Less War? This Is How

May 8, 2024 by Karl Denninger

You won't like this opinion -- I guarantee it.

Nonetheless its true.

Why did the King, in days of old, get out in front of his troops on his horse, with his superior barding and the best of swords? Why didn't he go hide in his castle while his army prosecuted the war?

He didn't do that out of valor.

He did it because he knew that if his army lost the other side would come to his rather-obvious place (its not like you can hide a castle!), kill him and every other person in his family line except perhaps the women and girls who would be raped and forced to bear the children of those who vanquished him.

He thus had every reason to do everything he could to prevent that, and if he was going to lose he might as well lose big right up front because the outcome for everyone else was not in doubt.

This also meant he didn't go to war in the first place unless he really had to because while you might have numerical and tactical superiority things go wrong in a war as soon as the first shot, sword or arrow is loosed.  Your intelligence gathering can be wrong, you can be flanked, the other side may have allies you don't know about or just plain old-fashioned bad luck, such as weather, can screw you and there's nothing you can do about any of that.

You want less war?

Then advocate for and accept that everyone on either side, especially any politician but also including all civilians are always and everywhere legitimate targets of the other side.  Fuck the laws of war and fuck anyone who says otherwise.

There has never been a war where civilians are not absolutely responsible for the waging of said war.  Even in times of old the horse had to be fed as did the soldier, the armor, arrows and swords had to be made, the ore or trees had to be dug, harvested, forged and worked, the tents and mess kit had to be created, maintained and tended and so on.

Every bullet, missile, bomb, tank, airplane, drone, communications device and similar in a modern military action was created and assembled by civilians either in whole or part.  Exactly zero tanks, planes or ships move a single millimeter without fuel, lubricants and parts and all of that is created by civilian infrastructure.

Every single one of those firms in the modern world is funded and operates as a result of the capital markets so each and every banker, every single institution of such and similar are all personally liable and responsible for each and every single act of war in every single case.

Every single person on both sides and any entity or nation that supplies them, every institution and especially every politician and all of their family members and property are all legitimate military targets when a conflict is underway in each and every case.

Would Biden and Congress commit funds and equipment to Ukraine if it was clearly understood that the Russians would consider every one of them, and their children and spouses along with their property to be legitimate military targets and if spies or other infiltrators could get into the United States they would be targeted and destroyed?

Would we have had an open border with Mexico for the last three years if this was the consequence of our involvement?

Would any of this have happened in the first place if back in 2014 McCain's entire family was slaughtered like pigs and all their homes and property burnt to ash for his advocacy ON THE GROUND at Maidan by members of the losing side who infiltrated (or worse, were already present) in the United States?

Is there anything wrong with Russia finding a way to get people into the United States and burning Zelenskyy's property here in the US?  No.  He is the chief belligerent in that conflict just like Putin is so yes, if the other side can do the same thing to Putin, well, that's the price of war.

You want less war then you want much more of this.

Today not one single member of the House, not one single member of the Executive, not one single executive in the Defense Industry or banking system fears being tied up, forced to watch their spouse and children be raped and/or murdered and then executed themselves with all their property burnt to ash.

Yet that was the penalty in days of old when you lost -- and often before you lost, if things went poorly and they could get to you.

The acts and decisions of old weren't really about "noble choices"; that is a convenient fantasy run in tales of old.

Knights and Kings of old in fact did what they did simply because they understood the risk and thus only if it was worth it did you undertake the action of going to war in the first place.  Sometimes you had to -- you judged that indeed it was worth it -- and thus you did so, damn the consequences.

War is as old as humankind and that will never change.

But what we can change is to force skin back into the game for those who actually are responsible for the capacity and actual waging of war by advocating for and fully understanding that if you commit to war that is the potential price for each and every person in the society involved and if that's not acceptable then you stop the government from waging said war no matter the personal cost since every single person can only die once, you will die anyway if you refuse to act and thus you might as well die for a just cause rather than an unjust one.