Political Theory

Re: Guerrilla Warfare

Minarchist — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 04:07:15 GMT

Minarchist, I for one consider the NAP to be more about justice than action per se.

Could you elaborate?

Re: Guerrilla Warfare

Eugene — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 00:22:14 GMT

U.S is not a person, its just an abstract entity. The person who actually sends the nuclear missile WILL be 100 % deterred since he will almost definitely be assassinated by someone from the free society.

Re: Guerrilla Warfare

Merlin — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 22:31:55 GMT

Most of the points you make have some merit. I was thinking of avoiding this, but anyway there’s no point in beating the bush:, I’d retaliate against any state which attacked a free society (if, say, I was the territorial defense contractor) even if it meant that civilians and/or conscripts over there will have their property and/or lives destroyed.

I do not think that any government on earth would be foolish enough to nuke a nuclear power (even if that power is not a state), but in the highly unlikely scenario that they did, I’d respond in a de-escalated, though still nuclear, fashion. Breach of the NAP? Probably.

Re: Guerrilla Warfare

Autolykos — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 21:41:21 GMT

Minarchist, I for one consider the NAP to be more about justice than action per se.

Re: Guerrilla Warfare

Minarchist — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 20:57:22 GMT

A foreign state launches a successful nuclear strike on a major population center of the an-cap society. The an-cap society responds how?

By using nuclear weapons against the enemy military? Firstly, not all members of the military are going to be volunteers - the conscripts are innocent, to target them in response to violence for which they are not responsible is a violation of the NAP. Secondly, seriously targeting the military establishment of an enemy state with nuclear weapons is going to almost always involve killing large numbers of civilians - it's not as though military bases are always hundreds of miles away from the nearest populated areas. Nuclear weapons are blunt instruments, they cannot discern between civilians and military (let alone between military volunteers and military conscripts).
As for using nukes as EMP weapons, that violates the NAP in the same way - as obviously most of the people affected (having their property destroyed) are not responsible for the act of aggression that prompted this retaliation.
Pulverizing some empty desert as a warning just begs the question...warning of what, what can the an-caps actually do with their nukes without violating their own NAP.

Bottom line: for MAD to work, the risks faced by each side have to be high and roughly proportional. There was no war between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R because each could have killed the majority of the other's population in a nuclear exchange. If U.S. could have done that, but Russia could only have retaliated with limited strikes against some of the more remote U.S. military bases (where civilian causalities would be minimal), the situation would have been quite different, and war far more likely, and rational from the perspective of the U.S. government. The logic of deterrence is to make the cost of aggression too high, and it seems to me that the NAP restricts the possibilities for the use of nuclear weapons by an-caps to such an extent that nuclear deterrence is non-viable. And then the only defense against nuclear attack is missile defense, which is pretty flimsy. Under these conditions, it's not hard to see how an an-cap society would be subjected to extortion under the threat of a nuclear strike, by states that understand and are willing to exploit the ethical stance of the an-caps.

And this problem is not really unique to nuclear weapons. An an-cap society can defend itself very well. The problem is that they cannot effectively deter because they cannot effectively retaliate. The distinction I'm making between defense and deterrence is the distinction between (for example) holding off an infantry assault with rifle fire and responding to a successful missile strike with a retaliatory missile strike. An-caps can retaliate for relatively small scale attacks, but when a proportional retaliation would necessarily involve killing innocents (as with nuclear retaliation), the NAP ties their hands.

And, again, there is the conscript problem, which is really even more serious, as it potentially limits even very precise attacks on military targets.

Re: Guerrilla Warfare

Merlin — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 19:57:21 GMT

Minarchist:

Of what defensive value could nuclear weapons be to an-caps given that an-caps necessarily reject nuclear retaliation against civilians? No MAD.

What makes you think that nukes can be used only against cities? Why not armies amassed at the border? Why not naval armadas, or bases? Why not pulverize some empty desert as a warning? Why not blow a single one in the atmosphere to kill the grid of the attacker?

Re: Guerrilla Warfare

Minarchist — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 04:07:17 GMT

Of what defensive value could nuclear weapons be to an-caps given that an-caps necessarily reject nuclear retaliation against civilians? No MAD.

Re: Guerrilla Warfare

Autolykos — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 15:25:55 GMT

Anemone:
[Reason is t]he human faculty that integrates and makes sense of the information which the human senses provide to the mind.

I call that by a different word: "thought". It's hardly a uniquely human faculty, as far as I can tell.

Anemone:
Perception is the medium between reality and a rational mind. The mind uses predictability of how the world works, integrates it with other facts, and makes a choice to act in order to produce its values. Thus we learn by our senses that rubbing two sticks together in such a way makes fire.

I'm confused by the phrase "produce its values". Can you explain to me what you mean by that?

Re: Guerrilla Warfare

Malachi — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 01:56:56 GMT

Yes, I read Gunny Poole. But it seems like Marko is giving you the free online version. When you are at war with some guys, you want those guys, not some guys who look and act and dress exactly the same. You want the specific guys. Not the groups responsible blah blah lah. The specific individuals who committed the acts of aggression. Anything else is counterproductive.

Re: Guerrilla Warfare

Marko — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 17:17:45 GMT

If you want to actually win, it has to be. You win by degrading the military effectivness of the enemy, not by building it up.

How do you propose to win by strengthening your enemy, giving it more supporters, and increasing its resolve?

What do you imagine "waging war" is? Blowing stuff up, or working to defeat your enemy?

Re: Guerrilla Warfare

Eugene — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 17:09:55 GMT

Marko I agree with these arguments. I'm just not sure it is technically possible to "wage war" against an army of terrorists hiding in a large city without damaging the property or body of unrelated people.

Re: Guerrilla Warfare

Marko — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 16:57:40 GMT

Now how are you going to find them in a crowded huge Gaza city with hostile population without hurting civilians?

You mean, without risking IDF lives?

The problem isn't at all in not massacring civilians. There is no such thing as civilians and non-civilians in ancap. There are only parties you are at war with, and parties you are not at war with. And if you are at war with A, you probably aren't served well by getting into a two-front war by hurting and thus declaring war on B as well.

The problem is that governments don't know, or don't want to define who they are at war with. That is because they idiotically think their life is made easier by them having the levaay to expand their war, and come to wage it against parties with whom they are not technically at war with, the so-called civilians. The problem isn't technical at all, but ideological. Governments believe more aggression, against more parties will help them win a war, which is an absurd notion just on the face of it — the more enemies, the worse the odds.

You yourself put the finger on the heart of the problem in your scenario. The population in Gaza is hostile. This impedes intelligence gathering and makes going into it such a risky proposition. Now tell me, does killing civilians improve this situation, or makes it worse?

Re: Guerrilla Warfare

Eugene — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 16:16:19 GMT

I live in Israel, and today 80 rockets were fired at civilian populations in two cities. About a dozen of terrorist squads were responsible for it. Now how are you going to find them in a crowded huge Gaza city with hostile population without hurting civilians? That's very difficult if even possible.

Re: Guerrilla Warfare

Marko — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 16:08:14 GMT

Is there any book or article about fighting a war with Senegal without massacring civilians in Peru? I am trying to understand if that's possible from a military standpoint.

If you don't want to massacre innocent human beings you have no beef with, you don't massacre innocent human beings you have no beef with. It's that simple. United States manages to wage most of its wars without executing American civilians, so where's the problem?

Re: Guerrilla Warfare

Eugene — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 15:42:57 GMT

Very interesting. Have you read this book? Do you know if there is a free online version of it?