It’s an interesting idea but as expressed feels a little tendentious, particularly if one looks at what is actually formally considered a war crime these days (much of which would not have been recognised as war crimes in the past, including by actors who believed themselves to be unusually chivalrous). Hard to believe it will be impossible to avoid total war if a few civilians are murdered or chemical weapons are used, never mind if a pilot gets shot after ejecting or if a spy is not afforded a fair trial, and hostage taking was once considered a good way to avoid total war. We see peace agreements between prolific war criminals quite often too. Avoiding total war might be a motivation, but it can’t be the only one.
On the other hand game theory favours opposing sides agreeing to not shoot ejecting pilots or torture each others’ prisoners even if they don’t agree on anything else, whereas it is impossible to win a war if you are not permitted to fire at the other side’s soldiers, and at least in 1949 artillery and aerial bombardments were also too critical to winning for the Geneva Convention to agree to ban them. It is possible for opposing sides to agree not to shoot at people that don’t wear uniform, but only if both sides treat sneaking up on the other side and shooting them whilst not wearing uniform as also a crime.
Also, many people genuinely believe in the idea that people shooting other people in a uniform which indicates they intend to fire back represents some sort of fair play (even if the targets happen to be sleeping conscripts who haven’t had a chance to surrender yet) and the sort of people that believe in that sort of thing are disproportionately likely to be military officers. They tend to believe in just wars too...
I do agree that opposing sides are considerably more likely to respect conventions on war crimes (and even reach other bargains like prisoner swaps) whilst the infrastructure that may allow the sides to mutually end the war still exists. But there’s plenty of evidence of war crimes committed with impunity in conflicts that never came close to total war, and for that matter of individual military units choosing to abide by conventions despite there being no realistic prospect of a near-term peace agreement and plenty of war crimes being committed by others on their side
I think the language I used above is more deontological/universalizing than ideal. I agree it’s more of a gradient than anything else. I also think some of the biggest classical norms (“don’t shoot messengers/envoys”) while still important today, are less so in the age of wireless communication, mass media, and email. I also think my primary thesis address the benefits of having “war crime” norms, but norms in practice are about both benefits and costs, and some of your comment here address costs (which are of course also important).
It’s an interesting idea but as expressed feels a little tendentious, particularly if one looks at what is actually formally considered a war crime these days (much of which would not have been recognised as war crimes in the past, including by actors who believed themselves to be unusually chivalrous). Hard to believe it will be impossible to avoid total war if a few civilians are murdered or chemical weapons are used, never mind if a pilot gets shot after ejecting or if a spy is not afforded a fair trial, and hostage taking was once considered a good way to avoid total war. We see peace agreements between prolific war criminals quite often too. Avoiding total war might be a motivation, but it can’t be the only one.
On the other hand game theory favours opposing sides agreeing to not shoot ejecting pilots or torture each others’ prisoners even if they don’t agree on anything else, whereas it is impossible to win a war if you are not permitted to fire at the other side’s soldiers, and at least in 1949 artillery and aerial bombardments were also too critical to winning for the Geneva Convention to agree to ban them. It is possible for opposing sides to agree not to shoot at people that don’t wear uniform, but only if both sides treat sneaking up on the other side and shooting them whilst not wearing uniform as also a crime.
Also, many people genuinely believe in the idea that people shooting other people in a uniform which indicates they intend to fire back represents some sort of fair play (even if the targets happen to be sleeping conscripts who haven’t had a chance to surrender yet) and the sort of people that believe in that sort of thing are disproportionately likely to be military officers. They tend to believe in just wars too...
I do agree that opposing sides are considerably more likely to respect conventions on war crimes (and even reach other bargains like prisoner swaps) whilst the infrastructure that may allow the sides to mutually end the war still exists. But there’s plenty of evidence of war crimes committed with impunity in conflicts that never came close to total war, and for that matter of individual military units choosing to abide by conventions despite there being no realistic prospect of a near-term peace agreement and plenty of war crimes being committed by others on their side
I think the language I used above is more deontological/universalizing than ideal. I agree it’s more of a gradient than anything else. I also think some of the biggest classical norms (“don’t shoot messengers/envoys”) while still important today, are less so in the age of wireless communication, mass media, and email. I also think my primary thesis address the benefits of having “war crime” norms, but norms in practice are about both benefits and costs, and some of your comment here address costs (which are of course also important).