Russia and Ukraine flashpoint

[Nuvendil]

Zkuq said:

Nuvendil said:

It is a war crime, specifically perfidy.  In war, it is illegal to:

Pretend to be dead to ambush the enemy

Pretend to be wounded to ambush an enemy

Pretend to surrender 

Pretend to accept a surrender

Pretend to negotiate a truce or alliance to gain a military advantage/allow for a surprise attack

Disguise military personnel or equipment as civilian

And a few other things.  Basically, the kinds of deception that will increase civilian collateral damage and erode the necessary trusted frameworks that allow forces to surrender and good faith negotiations to take place.

OK, thanks for the clarification! All this makes a lot of sense to me, although the pretending to negotiation a truce/alliance part still surprises me somewhat.

So worth noting a lot of these warcrime concepts formulated in the 19th and early 20th centuries following a period of centuries of almost constant warfare on the European continent where it was observed that backroom deals and deceptions and secret negotiations and exploitation of the common rules of war and such consistently amplified the destructiveness of conflicts. This gave rise to informal rules about general conduct in warfare that were codified beginning in the mid 1800s.

If neither side can trust the other to negotiate in good faith, accept a surrender, offer a surrender, distinguish themselves from civilians, etc, then the only logical course is wars of annihilation.  That is why perfidy is a war crime.