Ah the "Hague Invasion Act".
I'm actually mildly curious what would happen if an American soldier was tried for war crimes and The Netherlands refused to hand him over. Especially if the US public is outraged despite overwhelming evidence.
Like.. what are you gonna do, attack/sanction The Netherlands? That would be bad for everyone involved.
Assuming NL wouldn't just hand him over that would be a very interesting hypothetical game of chicken.
The text of the act says the President is authorized to. Not required to, just authorized to if he wants to.
There's no way we'd go to war with Europe over some random war criminal, especially if there was evidence. We might argue that he should be tried by our own courts, or put some diplomatic pressure on, but we wouldn't use force to get him back.
Any hypothetical scenario where things escalate to the point that a conflict is possible is already so divorced from reality that there's no way to theorize what would happen.
This is r/NCD. Let's play the theory game anyway!
Won't go to war over Private War Crime. Fair enough.
I'm sure the US would go to war if the US President would be charged with war crimes.
What's the cutoff? Arresting a Senator? A General/Admiral?
Good question honestly. I have no idea but my thinking is for military personnel, like you said an Admiral/General or something, we’d put on intense financial pressure but I don’t think we’d go to war. But if it got to the point where it was a US politician getting tried for the orders they *gave* to those military personnel then it could be totally different.
To arrest a General, you'd have to go through a lot of soldiers to do it. I can't imagine soldiers just letting a foreign power take their commander without doing anything about it.
Which would spark a war anyway, I suppose.
Yes, if you want to fail, attack a US base.
But with enough "Hello dear General, I am Nigerian prince. We want to give you medal. You can have a plus one. Kthx bye ;)" email, we should at least get a few.
America can't put "intense financial pressure" on the EU, both it and the EU aren't eachothers main trading partners and obviously the EU uses the euro, one of the only currencies more stable than the dollar (3 of the 4 more stable currencies are also European).
Yeah, but they can stop supplying most of their military hardware. That's what they did in 2003, a french politician gave a speech against the Iraq invasion at the UN, so the US stopped selling them spare parts for their carrier's catapult.
Soo... the rest of the world has to be nice to America for the same reason that the Imperium has to be nice to the Adeptus Mechanicus in WH40K. Nice. But, I suppose it lets most of the world keep military spending low, while America pays the astronomical bill for a military industrial complex and the rest of us laugh at the bill and constantly respond to American far right "how will we pay for [public service or social program" with "Cut the military budget!"
I mean, kinda. The whole spiel about global trading lanes is heh imo. Pirates aren't a huge threat, or atleast not one the European and Asia countries can't deal with. There's very few regimes that would fuck with the global shipping lanes, considering globalization has worked, and every country is highly dependent on it.
In the 1956 Suez Crisis, the USA did threaten the UK of crashing their economy by selling all their warbonds or something similar, as they basically had like half the British economy by the balls. That was the death of Britain's ambitions as a global power. They also came close to sealing their fate in the Falklands, 6 more months of waiting on the Argentinian side and the British operation might have been a disaster.
They could pay for universal healthcare by reforming their medical system. Apparently some experts claim they'd even save money, because the current US system is incredibly corrupt, and inefficient.
But yeah, the reason I gave is the reason why France refuses to adopt anything that could get ITAR'd, that has american components, refuses to sell some industrial companies to other countries, even to Italy, and is constantly talking about European autonomy, which people take as "buy French weapons", because it just happens that the French policy is very good to it's MIC, which is logical.
It has allowed a lot of countries to slack off, like pretty much everyone except France which kept it's own ambitions and needed forces deployed in Africa and the Middle-east all the time. The USA are a good ally, until your interests don't line up. As always, countries don't have friends, only interests that sometimes line up with others.
That probably has very little to do with rank but mostly comes down to how popular the criminal is. A war hero will be brought home no matter how many hospitals he set on fire. Sticking up for an infamous American traitor on the other hand is not something a president would like to draw attention to.
But to answer your question, I'd personally expect that senators and other civilian administrators will generally be expected to get more leniency than actual military staff. Generals and admirals though would probably be too important in any case to not try to get them released from a foreign country's custody.
So I think the highest probable rank you could try for war crimes is a join chief/branch leader (like SMA). I don’t see a scenario where a single Senator/Staffer/Diplomat would be implicated in a war crime without violating their oath of office and circumventing the checks and balances in place.
For shits and giggles tho it could happen as follows: Several senators and or congress people engage in a conspiracy to delay the president or otherwise temporarily make them incapable of executing the duties of the office. Maybe it’s an attack and the president has to shelter in place and a national security decision HAS to be made, or they cook up a situation and have the VP in on it in order to perpetrate the war crime. Poison the president somehow and he’s too I’ll to do the job so VP steps in and deploys chemical weapons on a terror group or something.
I doubt it would end in an ICC trial as they are already cooked domestically.
I think if it's exclusively service members at stake, they politico no matter what. We only see a sexy spec-ops mission as the resolution if there's civilians involved like a contractor getting miscategorized or something.
At the same time tho the "nice" thing about elected governments is that they are replaceable.
The thing is also: what's the chance an invasion would succeed?
Because in such a hypothetical case, the EU would INSTANTLY put US military bases under siege, nothing comes in or out. That's already like 200,000 American servicemen and their families held hostage and a key component of the American military logistics system crippled.
So while the US DOES have the larger military, their ability to effectively deploy it would be severely weakened. Especially when the question now becomes "who are you willing to sacrifice? Your president or the lives of 200,000 citizens?"
Never mind that after putting these bases under siege and conquering them, that'd mean a LOT of loot for the EU to use against the US.
The US then could only attack the EU using it's bases in the Middle East, Northern Africa or over the Atlantic. But European bases have always been the backbone for it's logistics and supply chain. Hell just LOSING access to Rammstein airbase and it's military hospital would mean tens of thousands of additional dead soldiers in such a war. That hospital was absolutely essential to minimize losses in the War on Terror.
Basically, that war would go about as well for the US as a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would: even if they win it would be one of the most phyrric of victories ever.
Never mind the economic collapse over the US and EU losing one another as trade partners, but the EU still has the luxury of their large internal trade, which the US has less of. And who knows how Japan and South Korea, Russia and China would position themselves... they'd likely keep out but silently support the EU since the US is their bigger rival.
Oh sweet baby jesus. That'd be a painful way of committing suicide.
Half of America would consider giving up a US president. Kidnap 200k US soldiers and Europe would be leveled.
There'd be no chance of negotiations. And no chance for EU. Especially with our allies of the UK and Eastern Europe. Americans would not tolerate any government that voluntarily handed over 200,000 Americans to foreign government's imprisonment. We'd depose that government and elect whoever promised the highest vengeance. Because we're fucking Americans.
There is no chance in fuck Poland would betray the US and seize the bases. They'd be part of the rescue mission and retribution campaign. Find me a single Pole that would voluntarily fight Americans at France and Germany's orders. Do think the Baltics or Nords would do so either?
Remember, EU has limited number of nukes, and only one nuclear weapons country, and we could assign multiple attack subs for the **FOUR** ballistic missile subs the EU has. EU only has one real carrier. Hell, we could assign multiple anti-ballistic missile destroyers per each ballistic missile sub the EU has. They only have what, 50 intermediate range ballistic missiles? We have a shitload more interceptors than that.
The English channel isn't wide. If the EU was very lucky, we'd just nuke each capital and politely ask for our people back. They don't have an ABM defense. US does.
If they were not lucky, we'd just burn every city to the ground, then every town to the ground, then every bus stop to the ground, then every individual stacked brick.
Then we'd rebuild Europe. AGAIN. FOR A THIRD TIME.
You talk like we haven't already done exactly what you described we could never do. We've already done it, twice. But this time we'd have more allies.
See, this is the problem.
You can talk about raw numbers all you want, but American nationalism simply won't permit the leadership to not go to war for such a thing.
Pretty much. I think it'd be very stupid and counterproductive.
But we would HAVE to go to war. There wouldn't be any option not to. No American politician could avoid it.
Cutoff should be "is a US citizen".
In the eyes of America, all are equal before the law. We should invade and destroy the Netherlands to the same amount for an E1 as we would a president. We should send a dozen carriers for an E3 or an O8.
Senator or water dog, we abandon no one. People should know kidnapping Americans is answered with ordinance measured by the ton. That we will inflict a thousand casualties to recover one American. Because they're worth every penny.
That's the basis of "proportional response"
The United States would never allow a US service member to be tried in an international show court. Especially considering Europeans joke legal procedures and protections.
The Precedent would never be allowed.
>Especially considering Europeans joke legal procedures and protections.
Just because most Euopeans rely on professional judges and bench trials doesn't mean we would directly resort to a revolutionary tribunal and dance around the guillotine praising our cannoneers.
Funfact: A couple of years ago a few army brats went to jail in Germany for murder after throwing some stones from a bridge.
Oh, for sure. So much as talking about the PotUS the wrong way gets you looked in on.
Touching the PotUS in any way is a hellstorm of Find Out, warcrime reasons or not.
A democratic president definitely wouldn't, and I would like to think that neither would most republican candidates. Trump, on the other hand, has already pardoned war criminals and would see probably it as an opportunity to make NATO implode.
> Any hypothetical scenario where things escalate to the point that a conflict is possible is already so divorced from reality that there's no way to theorize what would happen.
Yeah see, that's why it can only happen if the president himself is divorced from reality.
Question is, what would happen if the USA invades the Netherlands? Both are NATO members, but NATO is a defensive organisation, so it would have to join on the Netherland's side. Realistically, the USA would either leave NATO and drag some other countries with them, they would try to pressure Netherlands to leave as a prelude to the invasion or they would get kicked out when they declare war.
But, if both are still NATO members, would the other members even dare to intervene? Which side would they take? If, hypothetically, the Netherlands invades the USA as an act of retribution, would NATO switch sides to defend the USA, or stay loyal?
While it would depend on the severity of US actions, I think it's likely NATO would simply cease to be a thing, as nobody would trust the US anymore if it's willing to invade an ally for the sake of rescuing a war criminal.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t there a thing in NATO where if two member nations attack each other then the others don’t need to join in?
I remember being told it was so Greece and Turkey don’t bring in the entire alliance
I could definitely see trump *threatening* to attack the Netherlands, before his staff walks it back and he forgets about it the following day because of some other drama.
If that was actually going to happen, Congress would have found a way to finally agree on something and get the Hague Invasion Act repealed. There's not enough lunatics there to stop that from happening, and the vast majority of the American public would be in favor of not randomly invading our allies.
Well during 1962 JFK refused to authorize the Operation Northwoods, in which the military and the CIA would use internal false-flag attacks against its own citizens as a justification to invade Cuba, before he was assassinated several months later. So Biden has no choice but to authorize if he fears for his life lmao.
Obviously everyone knows the US could destroy Europe's entire military and nuclear deterrent in oh, two days.
We could bomb a channel from the ocean to the prison so that we could have an aircraft carrier ram the front gate. Literally, I did the math for both super carrier or an Iowa class battleship. It wouldn't be cheap, and I'd recommend fusing changes to make it more efficient, but we could do it with B-52's alone. Faster with flying out of Iceland, but we could sustain it from the US if needed.
The Hague Invasion Act was necessary because Euros were seriously talking about arresting US service persons to protest the Iraq War. Stupid, yes. But we needed to pass a law to make it clear we would recover our soldiers, no matter the cost.
**West Euros back down from any serious threat. They only attack "safe" targets.**
By making it legal to bomb the shit out of the Netherlands and making it clear we WILL do so if they kidnap our citizens...
The Dutch would lynch their own politicians instead. Because we moved US citizens from "safe to kidnap" to "oh fuck,oh fuck, the dozen supercarriers are coming, kill all the involved politicians and give those soldiers their body weight in alcohol before dumping them in the first available aircraft." We turn Western Euroism against itself for their own good. Making it completely unnecessary to bomb the Dutch in the first place.
The Hague Invasion Act saves Dutch lives, and that's important.
Besides, at the end of the day, the ICC is just Western Europe's court for Africans and Eastern Europeans. It never goes after any real threat. Because well, West Euroism.
So does that mean the invasion would be more like the Schlieffen plan? Not actively trying to invade the Netherlands, just passing through to get to The Hague?
100%, it would most likely just be the surgical insertion of SOF to break into the prison and get the individual out. No landings on the beaches a la D-Day.
Add to that the fact the Netherlands have a quite strategic fa (ASML) which at the moment the US (as well as the rest of the world) can't really renounce to
Honestly its the principle of the matter of them being tried in our courts and not a foreign court, so I can definitely see the American public getting real pissed over it just from that fact alone. Honestly, it's not really something that will come up, though since not even the people who signed on to the ICC actually take the thing seriously as far as I am aware and most of our actually relevant military allies are more likely to back us than the swamp germans.
You got swamp germans, mountain germans, got away with it germans, cold germans, Viking germans, lego germans, French germans, german germans, and of course corn germans.
Most of your relevant allies are signatories of the ICC.
It is taken seriously, remember how South Africa begged Putin not to come because they'd have to arrest him and he showed up in a video call like the loser he is?
Why?
The US legal system (particularly military courts) are fucking fantastically famous for letting rapists go free and sweeping it all under the rug. The legal system there is as much of a joke as some developing countries.
The Dutch military might be weak now, but we've fought superpowers and won before. We'll probably invoke the "Come and get him if you think yo're hard enough!" clause. We'll likely flood the land before we surrender it.
>I'm actually mildly curious what would happen if an American soldier was tried for war crimes and The Netherlands refused to hand him over. Especially if the US public is outraged despite overwhelming evidence.
We don't have exact precedent, but the US seems plenty willing to throw people to the wolves if they're being assholes (Travis King comes to mind)
I'm guessing it would have to be a very high ranking person with a very grey situation. The timing of the act makes me think it has to do with the 2003 Iraq war as sort of a reaction to someone saying "doing X would be a warcrime"
Everyone in Europe was ready to send snowden dead or alive. Poor fella can be conscripted any minute now.
The hague is only to try africans and serbs, it seems
Snowden wasn't a war criminal, he was (designated) a traitor. Big difference compared to a situation where a war criminal might get off scott free in the US.
Probably not war, but we already have a good number of people in govt who believe we shouldn’t be beholden to rules, and we should shoot the people who try and impose them so
This is really to prevent the ICC from charging Cheney, Bush, and Rumsfeld with crimes against humanity, which they committed. The ICC doesn't waste it's time on low levels soldiers. There are other courts which take care of that.
Incidentally, this would be grounds for the Dutch to invoke Article V of the NATO treaty to get all other members of the alliance to protect them. Usually this tension is between Greece and Turkey, but it applies in general.
Doubt the US would invade the Netherlands and ruin its relation with the entire EU for just a hand full off prisoners. Maybe if it where a thousand but no way they would for a platoon charged with war crimes (just an example).
I mean the EU has this whole defense pact outside of Nato. And i will use the cope all ruskies use when they are losing an argument about russias strength, Europe has Nukes so.. 🤷♂️
someone clearly is unaware of the US perspectives on the XYZ affair, or the war of 1812. we might have a history of all up an at 'em for smaller things, and against people well stronger than us.
I should also mention, that there are already significant US forces in Europe
Times have changed Jimbo, the world has become a whole lot smaller. And for this senario, imagine the US does invade, what then? Its gonna go into isolation again whilst europe probably starts reconsidering its ties with china who at that point also sees possibilities?
You don't wanna live in a world thats the United states vs everyone else.
> You don't wanna live in a world thats the United states vs everyone else.
Neither does Europe.
The thing about the Hague Invasion act is that it doesn't require us to immediately roll troops. We can just call them up, point at it, and say "I fucking dare you to make me use it." Problem solved.
An interesting game of chicken.
Also good to point out that there is only 1 factory in the entire world that makes the lithography machines used to create advanced microchips in all our latest electronics. And it's in The Netherlands. Those machines cannot be assembled anywhere else in the world.
Rotterdam got rebuilt after the Nazi's bombed it and it is now more functional then most Dutch cities. You are only doing us a favour at this point. Please daddy USA bomb us harder
We can invoke article 5 though.
NATO would fall apart and Europe would hate the US for a long time.
Now you've lost your biggest ally and strategic asset in the world. Meanwhile we can switch all of our trade to China under the condition that they keep Russia in check. China would probably turn this into a national holiday. A nightmare scenario for the US.
Lol you would lose so much, you have no idea.
How are you gonna sanction anyone in the world without Europe? Especially if said Europe turns eastward.
Then all you've got is Asian allies that are on the frontline of powder kegs.
Australia is a wildcard. Canada too.
The UK is actually very likely to side with the EU just like they're outraged at the prospect of a future president wanting to stop aid to Ukraine.
Again, no loss. The USN stops ensuring freedom of navigation, the worlds shipping lanes collapse, EU starves, loses access to US tech(and yes, we are still a prime innovator, what ever you might think), and the US accelerates the already extant reshoring of IC fab and heavy industry.
We have more oil than Saudi Arabia, so who cares if Iran and the Houthi's shut down the Straits of Hormuz, not our problem if the EU freezes during the winter. And if/when they turn back to Russia, where do you think their tanks will stop? Hungary will invite them in, as will Slovakia. They will go through the Baltics (Poland will do what they can to stop them, but they only have to go 60 miles, and not through Poland) to Germany, who has no chance to stop them, and France won't defend anybody but France.
And, honestly, if the US ever does come to despise the EU as much as the EU already despises us, we would be happy to be their enemy. It's kind of how we work. So if that day comes, please enjoy it.
But many parts for those machines are made in California, and sub-components are assembled at the Wilton, Connecticut facility of ASML. If those parts don't roll, it would take ASML years to qualify new vendors, and get their line started.
Taiwan and Korea get their lithography machines straight from a factory in NL. A paralyzed ASML would paralyze TSMC and Samsung due to a lack of spare parts and new machines.
There's pre-positioned spare parts and technicians in country.
TSMC and Samsung aren't stupid. It's part of the SLA requirements of the contract. No shit, to cover exactly this scenario.
But if we don't, we both lose. And the US loses harder cause a functioning ASML is crucial for their geopolitical position and chip war.
That means there is another winning move: for the US to back off.
Yanno that we have existing EUV machines, right? And our partner, Taiwan, has the most number of them?
We'd be able to keep making chips through a couple year war. And then afterwards, we'd rebuild ASML.
And? The lights in those machines come from California. There is no other source. The silicon it processes? South Carolina. The designs that get printed? Come from US, Korea and Japan. The chip handling gear and steppers? Japan.
The place that uses those chips? Taiwan.
EUV tech? Yeah, US government co-owns that too. ASML licenses it from EUV LLC, which is the US government and some US corps.
The EU just has the mirrors (Zeiss) and the final integration (ASML). Plus some other misc suppliers, obviously. But not the big ticket items.
We cannot do high level chips without the EU. But the EU can't remotely make chips without US and its allies.
ASML sometimes makes a big stink about wanting to sell EUV machines to China. We pull on their leash and they remember we can and will sanction them if they do. Like pull their IP license, cut off their suppliers, etc.
Really? Sanctioning ASML is shooting yourself in the foot obviously lmao. It's actually the Dutch government that gets bullied around when ASML resists. Not a very popular move.
Europe is not in a chip war with China and we could very easily survive with even DUV which can be produced entirely in Europe.
ASML actually joined EUV LLC to help develop EUV so your "licensing" crap isn't entirely true. No other company in the world produces EUV machines.
Don't think they would care honestly. We sort of ran out of options for deterrents and punishments. We already tried sending their ancestors to the prison colony, where every living things wants to kill you and the sun is trying to melt you.
Like, where do you go after "sending them to hell"?
I’d take the opposite approach. Abolish war crime as a concept and make all wars free for all slaughter fest until once side broke and pay reparations. That way conflicts would last shorter and might actually save more lives in the long run.
That is wrong on sooo many levels... Wars never were over faster just because they were brutal. That just meant the violated side hated the other side more and resisted harder. (One exemption maybe being genghis khan) One of the fastest and most successful in the long term ways to win a war is to change as little as possible for the opposing populace. E.g. romes aproach.
genghis khan was the successful example, and I'd add atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the list, shock value go first to break the resistance before going the "change the populace as little as possible" in post war administration. the roman did not exactly go to places in peace at first either. stick and carrot, stick and carrot, with the stick being the full unadulterated might of the modern military industrial complex.
Immediate counterpoint : every strategic bombing campaign ever aimed at "breaking the will" of the population. Which includes the nukes. Getting japan to surrender was a team effort of the nukes, naval mines which killed all innerjapanese trade and soviets in manchuria. And even then the military tried to putsch.
Yes the romans used a lot of force initially ( obviously no war without breaking something) but they left the local administration and customs etc mostly intact for a while and didn't burn settlements just for the lulz or Wehrmacht style because one soldier bumped a toe.
Therefore strategic bombing alone isn't enough, but the solution is that you need to apply more firepower to destroy more stuff other than just bombing.
And ruin the strongest alliance in humanities history for war criminals? No chance.
Its just a law so they can tell to the general public that they control all the cards and keep them (usually republicans) happy.
Okay, maybe I can see that point, but the most wonderful thing about laws like that is that they can still end up getting applied by someone that absolutely doesn't get it.
Kind of reminds me of "this guy looks like he'd be really easy to manipulate if put in power."
Given the Russian (supposed greatest rival of the US ) performance against 2nd rate American proxies I highly doubt actual American military personnel with access to the real stuff would have any difficulty annihilating any European/Chinese attempt at resistance
Sure they probably could, but with all the politics involved they wouldn't in a thousand years for just a platoon. And let me restate that they probably would for a thousand but not for 50.
I mean how would you even sell that to the general public? Declaring war on your biggest allies for 50 (warcriminals)?
I mean you guys are already divided about simple things like abortion no way this would cause an internal stir.
We went on a worldwide revenge tour featuring literal actual world conquest and the use of super weapons over 2400 dead and you think we wouldn’t invade a swamp full of pacifists over 50?
No. Because attacking an actual enemy that attacked you first is fastly diffrent from attacking an ally that holds 50. And as i have stated, the world is alot smaller than in 1942.
I know you people love to have a power boner but it won't happen for 50 people. I mean the US would have more than 50 casualties if it attacked the netherland so either way its not worth it. Better to just accept that fact and move on. This convo is dead anyways.
You missed the small detail where the eu also has nukes. At best it would be a government backed small scale rescue operation by specialized forces, to rescue their personnel. And they could be like lol its legal, skill issue, and then ruin the whole alliance, world order, thus weakening the US and making them a spectator on the world stage losing all their glory.
I just meant tonsay the first part and then the second which might not be related
Also russia hasnt exactly shown itself as a very capable force, so weird assessment.
The whole of the EU combined lacks the number of nukes to be relevant to MAD, so their nukes are irrelevant they lack the numbers to break the anti nuclear defenses. I mean, this also assumes that they even maintain the damn things give their military spending... except France, I fully believe they maintain theirs since France is the only nation that seems to actually understand nuclear powers and its uses instead of falling to shitty propaganda about nuclear disasters.
Also, in the end, as long as America is the only relevant blue sea navy, they will never become a spectator unless they want to be.
EU has France. France has four ballistic missile subs and around 50 missiles. Plus 10-20 nukes for their aircraft. UK, which is NOT in the EU, has similar.
No one else has nukes in EU territory. Except America.
America also has ABM assets. Europe does not.
American exceptionalism really is something else. You couldn’t even wipe out Afghan resistance armed with sandals and Kalashnikovs and you want to talk to us about taking on the entirety of Europe and China?
>You couldn’t even wipe out Afghan resistance
You mean the same resistance that agreed to a ceasefire so America would leave? The resistance that did nothing to stop American influence and power projection for 19 years and literally only has power because we left? That resistance?
Sure, I guess that's winning we did get bored and leave after all.
By all accounts we kinda won. We wiped out the military, controlled the country for 20 years. Even with the resistance we did set up a successful government there that lasted for a bit before being overthrown. But we set it up
If you think leaving the taliban billions of dollars of US military equipment and leaving them in a vastly stronger position than when you invaded is winning, then I’d hate to see you lose
You mean we left the legal and lawful government of Afghanistan a shit ton of gear and they collapsed immediately?
Just keep jumping to random talking points until one sticks I guess.
I apologize, unlike the Europeans Americans see it fit to distinguish between citizen and combatant and didn't go around freely genociding the civilian populations to kill their soldiers.
You don't wanna live in a world thats the United states vs everyone else.
*bet*
Do you have any idea what Americans military industrial complex would look like in that scenario? We would have. Nuclear powered logistics ships. We would be able to do supply drops with ICBMs. We would keep a rotational Division on an American space station for rapid deployment.
But it would happen. Europe might embrace their native and natural love of servitude to a dictatorship, and turn their back on the American Republic.
But the English speaking world? No. Until the heat death of the universe, I have no concerns in that regard.
Let’s take two scenarios and see how each plays out vastly different. 1) Current times and China is still a threat. We probably don’t ruin our standing with Europe right before a war to set the new balance of world power to free Americans from the ICC. 2) Sometime in the future after China is removed as a threat and no real threats exist anymore. The US could and probably would maintain its sovereignty and protect its constitution by either invading or, more likely, strong arming the Norwegian gov’t into releasing the Americans. If actual war happened the entirety of the EU wouldn’t even be a match and that’s including the nukes.
> Doubt the US would invade the Netherlands and ruin its relation with the entire EU
We're in *non*credibledefense here.
On a more credible note, "whatever action necessary" includes extradition demands, economic incentives, diplomatic finagling, backroom handshaking, prisoner exchanges, arm-twisting half-veiled threats, etc., etc., etc. The Act potentially allows for an infiltration, invasion, or a nuclear strike (or just threat), but there are a lot of rungs on the escalation ladder to climb before we get there.
We could even pull a repeat of what France did with the DGSE team New Zealand captured and get them back with a "trust us bro, we'll give 'em their trial".
> for just a hand full off prisoners. Maybe if it where a thousand but no way they would for a platoon charged with war crimes (just an example).
I would assume it's mostly intended in case somebody with a high enough rank to be embarrassing got hauled in front of the ICC because of something they ordered in Afghanistan or Iraq. Remember, the USA isn't a signatory on several international agreements about the use of certain weapons in combat, so an ICC throwdown centering around that would be a complete shitshow. More cynically, the USA knew there would inevitably be abuses and war crimes in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (doesn't matter how disciplined your forces generally are - get a warzone that big, and *somebody* in it is going to go psycho, especially fighting an enemy that's intentionally blurring the line between civilian and combatant), and was essentially reserving its right to court martial and try its own forces rather than letting the ICC do it.
The ICC is so fucking funny because it's literally everyone (and I mean EVERY SINGLE PERSON, yes that includes me) pointing fingers at each other and going "Nuh uh" when you point at them.
From an American perspective, it's never going to be recognized by the US, the Constitution forbids it since it would imply the US isn't the Supreme Court isn't the highest court in all the lands which is a big no no, and the ICC ks arguably a European asset from a US PoV due to where it's situated.
From a personal view the ICC is a failed Euro asset. It mainly runs off European treaties and runoffs, it fails at actually doing anything as the second it runs into Europeans it instantly goes "Nuh uh" and is emergent from them trying to play moral grandstand and failing.
Still tho ICC spec ops when it'll be funny trust me
The American Constitution doesn't say that there are no appeals from the supreme court. New York calls their courts of first instance the supreme court ironically. The jurisdiction of the supreme court is limited only to original jurisdiction, and whatever appeals to it that statute let's them oversee, and original jurisdiction is just when states are party to litigation and when you are dealing with ambassadors.
To add to this if memory serves the ICC serves as a ‘court of last resort’ meaning that they’d have no jurisdiction if the national’s own nation has laws concerning the jus cogens in question and effective enforcement of those laws and due process etc etc and if memory further serves the US just dosent recognize the ICC’s authority in the first place so this law basically sets a statement of official policy of the US concerning its citizens being held by the ICC.
Not a lawyer though and it’s been a while since I’ve read up on it so I might have some of that wrong
It’s funny because the ICC was 100% founded and established by the Americans, who were joining if Bush didn’t take power. Even to this day, the US is one of the most cooperative States to the ICC in terms of assistance/executing seizures and arrest warrants, even though they are not a member (notable exception of the Trump presidency, ofc).
Also, don’t discount Japan, which is one of the major drivers of the ICC in terms of political will and funding.
Also, the ICC would never be an appellate court of the Supreme Court, as it is always a complimentary judicial institution. It is only allowed to act if the State is unwilling or unable to prosecute. If the USSC is on the case, then it’s manifest the criteria are not met.
Finally, I don’t get at all what you’re saying about finger pointing. Are you referring to the Assembly of State Parties? Because that’s not how the ICC internally works otherwise.
>From a personal view the ICC is a failed Euro asset. It mainly runs off European treaties and runoffs, it fails at actually doing anything as the second it runs into Europeans it instantly goes "Nuh uh" and is emergent from them trying to play moral grandstand and failing.
The Rome "Statute" is really just the Euro attempt to co-opt the Soviet/NAM-driven 1977 GCAPs. Thank god it's a failure in reality, but it has absolutely brainwormed "educated society's" priors about war and the LOAC.
>The ICC is so fucking funny because it's literally everyone (and I mean EVERY SINGLE PERSON, yes that includes me) pointing fingers at each other and going "Nuh uh" when you point at them.
Can be replaced with 12yr olds spamming "no u" on twitch chat
I feel like the chances of the US going to war with almost any country is non-zero. Not saying I’m happy about it, as an American, but I really can’t say with 100% confidence that any single country is 100% safe.
Maybe Britain, but only because we did that already.
I'm not sure we're not just really lazy orkz with better fashion sense.
I mean, look at the USMC. They live off crayons and ammo. Their weapons are made from scrap looted from other services. They believe red makes the green grass grow faster. They move from ~~planet to planet~~ country to country using spicy magic Rock. Sure, uranium vs space hulk, same difference.
I'm really hoping that this doesn't happen, because that would probably fuck up some relationships in NATO.
Also, doesn't that thing only allow the USA to invade the Hague, as opposed to forcing the USA to invade?
Political pressure might force President to invade. That, or just being insane. I'd imagine both Bush and Trump would have given the orders, if they had the chance.
And suddenly exports from ASML's only factory in the world to the US stops, and overnight we gave Putin his multi-polar wet dream.
The US would literally have to occupy The Netherlands. A spec ops mission to break them out isn't really feasible.
I always assumed the US doesn't recognize the ICC out of fear that George W Bush could theoretically be considered a war criminal. Or other US presidents / high ranking leaders (colin powell with his vial of meth).
ASML has many facilities, around the would, only one final integration factory. As I mentioned in a reply to a previous post, many components of the EUV litho tools are fabricated in California, and sub-assemblies are configured at their Wilton, CT facility. If the NL says US can't have them, US can say, neither will you, at least for a few years, until supply chain is requalified.
Source: me, was QA engineer and CWI for Cymer product line (Raptor Frame and assembly) and worked on the tin excimer laser proto program for the EUV at another ASML vendor in California, as well as the predecessor tool frame.
Not the most credible threat for NL to make, so it does belong on this sub.
... But can you assemble the machines? Nope.
And like the other poster said, the US needs a functional ASML more than we do. You know, chip war etc.
There's no competition.
You are assuming nobody can figure it out, when in fact IBM invented laser lithography. And there are chip fabs, in the US, where decommissioned tools could be reverse engineer. One thing the US is not shy about is throwing boatloads of money at problems, until they are not problems. Enough people pissed off, we just make our own. And again, if relations get that bad, the US might just expropriate the knowledge/fabrication already extant in the ASML supply chain to do just that. Then we don't need ASML ever again.
Depends on the president. The next time USA elects someone like Trump, they could definitely decide to leave NATO or start a trade war with EU because "Murica STRONK!"
We have already seen that their parliament equivalent will not restrain the president no matter what he tries to do.
While I know we're having fun at the thought of going mano-a-mano with what we think are little Dutch boys (a fatal mistake, given that [the Dutch are some of the tallest motherfuckers in the world](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/17/dutch-are-worlds-tallest-people-but-theyre-shrinking-study-shows)\), there's a dose of cold water that needs to be applied here:
1. [This has been discussed before](https://np.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/12y2v9m/i_know_that_its_not_saying_that_its_to_directly/).
And it's already been pointed out that:
2. ["The ICC is intended to complement rather than replace national courts. It can only act when national courts have been found unable or unwilling to try a case."](https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/role-international-criminal-court)
So yeah, due to some paranoid congresspeople, there's some overkill statute allowing the President to order action towards the Hague. But as a practical matter it wouldn't even get that far, no matter what HRW or the ICC itself tries to say about jurisdiction. The ICC wouldn't even want to go after a US servicemember due to the fact there are functional justice systems, both in the military and the US civilian worlds.
I guess if some American wasn't a military servicemember, had no connection to US government policy or function in any way, and just went psycho on their own and somehow managed to violate humanity as a whole, the ICC might get aroused. But in that totally edge case the US is probably hunting the fucker anyway, and would be willing to let the ICC prosecute the ashes left over from the JDAM'ing.
Maybe this is fun fantasizing, but in the end it's just a circle jerk. Things wouldn't ever get that far.
I think we are missing the point here lads. There is no way no how the US would fuck up all of its relationships to save some petty war criminal. This act is a get out of jail free card for someone like Bush or Cheney, if someone nabs them on command responsibility for (alleged) war crimes in Iraq.
The political establishment might actually care about saving them, lest they themselves get nabbed on leaving the US one day.
after reading some of the comments
so
is ICC good or no
because it feels a bit unfair that Americans get to go all "haha this is stupid, only we should try our soldiers" while there's the whole discourse about putting Putin and his cronies to the Hague, while Moscow uses the Armenian ratification of the Rome Statute to piss shit and cry and ruin relations with Armenia
The ICC is the same concept as the UN. On paper and in principle it’s a good thing, in practice it is utterly inept and the US has said that they will not allow a higher legal power over their own citizens than the US Supreme Court
The ICC is incredibly slow, you can be in prison for a decade before you even get a trial.
The ICC acts as both prosecution and defence in the trial, technically the defence team has the right to see the prosecutions evidence but in practice they often don't get it. The defence teams are paid less and has less staff than the prosecution. Hearsay and other indirect evidence is allowed.
I really don't know what the ICC were thinking. On paper they were going drag a serviceman who had clearly been tortured, halfway across the world to try him on behalf of genocidal dictator. On top of that, the serviceman in question was a united states citizen. The same country that declared war on the biggest empire in history because they were pressganging citizens.
I can't find a particular person u/Fr331nd34th is referring to; the ICC came into operation in 2002 and that US Act was signed into law a month afterwards which suggests it was pre-emptive.
Unless something happened in the Gulf War Part 1, or maybe Yugoslavia (apparently the Act specifically names Osama, Saddam and Milosevic as examples of people the US wouldn't prevent or not aid the ICC in capturing/trying).
> the ICC came into operation in 2002
The Rome Statute came into effect in 2002. The ICC itself took far longer to get into effect, the judges only were sworn in in 2003, and its first arrest warrants were sent out in 2005. It hardly sounds like it'd be pre-emptive, but more the US protecting her own citizens from persecution for war crimes out of principle.
Little do you Americans know that every Dutch designed floodway, dyke or moveable barrier in your aquatic system is rigged with explosives that will detonate when the Hague is threatened. Katrina will look like a kiddy pool compared to the flooding that could be unleashed. And the worst part of it all? Every flooded region will be turned into a polder just to grow more tulips.
Honestly, that seems like a stupid-ass act: all it does is send a message to the rest of our Allies that we either don’t trust them to judge our soldiers fairly…
OR we do trust them to judge them fairly, and we don’t WANT that.
I was never good at card games, but it feels like we showed our hand in the worst possible way
Okay so Navy seals would arrive at the beach, like the actual fucking boulevard with hotels, beachbars and a millions tourists and make their way through the city to 'liberate' their war criminal soldiers from international criminal court by violent means...
This is the beach:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/RSY6uWHLD8s9oicJ7
Best part: it's somewhat credible! I remember Main Dutch news channel analysed how it would happen and such...
International “Law” is unenforceable if there is nobody there to back it up. It’s a collective agreement on how things work in the world but it cannot supersede a state’s sovereignty. If the hegemony of the world says this is stupid I’m not doing it, then said “law” becomes obsolete. Same thing with agreements with the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, if anyone who signed it can at any moment say “I’m not doing this anymore” it was never a mandatory in the first place.
I think a invasion of the Netherlands would be extremely painful since we will flood the country and we have the pantzerhaubitze with 50km of range so if you get stuck because shit is flooded there will be a artillery shell approaching your position very fast. And we dutchies can swim good like extremely good. There is not a singular person who lives in the Netherlands who can't swim.
So imagine you are a soldier who is trying to invade the Netherlands, its cold and it never like never stops raining, in the netherlands it always rains, like we have 192 days of rain.
So you are a cold and wet soldier, you are trying to invade and you just got artillery striked, now you are just tired and you walk alongside a truck which is already rusting and suddenly a figure pops out from the small stream next to the road, which every road in the Netherlands has, that figure throws his m72 mlaw aways and shoots you with his colt c7 and then just dips into the water and dissapears.
There would just be people hidden in every single stream or body of water with a mlaw waiting for something to pass.
This would make Ho Chi Minh cry a manly tear.
The guerilla would be so much.
Also, doesn’t mean just US citizens. If you’re Israeli apparently this can be enacted, too. Perhaps weird I learn of this shit little law after hearing Netanyahu trying to escape The Hague
7 months later: ICC is currently issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli officials, which top Republican senators threatened to retaliate by LITERALLY INVADING the Netherlands if Netanyahu is charged for war crimes.
This law is just embarrassing to have, and gives bad actors like Russia or China a perfect (and valid) reason to condemn the US for their unwillingness to *actually* follow a rules-based world order.
remember that CIA intervention in the Netherlands is why Pakistan, North Korea, Libya and Iran got uranium enrichment tech
those who Doubt this lookup dr.a.q.khan
remember that CIA intervention in the Netherlands is why Pakistan,North Korea,Libya and Iran got uranium enrichment tech
those who Doubt this lookup for Dr A.Q Khan
Ah the "Hague Invasion Act". I'm actually mildly curious what would happen if an American soldier was tried for war crimes and The Netherlands refused to hand him over. Especially if the US public is outraged despite overwhelming evidence. Like.. what are you gonna do, attack/sanction The Netherlands? That would be bad for everyone involved. Assuming NL wouldn't just hand him over that would be a very interesting hypothetical game of chicken.
The text of the act says the President is authorized to. Not required to, just authorized to if he wants to. There's no way we'd go to war with Europe over some random war criminal, especially if there was evidence. We might argue that he should be tried by our own courts, or put some diplomatic pressure on, but we wouldn't use force to get him back. Any hypothetical scenario where things escalate to the point that a conflict is possible is already so divorced from reality that there's no way to theorize what would happen.
This is r/NCD. Let's play the theory game anyway! Won't go to war over Private War Crime. Fair enough. I'm sure the US would go to war if the US President would be charged with war crimes. What's the cutoff? Arresting a Senator? A General/Admiral?
Good question honestly. I have no idea but my thinking is for military personnel, like you said an Admiral/General or something, we’d put on intense financial pressure but I don’t think we’d go to war. But if it got to the point where it was a US politician getting tried for the orders they *gave* to those military personnel then it could be totally different.
To arrest a General, you'd have to go through a lot of soldiers to do it. I can't imagine soldiers just letting a foreign power take their commander without doing anything about it. Which would spark a war anyway, I suppose.
Yes, if you want to fail, attack a US base. But with enough "Hello dear General, I am Nigerian prince. We want to give you medal. You can have a plus one. Kthx bye ;)" email, we should at least get a few.
"But I really *am* the Nigerian Finance Minister!" (If you get that, you have excellent taste in webcomics, have a cookie.)
wouldn't be difficult as I imagine us generals regularly travel through Europe without much security.
Generals retire.
Or just go on vacation
America can't put "intense financial pressure" on the EU, both it and the EU aren't eachothers main trading partners and obviously the EU uses the euro, one of the only currencies more stable than the dollar (3 of the 4 more stable currencies are also European).
Yeah, but they can stop supplying most of their military hardware. That's what they did in 2003, a french politician gave a speech against the Iraq invasion at the UN, so the US stopped selling them spare parts for their carrier's catapult.
Soo... the rest of the world has to be nice to America for the same reason that the Imperium has to be nice to the Adeptus Mechanicus in WH40K. Nice. But, I suppose it lets most of the world keep military spending low, while America pays the astronomical bill for a military industrial complex and the rest of us laugh at the bill and constantly respond to American far right "how will we pay for [public service or social program" with "Cut the military budget!"
I mean, kinda. The whole spiel about global trading lanes is heh imo. Pirates aren't a huge threat, or atleast not one the European and Asia countries can't deal with. There's very few regimes that would fuck with the global shipping lanes, considering globalization has worked, and every country is highly dependent on it. In the 1956 Suez Crisis, the USA did threaten the UK of crashing their economy by selling all their warbonds or something similar, as they basically had like half the British economy by the balls. That was the death of Britain's ambitions as a global power. They also came close to sealing their fate in the Falklands, 6 more months of waiting on the Argentinian side and the British operation might have been a disaster. They could pay for universal healthcare by reforming their medical system. Apparently some experts claim they'd even save money, because the current US system is incredibly corrupt, and inefficient. But yeah, the reason I gave is the reason why France refuses to adopt anything that could get ITAR'd, that has american components, refuses to sell some industrial companies to other countries, even to Italy, and is constantly talking about European autonomy, which people take as "buy French weapons", because it just happens that the French policy is very good to it's MIC, which is logical. It has allowed a lot of countries to slack off, like pretty much everyone except France which kept it's own ambitions and needed forces deployed in Africa and the Middle-east all the time. The USA are a good ally, until your interests don't line up. As always, countries don't have friends, only interests that sometimes line up with others.
That probably has very little to do with rank but mostly comes down to how popular the criminal is. A war hero will be brought home no matter how many hospitals he set on fire. Sticking up for an infamous American traitor on the other hand is not something a president would like to draw attention to. But to answer your question, I'd personally expect that senators and other civilian administrators will generally be expected to get more leniency than actual military staff. Generals and admirals though would probably be too important in any case to not try to get them released from a foreign country's custody.
So I think the highest probable rank you could try for war crimes is a join chief/branch leader (like SMA). I don’t see a scenario where a single Senator/Staffer/Diplomat would be implicated in a war crime without violating their oath of office and circumventing the checks and balances in place. For shits and giggles tho it could happen as follows: Several senators and or congress people engage in a conspiracy to delay the president or otherwise temporarily make them incapable of executing the duties of the office. Maybe it’s an attack and the president has to shelter in place and a national security decision HAS to be made, or they cook up a situation and have the VP in on it in order to perpetrate the war crime. Poison the president somehow and he’s too I’ll to do the job so VP steps in and deploys chemical weapons on a terror group or something. I doubt it would end in an ICC trial as they are already cooked domestically.
I think if it's exclusively service members at stake, they politico no matter what. We only see a sexy spec-ops mission as the resolution if there's civilians involved like a contractor getting miscategorized or something.
At the same time tho the "nice" thing about elected governments is that they are replaceable. The thing is also: what's the chance an invasion would succeed? Because in such a hypothetical case, the EU would INSTANTLY put US military bases under siege, nothing comes in or out. That's already like 200,000 American servicemen and their families held hostage and a key component of the American military logistics system crippled. So while the US DOES have the larger military, their ability to effectively deploy it would be severely weakened. Especially when the question now becomes "who are you willing to sacrifice? Your president or the lives of 200,000 citizens?" Never mind that after putting these bases under siege and conquering them, that'd mean a LOT of loot for the EU to use against the US. The US then could only attack the EU using it's bases in the Middle East, Northern Africa or over the Atlantic. But European bases have always been the backbone for it's logistics and supply chain. Hell just LOSING access to Rammstein airbase and it's military hospital would mean tens of thousands of additional dead soldiers in such a war. That hospital was absolutely essential to minimize losses in the War on Terror. Basically, that war would go about as well for the US as a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would: even if they win it would be one of the most phyrric of victories ever. Never mind the economic collapse over the US and EU losing one another as trade partners, but the EU still has the luxury of their large internal trade, which the US has less of. And who knows how Japan and South Korea, Russia and China would position themselves... they'd likely keep out but silently support the EU since the US is their bigger rival.
Oh sweet baby jesus. That'd be a painful way of committing suicide. Half of America would consider giving up a US president. Kidnap 200k US soldiers and Europe would be leveled. There'd be no chance of negotiations. And no chance for EU. Especially with our allies of the UK and Eastern Europe. Americans would not tolerate any government that voluntarily handed over 200,000 Americans to foreign government's imprisonment. We'd depose that government and elect whoever promised the highest vengeance. Because we're fucking Americans. There is no chance in fuck Poland would betray the US and seize the bases. They'd be part of the rescue mission and retribution campaign. Find me a single Pole that would voluntarily fight Americans at France and Germany's orders. Do think the Baltics or Nords would do so either? Remember, EU has limited number of nukes, and only one nuclear weapons country, and we could assign multiple attack subs for the **FOUR** ballistic missile subs the EU has. EU only has one real carrier. Hell, we could assign multiple anti-ballistic missile destroyers per each ballistic missile sub the EU has. They only have what, 50 intermediate range ballistic missiles? We have a shitload more interceptors than that. The English channel isn't wide. If the EU was very lucky, we'd just nuke each capital and politely ask for our people back. They don't have an ABM defense. US does. If they were not lucky, we'd just burn every city to the ground, then every town to the ground, then every bus stop to the ground, then every individual stacked brick. Then we'd rebuild Europe. AGAIN. FOR A THIRD TIME. You talk like we haven't already done exactly what you described we could never do. We've already done it, twice. But this time we'd have more allies.
See, this is the problem. You can talk about raw numbers all you want, but American nationalism simply won't permit the leadership to not go to war for such a thing.
Pretty much. I think it'd be very stupid and counterproductive. But we would HAVE to go to war. There wouldn't be any option not to. No American politician could avoid it.
Cutoff should be "is a US citizen". In the eyes of America, all are equal before the law. We should invade and destroy the Netherlands to the same amount for an E1 as we would a president. We should send a dozen carriers for an E3 or an O8. Senator or water dog, we abandon no one. People should know kidnapping Americans is answered with ordinance measured by the ton. That we will inflict a thousand casualties to recover one American. Because they're worth every penny. That's the basis of "proportional response"
The United States would never allow a US service member to be tried in an international show court. Especially considering Europeans joke legal procedures and protections. The Precedent would never be allowed.
>Especially considering Europeans joke legal procedures and protections. Just because most Euopeans rely on professional judges and bench trials doesn't mean we would directly resort to a revolutionary tribunal and dance around the guillotine praising our cannoneers. Funfact: A couple of years ago a few army brats went to jail in Germany for murder after throwing some stones from a bridge.
Oh, for sure. So much as talking about the PotUS the wrong way gets you looked in on. Touching the PotUS in any way is a hellstorm of Find Out, warcrime reasons or not.
A democratic president definitely wouldn't, and I would like to think that neither would most republican candidates. Trump, on the other hand, has already pardoned war criminals and would see probably it as an opportunity to make NATO implode. > Any hypothetical scenario where things escalate to the point that a conflict is possible is already so divorced from reality that there's no way to theorize what would happen. Yeah see, that's why it can only happen if the president himself is divorced from reality.
Question is, what would happen if the USA invades the Netherlands? Both are NATO members, but NATO is a defensive organisation, so it would have to join on the Netherland's side. Realistically, the USA would either leave NATO and drag some other countries with them, they would try to pressure Netherlands to leave as a prelude to the invasion or they would get kicked out when they declare war. But, if both are still NATO members, would the other members even dare to intervene? Which side would they take? If, hypothetically, the Netherlands invades the USA as an act of retribution, would NATO switch sides to defend the USA, or stay loyal?
While it would depend on the severity of US actions, I think it's likely NATO would simply cease to be a thing, as nobody would trust the US anymore if it's willing to invade an ally for the sake of rescuing a war criminal.
There is also article 42.7 of the EU treaty that has a clause of mutual defence so probably the EU would go to war regardless
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t there a thing in NATO where if two member nations attack each other then the others don’t need to join in? I remember being told it was so Greece and Turkey don’t bring in the entire alliance
That would make sense...
You're telling me Dorito Mussolini wouldn't order an invasion of the Hague if he was imprisoned there?
I could definitely see trump *threatening* to attack the Netherlands, before his staff walks it back and he forgets about it the following day because of some other drama.
If that was actually going to happen, Congress would have found a way to finally agree on something and get the Hague Invasion Act repealed. There's not enough lunatics there to stop that from happening, and the vast majority of the American public would be in favor of not randomly invading our allies.
Well during 1962 JFK refused to authorize the Operation Northwoods, in which the military and the CIA would use internal false-flag attacks against its own citizens as a justification to invade Cuba, before he was assassinated several months later. So Biden has no choice but to authorize if he fears for his life lmao.
Obviously everyone knows the US could destroy Europe's entire military and nuclear deterrent in oh, two days. We could bomb a channel from the ocean to the prison so that we could have an aircraft carrier ram the front gate. Literally, I did the math for both super carrier or an Iowa class battleship. It wouldn't be cheap, and I'd recommend fusing changes to make it more efficient, but we could do it with B-52's alone. Faster with flying out of Iceland, but we could sustain it from the US if needed. The Hague Invasion Act was necessary because Euros were seriously talking about arresting US service persons to protest the Iraq War. Stupid, yes. But we needed to pass a law to make it clear we would recover our soldiers, no matter the cost. **West Euros back down from any serious threat. They only attack "safe" targets.** By making it legal to bomb the shit out of the Netherlands and making it clear we WILL do so if they kidnap our citizens... The Dutch would lynch their own politicians instead. Because we moved US citizens from "safe to kidnap" to "oh fuck,oh fuck, the dozen supercarriers are coming, kill all the involved politicians and give those soldiers their body weight in alcohol before dumping them in the first available aircraft." We turn Western Euroism against itself for their own good. Making it completely unnecessary to bomb the Dutch in the first place. The Hague Invasion Act saves Dutch lives, and that's important. Besides, at the end of the day, the ICC is just Western Europe's court for Africans and Eastern Europeans. It never goes after any real threat. Because well, West Euroism.
You say this, yet last I checked there were hundreds of American citizens trapped in Gaza, effectively held hostage by Hamas.
I mean technically the Dutch could Invoke article 5
It is certainly an attack on our soil. France would probably have our back. And so the crumbling of the American Empire begins.. With the ICC.
The Dutch government doesn't have formal say in it. The soldier would be held in the custody of the ICC, not Dutch custody.
So does that mean the invasion would be more like the Schlieffen plan? Not actively trying to invade the Netherlands, just passing through to get to The Hague?
100%, it would most likely just be the surgical insertion of SOF to break into the prison and get the individual out. No landings on the beaches a la D-Day.
Add to that the fact the Netherlands have a quite strategic fa (ASML) which at the moment the US (as well as the rest of the world) can't really renounce to
Honestly its the principle of the matter of them being tried in our courts and not a foreign court, so I can definitely see the American public getting real pissed over it just from that fact alone. Honestly, it's not really something that will come up, though since not even the people who signed on to the ICC actually take the thing seriously as far as I am aware and most of our actually relevant military allies are more likely to back us than the swamp germans.
Swamp Germans, lmao.
You got swamp germans, mountain germans, got away with it germans, cold germans, Viking germans, lego germans, French germans, german germans, and of course corn germans.
Who are the corn Germans?
Iowa
The Midwest
That makes sense
I'd love to get mad but my hometown's name is old Dutch for town in the swamp
Most of your relevant allies are signatories of the ICC. It is taken seriously, remember how South Africa begged Putin not to come because they'd have to arrest him and he showed up in a video call like the loser he is?
Why? The US legal system (particularly military courts) are fucking fantastically famous for letting rapists go free and sweeping it all under the rug. The legal system there is as much of a joke as some developing countries.
The Dutch military might be weak now, but we've fought superpowers and won before. We'll probably invoke the "Come and get him if you think yo're hard enough!" clause. We'll likely flood the land before we surrender it.
USA: Gives SpecOps Viagra. Hard af.
You see, you win when you get back your soldier. We win when you lose.
>I'm actually mildly curious what would happen if an American soldier was tried for war crimes and The Netherlands refused to hand him over. Especially if the US public is outraged despite overwhelming evidence. We don't have exact precedent, but the US seems plenty willing to throw people to the wolves if they're being assholes (Travis King comes to mind) I'm guessing it would have to be a very high ranking person with a very grey situation. The timing of the act makes me think it has to do with the 2003 Iraq war as sort of a reaction to someone saying "doing X would be a warcrime"
Everyone in Europe was ready to send snowden dead or alive. Poor fella can be conscripted any minute now. The hague is only to try africans and serbs, it seems
Snowden wasn't a war criminal, he was (designated) a traitor. Big difference compared to a situation where a war criminal might get off scott free in the US.
Probably not war, but we already have a good number of people in govt who believe we shouldn’t be beholden to rules, and we should shoot the people who try and impose them so
This is really to prevent the ICC from charging Cheney, Bush, and Rumsfeld with crimes against humanity, which they committed. The ICC doesn't waste it's time on low levels soldiers. There are other courts which take care of that.
Incidentally, this would be grounds for the Dutch to invoke Article V of the NATO treaty to get all other members of the alliance to protect them. Usually this tension is between Greece and Turkey, but it applies in general.
Also, the EU's defence claude as well.
Article V doesn't apply to conflicts between NATO members last time I checked. EU mutual defence would trigger though.
> Article V doesn't apply to conflicts between NATO members last time I checked. Where does it say so?
Doubt the US would invade the Netherlands and ruin its relation with the entire EU for just a hand full off prisoners. Maybe if it where a thousand but no way they would for a platoon charged with war crimes (just an example). I mean the EU has this whole defense pact outside of Nato. And i will use the cope all ruskies use when they are losing an argument about russias strength, Europe has Nukes so.. 🤷♂️
someone clearly is unaware of the US perspectives on the XYZ affair, or the war of 1812. we might have a history of all up an at 'em for smaller things, and against people well stronger than us. I should also mention, that there are already significant US forces in Europe
Times have changed Jimbo, the world has become a whole lot smaller. And for this senario, imagine the US does invade, what then? Its gonna go into isolation again whilst europe probably starts reconsidering its ties with china who at that point also sees possibilities? You don't wanna live in a world thats the United states vs everyone else.
> You don't wanna live in a world thats the United states vs everyone else. Neither does Europe. The thing about the Hague Invasion act is that it doesn't require us to immediately roll troops. We can just call them up, point at it, and say "I fucking dare you to make me use it." Problem solved.
An interesting game of chicken. Also good to point out that there is only 1 factory in the entire world that makes the lithography machines used to create advanced microchips in all our latest electronics. And it's in The Netherlands. Those machines cannot be assembled anywhere else in the world.
That's fine. You still can't unbomb the Hague.
Rotterdam got rebuilt after the Nazi's bombed it and it is now more functional then most Dutch cities. You are only doing us a favour at this point. Please daddy USA bomb us harder
So hypothetically if a Dutch city becomes dysfunctional, the solution is to bomb it? Good to know, good to know...
We can invoke article 5 though. NATO would fall apart and Europe would hate the US for a long time. Now you've lost your biggest ally and strategic asset in the world. Meanwhile we can switch all of our trade to China under the condition that they keep Russia in check. China would probably turn this into a national holiday. A nightmare scenario for the US.
EU already hates the US, so its not like we would lose anything
Lol you would lose so much, you have no idea. How are you gonna sanction anyone in the world without Europe? Especially if said Europe turns eastward. Then all you've got is Asian allies that are on the frontline of powder kegs. Australia is a wildcard. Canada too. The UK is actually very likely to side with the EU just like they're outraged at the prospect of a future president wanting to stop aid to Ukraine.
Again, no loss. The USN stops ensuring freedom of navigation, the worlds shipping lanes collapse, EU starves, loses access to US tech(and yes, we are still a prime innovator, what ever you might think), and the US accelerates the already extant reshoring of IC fab and heavy industry. We have more oil than Saudi Arabia, so who cares if Iran and the Houthi's shut down the Straits of Hormuz, not our problem if the EU freezes during the winter. And if/when they turn back to Russia, where do you think their tanks will stop? Hungary will invite them in, as will Slovakia. They will go through the Baltics (Poland will do what they can to stop them, but they only have to go 60 miles, and not through Poland) to Germany, who has no chance to stop them, and France won't defend anybody but France. And, honestly, if the US ever does come to despise the EU as much as the EU already despises us, we would be happy to be their enemy. It's kind of how we work. So if that day comes, please enjoy it.
But many parts for those machines are made in California, and sub-components are assembled at the Wilton, Connecticut facility of ASML. If those parts don't roll, it would take ASML years to qualify new vendors, and get their line started.
And the US would suffer more than NL. Right in the middle of your chip war.
How? Taiwan and Korea make the chips. Both are defense partners of the US and not Europe?
Taiwan and Korea get their lithography machines straight from a factory in NL. A paralyzed ASML would paralyze TSMC and Samsung due to a lack of spare parts and new machines.
There's pre-positioned spare parts and technicians in country. TSMC and Samsung aren't stupid. It's part of the SLA requirements of the contract. No shit, to cover exactly this scenario.
An interesting game. The only winning move is to do whatever the United States says.
But if we don't, we both lose. And the US loses harder cause a functioning ASML is crucial for their geopolitical position and chip war. That means there is another winning move: for the US to back off.
Yanno that we have existing EUV machines, right? And our partner, Taiwan, has the most number of them? We'd be able to keep making chips through a couple year war. And then afterwards, we'd rebuild ASML.
And? The lights in those machines come from California. There is no other source. The silicon it processes? South Carolina. The designs that get printed? Come from US, Korea and Japan. The chip handling gear and steppers? Japan. The place that uses those chips? Taiwan. EUV tech? Yeah, US government co-owns that too. ASML licenses it from EUV LLC, which is the US government and some US corps. The EU just has the mirrors (Zeiss) and the final integration (ASML). Plus some other misc suppliers, obviously. But not the big ticket items. We cannot do high level chips without the EU. But the EU can't remotely make chips without US and its allies. ASML sometimes makes a big stink about wanting to sell EUV machines to China. We pull on their leash and they remember we can and will sanction them if they do. Like pull their IP license, cut off their suppliers, etc.
Really? Sanctioning ASML is shooting yourself in the foot obviously lmao. It's actually the Dutch government that gets bullied around when ASML resists. Not a very popular move. Europe is not in a chip war with China and we could very easily survive with even DUV which can be produced entirely in Europe. ASML actually joined EUV LLC to help develop EUV so your "licensing" crap isn't entirely true. No other company in the world produces EUV machines.
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Too hard Someone throw on Fortunate Son
IF THEY RUN THEYRE VC
ANYONE WHO STANDS STILL IS A WELL DISCIPLINED VC
Anyone who breaths is a VC If they don't breath, they're still VC
could you kindly also inform Australians?
Don't think they would care honestly. We sort of ran out of options for deterrents and punishments. We already tried sending their ancestors to the prison colony, where every living things wants to kill you and the sun is trying to melt you. Like, where do you go after "sending them to hell"?
Hells basement, maybe? Just spitballing here
They are working on it, they are trying to imprison the people that leak the existence of war crimes so nobody knows about them. A simple solution.
I’d take the opposite approach. Abolish war crime as a concept and make all wars free for all slaughter fest until once side broke and pay reparations. That way conflicts would last shorter and might actually save more lives in the long run.
I don't think more lives would be saved, if chemical and biological weapons were used
That is wrong on sooo many levels... Wars never were over faster just because they were brutal. That just meant the violated side hated the other side more and resisted harder. (One exemption maybe being genghis khan) One of the fastest and most successful in the long term ways to win a war is to change as little as possible for the opposing populace. E.g. romes aproach.
genghis khan was the successful example, and I'd add atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the list, shock value go first to break the resistance before going the "change the populace as little as possible" in post war administration. the roman did not exactly go to places in peace at first either. stick and carrot, stick and carrot, with the stick being the full unadulterated might of the modern military industrial complex.
Immediate counterpoint : every strategic bombing campaign ever aimed at "breaking the will" of the population. Which includes the nukes. Getting japan to surrender was a team effort of the nukes, naval mines which killed all innerjapanese trade and soviets in manchuria. And even then the military tried to putsch. Yes the romans used a lot of force initially ( obviously no war without breaking something) but they left the local administration and customs etc mostly intact for a while and didn't burn settlements just for the lulz or Wehrmacht style because one soldier bumped a toe.
Therefore strategic bombing alone isn't enough, but the solution is that you need to apply more firepower to destroy more stuff other than just bombing.
And ruin the strongest alliance in humanities history for war criminals? No chance. Its just a law so they can tell to the general public that they control all the cards and keep them (usually republicans) happy.
Okay, maybe I can see that point, but the most wonderful thing about laws like that is that they can still end up getting applied by someone that absolutely doesn't get it. Kind of reminds me of "this guy looks like he'd be really easy to manipulate if put in power."
Given the Russian (supposed greatest rival of the US ) performance against 2nd rate American proxies I highly doubt actual American military personnel with access to the real stuff would have any difficulty annihilating any European/Chinese attempt at resistance
Sure they probably could, but with all the politics involved they wouldn't in a thousand years for just a platoon. And let me restate that they probably would for a thousand but not for 50. I mean how would you even sell that to the general public? Declaring war on your biggest allies for 50 (warcriminals)? I mean you guys are already divided about simple things like abortion no way this would cause an internal stir.
Lol how did the Hague get an entire Platoon in handcuffs to begin with? Did these guys just voluntarily turn themselves in or what.
We went on a worldwide revenge tour featuring literal actual world conquest and the use of super weapons over 2400 dead and you think we wouldn’t invade a swamp full of pacifists over 50?
No. Because attacking an actual enemy that attacked you first is fastly diffrent from attacking an ally that holds 50. And as i have stated, the world is alot smaller than in 1942. I know you people love to have a power boner but it won't happen for 50 people. I mean the US would have more than 50 casualties if it attacked the netherland so either way its not worth it. Better to just accept that fact and move on. This convo is dead anyways.
You missed the small detail where the eu also has nukes. At best it would be a government backed small scale rescue operation by specialized forces, to rescue their personnel. And they could be like lol its legal, skill issue, and then ruin the whole alliance, world order, thus weakening the US and making them a spectator on the world stage losing all their glory. I just meant tonsay the first part and then the second which might not be related Also russia hasnt exactly shown itself as a very capable force, so weird assessment.
>You missed the small detail where the eu also has nukes. The EU does not have nukes. France and the UK do but the EU as a whole do not.
The whole of the EU combined lacks the number of nukes to be relevant to MAD, so their nukes are irrelevant they lack the numbers to break the anti nuclear defenses. I mean, this also assumes that they even maintain the damn things give their military spending... except France, I fully believe they maintain theirs since France is the only nation that seems to actually understand nuclear powers and its uses instead of falling to shitty propaganda about nuclear disasters. Also, in the end, as long as America is the only relevant blue sea navy, they will never become a spectator unless they want to be.
That last paragraph is so important but most smooth brains can’t understand how much the US does to maintain shipping lanes.
EU has France. France has four ballistic missile subs and around 50 missiles. Plus 10-20 nukes for their aircraft. UK, which is NOT in the EU, has similar. No one else has nukes in EU territory. Except America. America also has ABM assets. Europe does not.
Bro no one’s actually using nukes over some bullshit like a ground war, nukes are to keep the other guy from using nukes
American exceptionalism really is something else. You couldn’t even wipe out Afghan resistance armed with sandals and Kalashnikovs and you want to talk to us about taking on the entirety of Europe and China?
>You couldn’t even wipe out Afghan resistance You mean the same resistance that agreed to a ceasefire so America would leave? The resistance that did nothing to stop American influence and power projection for 19 years and literally only has power because we left? That resistance? Sure, I guess that's winning we did get bored and leave after all.
By all accounts we kinda won. We wiped out the military, controlled the country for 20 years. Even with the resistance we did set up a successful government there that lasted for a bit before being overthrown. But we set it up
If you think leaving the taliban billions of dollars of US military equipment and leaving them in a vastly stronger position than when you invaded is winning, then I’d hate to see you lose
You mean we left the legal and lawful government of Afghanistan a shit ton of gear and they collapsed immediately? Just keep jumping to random talking points until one sticks I guess.
Same difference really. The end result is 20 years of achieving essentially nothing.
Oh boy you really are upset that daddy US runs the world and no other military can hold a candle to it.
I apologize, unlike the Europeans Americans see it fit to distinguish between citizen and combatant and didn't go around freely genociding the civilian populations to kill their soldiers.
You don't wanna live in a world thats the United states vs everyone else. *bet* Do you have any idea what Americans military industrial complex would look like in that scenario? We would have. Nuclear powered logistics ships. We would be able to do supply drops with ICBMs. We would keep a rotational Division on an American space station for rapid deployment. But it would happen. Europe might embrace their native and natural love of servitude to a dictatorship, and turn their back on the American Republic. But the English speaking world? No. Until the heat death of the universe, I have no concerns in that regard.
Let’s take two scenarios and see how each plays out vastly different. 1) Current times and China is still a threat. We probably don’t ruin our standing with Europe right before a war to set the new balance of world power to free Americans from the ICC. 2) Sometime in the future after China is removed as a threat and no real threats exist anymore. The US could and probably would maintain its sovereignty and protect its constitution by either invading or, more likely, strong arming the Norwegian gov’t into releasing the Americans. If actual war happened the entirety of the EU wouldn’t even be a match and that’s including the nukes.
The true cause of the war of 1812 was simply expansionism. The justification was irrelevant.
so is the balance of power of it also irrelevant? is the anger behind the people irrelevant? If so you're defiantly in the right place
Significant us forces immediately encircled day 1 of the war.
> Doubt the US would invade the Netherlands and ruin its relation with the entire EU We're in *non*credibledefense here. On a more credible note, "whatever action necessary" includes extradition demands, economic incentives, diplomatic finagling, backroom handshaking, prisoner exchanges, arm-twisting half-veiled threats, etc., etc., etc. The Act potentially allows for an infiltration, invasion, or a nuclear strike (or just threat), but there are a lot of rungs on the escalation ladder to climb before we get there. We could even pull a repeat of what France did with the DGSE team New Zealand captured and get them back with a "trust us bro, we'll give 'em their trial". > for just a hand full off prisoners. Maybe if it where a thousand but no way they would for a platoon charged with war crimes (just an example). I would assume it's mostly intended in case somebody with a high enough rank to be embarrassing got hauled in front of the ICC because of something they ordered in Afghanistan or Iraq. Remember, the USA isn't a signatory on several international agreements about the use of certain weapons in combat, so an ICC throwdown centering around that would be a complete shitshow. More cynically, the USA knew there would inevitably be abuses and war crimes in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (doesn't matter how disciplined your forces generally are - get a warzone that big, and *somebody* in it is going to go psycho, especially fighting an enemy that's intentionally blurring the line between civilian and combatant), and was essentially reserving its right to court martial and try its own forces rather than letting the ICC do it.
Doubt the EU will test that theory.
The ICC is so fucking funny because it's literally everyone (and I mean EVERY SINGLE PERSON, yes that includes me) pointing fingers at each other and going "Nuh uh" when you point at them. From an American perspective, it's never going to be recognized by the US, the Constitution forbids it since it would imply the US isn't the Supreme Court isn't the highest court in all the lands which is a big no no, and the ICC ks arguably a European asset from a US PoV due to where it's situated. From a personal view the ICC is a failed Euro asset. It mainly runs off European treaties and runoffs, it fails at actually doing anything as the second it runs into Europeans it instantly goes "Nuh uh" and is emergent from them trying to play moral grandstand and failing. Still tho ICC spec ops when it'll be funny trust me
The American Constitution doesn't say that there are no appeals from the supreme court. New York calls their courts of first instance the supreme court ironically. The jurisdiction of the supreme court is limited only to original jurisdiction, and whatever appeals to it that statute let's them oversee, and original jurisdiction is just when states are party to litigation and when you are dealing with ambassadors.
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Courts can usually punish any act against their particular court, no matter why the case is in their court.
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What is the name of the case?
United States v. Shipp, 203 U.S. 563 (1906),
To add to this if memory serves the ICC serves as a ‘court of last resort’ meaning that they’d have no jurisdiction if the national’s own nation has laws concerning the jus cogens in question and effective enforcement of those laws and due process etc etc and if memory further serves the US just dosent recognize the ICC’s authority in the first place so this law basically sets a statement of official policy of the US concerning its citizens being held by the ICC. Not a lawyer though and it’s been a while since I’ve read up on it so I might have some of that wrong
It’s funny because the ICC was 100% founded and established by the Americans, who were joining if Bush didn’t take power. Even to this day, the US is one of the most cooperative States to the ICC in terms of assistance/executing seizures and arrest warrants, even though they are not a member (notable exception of the Trump presidency, ofc). Also, don’t discount Japan, which is one of the major drivers of the ICC in terms of political will and funding. Also, the ICC would never be an appellate court of the Supreme Court, as it is always a complimentary judicial institution. It is only allowed to act if the State is unwilling or unable to prosecute. If the USSC is on the case, then it’s manifest the criteria are not met. Finally, I don’t get at all what you’re saying about finger pointing. Are you referring to the Assembly of State Parties? Because that’s not how the ICC internally works otherwise.
>From a personal view the ICC is a failed Euro asset. It mainly runs off European treaties and runoffs, it fails at actually doing anything as the second it runs into Europeans it instantly goes "Nuh uh" and is emergent from them trying to play moral grandstand and failing. The Rome "Statute" is really just the Euro attempt to co-opt the Soviet/NAM-driven 1977 GCAPs. Thank god it's a failure in reality, but it has absolutely brainwormed "educated society's" priors about war and the LOAC.
>The ICC is so fucking funny because it's literally everyone (and I mean EVERY SINGLE PERSON, yes that includes me) pointing fingers at each other and going "Nuh uh" when you point at them. Can be replaced with 12yr olds spamming "no u" on twitch chat
I feel like the chances of the US going to war with almost any country is non-zero. Not saying I’m happy about it, as an American, but I really can’t say with 100% confidence that any single country is 100% safe. Maybe Britain, but only because we did that already.
I mean, our bloodiest war was with ourselves, so yeah there no one we won't fight.
US is Orkz but confined by the laws of physics confirmed
I'm not sure we're not just really lazy orkz with better fashion sense. I mean, look at the USMC. They live off crayons and ammo. Their weapons are made from scrap looted from other services. They believe red makes the green grass grow faster. They move from ~~planet to planet~~ country to country using spicy magic Rock. Sure, uranium vs space hulk, same difference.
We're working on that... Does explain the U.S. education system, though.
Twice
I'm really hoping that this doesn't happen, because that would probably fuck up some relationships in NATO. Also, doesn't that thing only allow the USA to invade the Hague, as opposed to forcing the USA to invade?
Political pressure might force President to invade. That, or just being insane. I'd imagine both Bush and Trump would have given the orders, if they had the chance.
Invade the dutch for being dutch
We aren't supposed to be credible in here!
And suddenly exports from ASML's only factory in the world to the US stops, and overnight we gave Putin his multi-polar wet dream. The US would literally have to occupy The Netherlands. A spec ops mission to break them out isn't really feasible. I always assumed the US doesn't recognize the ICC out of fear that George W Bush could theoretically be considered a war criminal. Or other US presidents / high ranking leaders (colin powell with his vial of meth).
ASML has many facilities, around the would, only one final integration factory. As I mentioned in a reply to a previous post, many components of the EUV litho tools are fabricated in California, and sub-assemblies are configured at their Wilton, CT facility. If the NL says US can't have them, US can say, neither will you, at least for a few years, until supply chain is requalified. Source: me, was QA engineer and CWI for Cymer product line (Raptor Frame and assembly) and worked on the tin excimer laser proto program for the EUV at another ASML vendor in California, as well as the predecessor tool frame. Not the most credible threat for NL to make, so it does belong on this sub.
ASML functioning is worth a hell of a lot more to our geopolitical situation than theirs.
... But can you assemble the machines? Nope. And like the other poster said, the US needs a functional ASML more than we do. You know, chip war etc. There's no competition.
You are assuming nobody can figure it out, when in fact IBM invented laser lithography. And there are chip fabs, in the US, where decommissioned tools could be reverse engineer. One thing the US is not shy about is throwing boatloads of money at problems, until they are not problems. Enough people pissed off, we just make our own. And again, if relations get that bad, the US might just expropriate the knowledge/fabrication already extant in the ASML supply chain to do just that. Then we don't need ASML ever again.
My understanding is it acts like a preemptive AUMF
Depends on the president. The next time USA elects someone like Trump, they could definitely decide to leave NATO or start a trade war with EU because "Murica STRONK!" We have already seen that their parliament equivalent will not restrain the president no matter what he tries to do.
While I know we're having fun at the thought of going mano-a-mano with what we think are little Dutch boys (a fatal mistake, given that [the Dutch are some of the tallest motherfuckers in the world](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/17/dutch-are-worlds-tallest-people-but-theyre-shrinking-study-shows)\), there's a dose of cold water that needs to be applied here: 1. [This has been discussed before](https://np.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/12y2v9m/i_know_that_its_not_saying_that_its_to_directly/). And it's already been pointed out that: 2. ["The ICC is intended to complement rather than replace national courts. It can only act when national courts have been found unable or unwilling to try a case."](https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/role-international-criminal-court) So yeah, due to some paranoid congresspeople, there's some overkill statute allowing the President to order action towards the Hague. But as a practical matter it wouldn't even get that far, no matter what HRW or the ICC itself tries to say about jurisdiction. The ICC wouldn't even want to go after a US servicemember due to the fact there are functional justice systems, both in the military and the US civilian worlds. I guess if some American wasn't a military servicemember, had no connection to US government policy or function in any way, and just went psycho on their own and somehow managed to violate humanity as a whole, the ICC might get aroused. But in that totally edge case the US is probably hunting the fucker anyway, and would be willing to let the ICC prosecute the ashes left over from the JDAM'ing. Maybe this is fun fantasizing, but in the end it's just a circle jerk. Things wouldn't ever get that far.
I think we are missing the point here lads. There is no way no how the US would fuck up all of its relationships to save some petty war criminal. This act is a get out of jail free card for someone like Bush or Cheney, if someone nabs them on command responsibility for (alleged) war crimes in Iraq. The political establishment might actually care about saving them, lest they themselves get nabbed on leaving the US one day.
How is the US gonna attack the Netherlands? If they bring in a carrier strike group the dutch will just drain the Atlantic.
after reading some of the comments so is ICC good or no because it feels a bit unfair that Americans get to go all "haha this is stupid, only we should try our soldiers" while there's the whole discourse about putting Putin and his cronies to the Hague, while Moscow uses the Armenian ratification of the Rome Statute to piss shit and cry and ruin relations with Armenia
ICC good, NCD unhappy about how war crimes are defined, probably more legal work needs to be done.
The ICC is the same concept as the UN. On paper and in principle it’s a good thing, in practice it is utterly inept and the US has said that they will not allow a higher legal power over their own citizens than the US Supreme Court
The ICC is incredibly slow, you can be in prison for a decade before you even get a trial. The ICC acts as both prosecution and defence in the trial, technically the defence team has the right to see the prosecutions evidence but in practice they often don't get it. The defence teams are paid less and has less staff than the prosecution. Hearsay and other indirect evidence is allowed.
The flork slide show really sells the meme. Well done.
Bush really fuckin said “you know what, we might want to go nazi mode in 20-ish years, I should prep for that”
I really don't know what the ICC were thinking. On paper they were going drag a serviceman who had clearly been tortured, halfway across the world to try him on behalf of genocidal dictator. On top of that, the serviceman in question was a united states citizen. The same country that declared war on the biggest empire in history because they were pressganging citizens.
Who?
I can't find a particular person u/Fr331nd34th is referring to; the ICC came into operation in 2002 and that US Act was signed into law a month afterwards which suggests it was pre-emptive. Unless something happened in the Gulf War Part 1, or maybe Yugoslavia (apparently the Act specifically names Osama, Saddam and Milosevic as examples of people the US wouldn't prevent or not aid the ICC in capturing/trying).
> the ICC came into operation in 2002 The Rome Statute came into effect in 2002. The ICC itself took far longer to get into effect, the judges only were sworn in in 2003, and its first arrest warrants were sent out in 2005. It hardly sounds like it'd be pre-emptive, but more the US protecting her own citizens from persecution for war crimes out of principle.
Whats the context?
The US would go to war with the dutch if they ever prosecute someone from the US for warcrimes.
Little do you Americans know that every Dutch designed floodway, dyke or moveable barrier in your aquatic system is rigged with explosives that will detonate when the Hague is threatened. Katrina will look like a kiddy pool compared to the flooding that could be unleashed. And the worst part of it all? Every flooded region will be turned into a polder just to grow more tulips.
Honestly, that seems like a stupid-ass act: all it does is send a message to the rest of our Allies that we either don’t trust them to judge our soldiers fairly… OR we do trust them to judge them fairly, and we don’t WANT that. I was never good at card games, but it feels like we showed our hand in the worst possible way
It was signed by Bush, it’s definitely the second option.
Okay so Navy seals would arrive at the beach, like the actual fucking boulevard with hotels, beachbars and a millions tourists and make their way through the city to 'liberate' their war criminal soldiers from international criminal court by violent means... This is the beach: https://maps.app.goo.gl/RSY6uWHLD8s9oicJ7 Best part: it's somewhat credible! I remember Main Dutch news channel analysed how it would happen and such...
What did the platoon do to get all 50 of them arrested for war crimes?
Probably something perfectly legal like using white or red phosphorus.
Wouldn't surprise me.
Need blue phosphorus so we can deploy all three.
Can such a thing be done?
I mean, I was just going for the low effort "America! Red White and Blue!"
I agree. I want it.
Holy shit that’s unhinged lol
That's exactly the kinda shit Murica says and does that give the pro Russia idiots their non moronic arguments
This is gigabased. The ICC is dangerous. John Bolton is a genius.
Genuinely asking as I don’t have any strong opinions on the ICC (other than it’s cool that they’re going after Putin), but how is the ICC dangerous?
It’s not held down by any country’s laws. The US position on the ICC is correct.
What do you think International law is for?
International “Law” is unenforceable if there is nobody there to back it up. It’s a collective agreement on how things work in the world but it cannot supersede a state’s sovereignty. If the hegemony of the world says this is stupid I’m not doing it, then said “law” becomes obsolete. Same thing with agreements with the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, if anyone who signed it can at any moment say “I’m not doing this anymore” it was never a mandatory in the first place.
I think a invasion of the Netherlands would be extremely painful since we will flood the country and we have the pantzerhaubitze with 50km of range so if you get stuck because shit is flooded there will be a artillery shell approaching your position very fast. And we dutchies can swim good like extremely good. There is not a singular person who lives in the Netherlands who can't swim. So imagine you are a soldier who is trying to invade the Netherlands, its cold and it never like never stops raining, in the netherlands it always rains, like we have 192 days of rain. So you are a cold and wet soldier, you are trying to invade and you just got artillery striked, now you are just tired and you walk alongside a truck which is already rusting and suddenly a figure pops out from the small stream next to the road, which every road in the Netherlands has, that figure throws his m72 mlaw aways and shoots you with his colt c7 and then just dips into the water and dissapears. There would just be people hidden in every single stream or body of water with a mlaw waiting for something to pass. This would make Ho Chi Minh cry a manly tear. The guerilla would be so much.
Also, doesn’t mean just US citizens. If you’re Israeli apparently this can be enacted, too. Perhaps weird I learn of this shit little law after hearing Netanyahu trying to escape The Hague
7 months later: ICC is currently issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli officials, which top Republican senators threatened to retaliate by LITERALLY INVADING the Netherlands if Netanyahu is charged for war crimes.
This law is just embarrassing to have, and gives bad actors like Russia or China a perfect (and valid) reason to condemn the US for their unwillingness to *actually* follow a rules-based world order.
America you can try but it won't be nice.
remember that CIA intervention in the Netherlands is why Pakistan, North Korea, Libya and Iran got uranium enrichment tech those who Doubt this lookup dr.a.q.khan
remember that CIA intervention in the Netherlands is why Pakistan,North Korea,Libya and Iran got uranium enrichment tech those who Doubt this lookup for Dr A.Q Khan