A hard question

[Sanctus_Paladin]

Say you were a general in a huge war thats been raging for years. In this war many people died and its reaching the point where it would be a losing fight if it goes on much longer. To top it all off the enemy would most likely if he won would glass everyone and everything.

Now the hard part:

Lets say your spys decoded a enemy message telling you in three days time your enemy would attack a city that had little defences. But in five days time there would be a opening in your enemies lines that would not only if exploited but beond a reasonable doubt win you the war.

Knowing what troops you have would you defend the city saving all those people or would you end the war and vanquish your foes prevent more bloodshed? Its either one or the other.

 

[LCMS_No_More]

Say you were a general in a huge war thats been raging for years. In this war many people died and its reaching the point where it would be a losing fight if it goes on much longer. To top it all off the enemy would most likely if he won would glass everyone and everything.

Now the hard part:

Lets say your spys decoded a enemy message telling you in three days time your enemy would attack a city that had little defences. But in five days time there would be a opening in your enemies lines that would not only if exploited but beond a reasonable doubt win you the war.

Knowing what troops you have would you defend the city saving all those people or would you end the war and vanquish your foes prevent more bloodshed? Its either one or the other.

Sounds like the dilemma Churchill faces relative to Coventry.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

Would “just war” policy not recommend defer and exploit?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Say you were a general in a huge war thats been raging for years. In this war many people died and its reaching the point where it would be a losing fight if it goes on much longer. To top it all off the enemy would most likely if he won would glass everyone and everything.

Now the hard part:

Lets say your spys decoded a enemy message telling you in three days time your enemy would attack a city that had little defences. But in five days time there would be a opening in your enemies lines that would not only if exploited but beond a reasonable doubt win you the war.

Knowing what troops you have would you defend the city saving all those people or would you end the war and vanquish your foes prevent more bloodshed? Its either one or the other.

One assumes ones troops are insufficient to do both, and one assumes the enemy would “gas” everyone, not “glass” them. One does not know whether the city can hold out for two days or not, but one assumes they cannot. One does not know what the enemy will do if it attacks the city, but one assumes your hypothetical includes the enemy will kill everyone in the city without fail; that the people can’t escape and that it’s either everyone in the city dead; guaranteed under the second choice, or everyone in the country dead, guaranteed, under the first choice. One must also assume the population of the city is not the entire population of the country.

If all that’s so, then I think you have to take the second choice, because the consequences of making the first choice include those of the second. In other words, if you defend the city, everyone there, and everyone else in the country, including your troops, will die without fail. If you don’t defend the city, everyone there will die, but everyone in the rest of the country will live, including, presumably some of your own troops or their “winning” would be an absurdity.

Of course, if you include the possibility of chance anywhere in it, you have to consider it all over again. But given the ironclad choices, that’s my answer.

 

[iamrefreshed]

It’s really not a hard question.

You are at war. You do what a good general would do to win said war.

 

[vern_humphrey]

That’s not an uncommon problem at all – for example, I’ve had sappers get between my Listening Posts and my main position. In such a case, you shoot, call in air strikes and artillery and so on. The men in the LPs will be at considerable risk, but you cannot sacrifice a whole company for a few men. Particularly when you realize if the company is over-run, the LPs will be mopped up, too.