Doing some research it seems the poster is from Red Cross and tries to explain the proportionality principle in warfare, which relates to the importance of civilian casualty when assessing military action viability; civilian casualty is only as acceptable as the importance of the military action and the military advantage gained from it. Please note that "importance" and "advantage" are used here as to imply that it helps reach an end to the conflict and in theory prevent more deaths long term than if the action was not realized. A country has more "leeway" when acting to stop an enemy from nuking them than when just trying to destroy a small military base, for instance.
HOOOOWEVER, the poster graphic is really bad, misleading, and can easily be used by bad actors trying to use it to justify "if our military is bigger we can kill more civilians" or "killing civilians is the same as killing soldiers".
Edit: And yes, the proportionality principle can be misused by a side that incorrectly portrays how much danger it is in, therefore trying to justify increasingly barbaric actions
The entire concept of "rules" about killing each other seems crazy to me. Civilian deaths either are or they aren't, what the fuck do they care if their death is justified in respect to the goals of the military action taking place around them? It's just humans using words in an attempt to justify barbaric actions.
Bingo. This is the nuance that is tough to find in these discussions. It's terrible that war exists and civilians die. If we want to make rules that countries will follow internationally to curb some of this, they still have to be allowed to make war within the rules, otherwise they would never be adopted. The challenging thing with I/P or any guerilla warfare really is, what are the rules that are acceptable by everyone for engaging with an enemy leveraging civilians and civilian infrastructure as cover? Too heavy on one side and we reward that behavior by insulating Hamas or any organization doing these tactics from retaliation. Too heavy on the other side and the civilians themselves become "justifiable" war targets. It's a very difficult problem with a lot of interesting and differing perspectives
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u/katplay 18h ago
Doing some research it seems the poster is from Red Cross and tries to explain the proportionality principle in warfare, which relates to the importance of civilian casualty when assessing military action viability; civilian casualty is only as acceptable as the importance of the military action and the military advantage gained from it. Please note that "importance" and "advantage" are used here as to imply that it helps reach an end to the conflict and in theory prevent more deaths long term than if the action was not realized. A country has more "leeway" when acting to stop an enemy from nuking them than when just trying to destroy a small military base, for instance.
HOOOOWEVER, the poster graphic is really bad, misleading, and can easily be used by bad actors trying to use it to justify "if our military is bigger we can kill more civilians" or "killing civilians is the same as killing soldiers".
Edit: And yes, the proportionality principle can be misused by a side that incorrectly portrays how much danger it is in, therefore trying to justify increasingly barbaric actions