Command Responsibility and War Crimes: general discussion

[Ken White]

One of the guiding principles of the Lieber Code in Article 29 states “The more vigorously wars are pursued the better it is for humanity. Sharp wars are brief.” That principle is long forgotten by our senior military leadership.

Sherman applied not only the Lieber Code but also the prescription of a nominal enemy:

""War means fighting. The business of the soldier is to fight. Armies are not called out to dig trenches, to throw up breastworks, to live in camps, but to find the enemy and strike him; to invade his country, and do him all possible damage in the shortest possible time. This will involve great destruction of life and property while it lasts; but such a war will of necessity be of brief continuance, and so would be an economy of life and property in the end. To move swiftly, strike vigorously, and secure all the fruits of victory is the secret of successful war.""

As quoted in Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War (1904) by George Francis Robert Henderson, Ch. 25 : The Soldier and the Man, p. 481

[Bill Moore]

How do we view gradual escalation, allowing safe havens, pretending to fight with civil affairs and nation building while placing combat as a secondary objective, etc. looking through the lens of the Lieber Code?

Once again our egos destroy us, every officer out there wants to pretend he can come up with a new idea and redefine war and identify better ways to fight it, and the result is "forever wars" that cause untold suffering and forever damage the cultures/societies involved. Due to the duration of these half fought wars societies know nothing but war, peace is a foreign concept not easily embraced.