA, and we WILL NOT have that job. No way, No how.
I'm sure the Mad Mullahs wolud take it, and the Chinese might. France thinks they already have it. Regardless of who bells the cat, so to speak, the ONLY means of enforcement is WAR, which leaves us right back where we started, only with a sore typing finger.

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV
will be fought with sticks and stones."
- Albert Einstein (contemplating nuclear devastation)