[ArtificialSoldier]

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Although, to be fair, nuclear weapons did create a scenario where Congress genuinely could not act fast enough to declare war in a war scenario.

I think it was before that, hell even Japan failed to declare war on us before attacking Pearl Harbor. They meant to, but they had everything timed right down to the minute and their ambassador in Washington was delayed delivering the message. Gone are the days when a country declares war and the other country only learns about it when our fleet blows up their mail ship in harbor. I'm not sure exactly how our laws about that are written, but if there's not a way to preserve the element of surprise while going through the motions, then the motions probably need to be changed.

[NeoTifa]

I don't think it counts as a war if we don't win....

[modi123_1]

I would think the soldiers involved would disagree.

[jon.kiparsky]

ArtificialSoldier, on 07 January 2020 - 04:38 PM, said:

I'm not sure exactly how our laws about that are written, but if there's not a way to preserve the element of surprise while going through the motions, then the motions probably need to be changed.

What exactly do you think would be the point of a declaration of war that could "preserve the element of surprise"? Wouldn't that just amount to a perpetual "we might be at war with you" stance, vis a vis the rest of the world?

The point of a declaration of war, in general, is that in the absence of a declared war nations can assume that they're at peace. Now, since the US has essentially ripped up that idea, a nation like Iran can go fifty years assuming that they are in a state of "maybe-war". This is not a good thing.

The point of putting the power to declare war, in the US, in the hands of the Senate, was to try to ensure something like consensus about committing the nation to a war. If you were to have a process of declaration of war that "preserved the element of secrecy" that would defeat that purpose completely.

Obviously the whole thing is sort of moot at this point, but still.

[h4nnib4l]

ArtificialSoldier, on 07 January 2020 - 03:38 PM, said:

I think it was before that, hell even Japan failed to declare war on us before attacking Pearl Harbor. They meant to, but they had everything timed right down to the minute and their ambassador in Washington was delayed delivering the message.

True, but the period where fleets like the Japanese Imperial Navy circa 1941 existed and the technology to track them across an ocean didn't was relatively brief. Once a single plane carrying one bomb could destroy a city came into existence, the game really changed. The advent of nuclear ICBMs raised the stakes further, but the first atomic explosion changed the destructive capabilities of our species in a way that rewrote the way we wage war virtually instantaneously. As game-changing as the advent of WWI-era weapons were, it still took years of war, mind-numbing casualty levels, and incomprehensible levels of brutality for military leaders to learn that you can't do old-fashioned charges against machine guns and artillery. Literally years. For all it's nuclear posturing during the brief years where only the US had "the bomb," it never dropped another after the two in Japan.

This post has been edited by h4nnib4l: 07 January 2020 - 04:28 PM

[Skydiver]

This is my naive, tried-to-avoid-every-history-and-civics-class-I-could-avoid, perspective: The power to declare war was preconditioned on the assumption that the US would never strike first; the declaration would only come as the result of being hit and we are forced to respond. I think it's why people are always in shock when Han Solo shot first.

[ArtificialSoldier]

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What exactly do you think would be the point of a declaration of war that could "preserve the element of surprise"?

That whole Constitutional requirement for the President getting authorization from Congress thing.

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Wouldn't that just amount to a perpetual "we might be at war with you" stance, vis a vis the rest of the world?

Yeah. In other words, just like we've been operating for the past ~70 years or so. That's the new status quo. The threat of an attack at any point is the new deterrent after MAD.

I'm not worried about when we declare war, because we can literally call a country's leader and say "we're declaring war on you, and by the way the munitions impact in about 12 seconds." I'm worried about the President being able to get the required authorization from Congress without the media informing the entire world that the President is seeking Congressional authorization to attack a particular country. Because, if that's the only option, there's not a general in the world who would agree to give up the element of surprise for that. The only notable exception to that is the whole "Shock And Awe™" campaign, and in that case it didn't matter because everyone and Saddam knew that Iraq was never going to attack us first in any case. If the President, tomorrow, appears on Congress and gives the most amazing case ever for declaring war on Iran, and Congress votes to approve, and this all takes a few days, and the media covers the whole thing, before that final vote is cast you're going to see a mushroom cloud where Tel Aviv used to be. Asking forgiveness is easier than asking permission, right? So make permission easier to ask for without the entire world knowing that you're asking permission.

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a nation like Iran can go fifty years assuming that they are in a state of "maybe-war". This is not a good thing.

That has literally been Iran's mindset since 1979. This isn't a new thing, it's reality.

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The point of putting the power to declare war, in the US, in the hands of the Senate, was to try to ensure something like consensus about committing the nation to a war.

Yes, I know. But there's no reason that the representatives and delegates of the people need to go through that process in front of TV cameras. Back in 1800 they didn't anticipate a national dialogue on whether or not to declare war, they counted on the representatives and Senators to represent their constituents without needing to poll them directly. It doesn't need to be a public process. That doesn't mean there's not accountability, we can talk about the decision for decades after the fact and go over the roll call, but the entire process does not need to be televised and broadcast to the world in real time. Again, there's not a single general who's going to say "well, our first move should be to invite the cameras in and talk about whether we should attack them." It's crap strategy. If the President makes a decision to attack a particular country, then he should be able to discuss and get authorization from Congress without the world knowing until they decide to declare war and attack.

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The power to declare war was preconditioned on the assumption that the US would never strike first; the declaration would only come as the result of being hit and we are forced to respond.

The current model seems to also ensure that we never attack first. If the President went to Congress and gave the most amazing case for declaring war on both Russia and China in order to avoid them attacking us first, and the whole country agreed, and the military said they're ready to go whenever Congress makes that vote, does anyone want to guess what the direct outcome of that will be? If you said the US wouldn't strike first, I think you're right about that.

"You see those two nuclear-armed nations over there plotting to kill us? Well, look at all of this intelligence, they're going to launch within a week. Let's hold a public debate and vote whether or not we should strike first. Let's hear from the delegates from Alaba***NO CARRIER***"

[NeoTifa]

What makes us not able to strike first?

(also I was being facetious about the war not being a war unless we win thing)

[ArtificialSoldier]

We won't strike first if we have a public debate and vote about whether or not we should strike first. If that's going to pass then a country of sufficient strength would just take the initiative and attack us first instead of waiting.

Anyway, it looks like Iran made a show of their counter-attack against us, although I'm hearing that there were no casualties. I suppose now the various proxy groups will do their things.

[h4nnib4l]

I just hope they didn't hit the porta-shitters at Al Asad. The volume of priceless, war-time artwork on the walls of those things should qualify them as military cultural sites. I did some of my best sharpie work there.

[ArtificialSoldier]

There's the strike on the 4 structures, but there's another impact just to the southwest of those, you can see the impact crater with a line of debris to the south of the crater. I hope that isn't a line of portable cultural sites.

[ArtificialSoldier]

There's a lot of chaos in Iran. During Suleimani's funeral there was a stampede that killed at least 59 people and injured at least 212. And then there's the Ukrainian plane that crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran's airport, with video showing it coming down in flames. That crashed at nearly the same time that the missile attacks were going on, killing 176. And then to add a little weirdness, "hours later" there was a 4.9 magnitude earthquake detected near one of Iran's major nuclear power plants. I don't see any reports of explosions near the plant, but like every other nuclear power plant except the one by me, it's next to a major body of water, in this case right on the coast of the Persian gulf, within easy striking distance of everything. But, again, there's no reports of an attack there, it's just weird timing.

[ArtificialSoldier]

[ArtificialSoldier]

By my count, so far at least 141 Iranians have died as a result of killing Suleimani, between the funeral stampede and the plane crash. Plus 63 Canadians, and 31 people from 5 other countries. It's sad. I'm considering the plane crash a mistaken shoot down, it doesn't look like it can be anything else. It caught fire and stopped all broadcast, both manual and automatic, while still in the air and even still while it was gaining altitude. Yet Iran still immediately concluded that an engine malfunction was the cause, I'd like to know how they know that. Meanwhile, we're saying we picked up 2 surface to air missile launches before the crash. Iran has the black boxes but won't give them to either Boeing or the FAA, and has already said that some of the memory was damaged and its contents lost.

It's just a crazy situation. We assassinate their top general, and as a result so far over 220 people are dead and about the same number wounded from accidents.

[Skydiver]

New York Times has the video of what looks to be a missile strike on the jet.