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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   29528 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023

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Here's a fun historical hypothetical: say you wake up tomorrow and it's May 1944, and Dwight Eisenhower comes to you and says "TheMotte User X, you are our top expert on collateral damage. Our forthcoming invasion of Fortress Europe has to succeed, or else condemn millions more innocents to die at the hands of Nazi Germany. Our plan is to maximize our chances of victory by bombing enemy fortifications, re-supply, repair depots, airfields, road junctions, marshalling yards, rail bridges, training grounds, troop barracks, radio transmitters, telephone exchanges, fuel and ammo dumps, and more. Furthermore once on the ground, our soldiers will make use of their supreme material, technological, and doctrinal advantages in naval and land artillery to crush German resistance in all environments, be their urban, rural, or fortified. Inevitably this will result in the deaths of French civilians, who are not only innocent of Nazi crimes but victims of them, and our allies in this fight. So the crucial question I pose to you is: how many French civilian deaths are tolerable to ensure the success of Operation Overlord?"

What would your answer be? What would you consider reasonable? Could you come up with a specific number as a threshold for what you would deem acceptable civilian deaths? (Ideally don't look up the actual number before coming to an answer for yourself)

This is also not meant to be a direct analogy to any extant geopolitical crisis; its function is primarily a thought experiment and not a commentary upon or justification for acts of any specific government.

I say, "nah, we're gonna wait till the Soviets and Nazis tire each other out much much more, then sweep over both of them like a puppy running over a carefully arranged house of cards." And then I'd also be like, "whats a civilian? In the future people like me are wise to such silly ideas."

We are talking 44 here. By that time the question was if the Soviet Union will rule all of Europe or just half of it.

The second front was not opened because Stalin needed the help that much, but to make sure that US will have influence in the continent.

I'd have nuked the Soviets, and used nukes to secure a decisive hegemonic status into the future for as long as it lasts.*

*After they've done their job in killing the slightly more odious Nazis.

This is outside the bounds of the hypothetical. Dwight Eisenhower is not relinquishing command of the Allied Expeditionary Force to you, nor are you personally replacing the Allied heads of state as chief coordinators of war strategy. The only role you have is to advise Eisenhower to what degree French civilian casualties are acceptable.

What exactly is this hypothetical meant to reveal?

I suppose at its heart it's a more complex trolley problem with a historical context. It's an interesting moral dilemma to tease out.

There is no upper bound. Civilian casualties are a fake concept. And although I like the French as a people, generally, that is entirely subservient to the cause of winning the war, particularly because my tomfool general Eisenhower and his higher ups are insisting we go in deep when the Nazis are ready, and for some reason aren't anticipating the Soviet threat at a level obvious to the average 1940s steel worker.

Ah, yes. We had to destroy the village in order to save it. And, if civilian casualties are a fake concept, then I guess 9/11 was perfectly acceptable.

No, they are our people.

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