this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2024
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Ukrainian drones now spray 4,000° F thermite streams right into Russian trenches (arstechnica.com)
submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 241 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (43 children)

This is what international law has to say about incendiary weapons:

  1. It is prohibited in all circumstances to make the civilian population as such, individual civilians or civilian objects the object of attack by incendiary weapons.
  1. It is prohibited in all circumstances to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by air-delivered incendiary weapons.
  1. It is further prohibited to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by means of incendiary weapons other than air-delivered incendiary weapons, except when such military objective is clearly separated from the concentration of civilians and all feasible precautions are taken with a view to limiting the incendiary effects to the military objective and to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.
  1. It is prohibited to make forests or other kinds of plant cover the object of attack by incendiary weapons except when such natural elements are used to cover, conceal or camouflage combatants or other military objectives, or are themselves military objectives.

This treeline is clearly not located within a concentration of civilians and it is concealing (or plausibly believed to be concealing) enemy combatants and therefore the use of incendiary weapons is unambiguously legal.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 months ago (22 children)

The United States and the UK successfully blocked attempts to outlaw all use of incendiary weapons, and all use of incendiary weapons against personnel, and all use of incendiary weapons against forests and plant cover.

This is an area where it's perfectly reasonable to disagree with how the US watered down this convention, to push for stricter rules on this, and to condemn the use of thermite as an anti-personnel weapon and the use of incendiary weapons on plants that are being used for cover and concealment of military objectives.

So pointing out that this might technically be legal isn't enough for me to personally be OK with this. I think it's morally reprehensible, and I'd prefer for Ukraine to keep the moral high ground in this war.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The moral high ground doesn't work in war.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The moral high ground is absolutely critical in war. War is politics by other means, and being able to build consensus, marshal resources, recruit personnel, persuade allies to help, persuade adversaries to surrender or lay down their arms, persuade the allies of your adversaries not to get involved, and keep the peace after a war is over, all depend on one's public image. There are ways to wage war without it, but most militaries that blatantly disregard morals find it difficult to actually win.

In this case? The entire military strategy of Ukraine in this war is highly dependent on preserving the moral high ground.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I understand and agree with your point, but the fact that people are worried over whether Ukraine is killing nicely enough is ridiculous to me. It's a defensive war of survival. The moral high ground is already theirs.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

I think he is referring to not making civilian casualties. Ukraine is not mass terror bombing civilians in the hope that they hit a Russian soldier somewhere.

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