quite possibly a cat wrote:Totally wiping out the enemy production base, the most important part of which is people, basically always counters everything and it always becomes the last resort of the defender. That wouldn't be unique to drones. Besides, you probably don't want people living in your drone factory!
I meant that destruction of the industrial base becomes the ONLY counter.
Umm... as far as everyone in the SL is concerned the GA already violated the EE. Even if the truth comes out, it doesn't matter since the GA was behind Green Pines. The EE is de facto dead if you can just use a cut out for violations, so it doesn't matter it was actually a seccie who triggered the bomb.
That is something that has always bothered me about the EE. Green Pines was orders of magnitude less destructive than the Yawata strike - and that is even if the debris strikes are ignored! Just the station civilian casualties were orders of magnitude higher than Green Pines. Include the debris and the comparison only gets worse, and that wasn't considered a violation.
If anything, a new version of the EE should include something similar to AP 1 of the Geneva Conventions which ban attacks that lead to the release of dangerous energies or natural forces (bans attacks on dams, nuclear power plants, etc.)
quite possibly a cat wrote:Absolutely. Without the EE any star nation can say "Attack and we obliterate you." See the IRL situation with North Korea. War is unthinkable.Dilandu wrote:P.S. And must point out, that the assumption that "Eridani Edict is for universal good" is pretty much biased. Look at the other side; Eridani Edict basically made interstellar wars and imperialism a "joyful, fun and profitable enterprises". And it also left smaller and weaker star nations completely at the mercy of bigger and powerful, because the war in Honorverse is usual way of solving political problems, and lesser star nations could not have conventional forces capable of deterring the more powerful opponent.
Indeed, the Honorverse has wars the same way the 1950s would have without MAD.
quite possibly a cat wrote:Honestly, I think the EE was a terrible idea the way it was mutually written. Defenders should be allowed the means needed to defend themselves. Even if that means planet busting the attacker. Ultimately, you need to be willing to shoot through the human shields or the bad guys win.
Like I said, MAD. Not even on the state-v-state level, either. How much exploitation would have happened in the Verge if the exploited populations had the means to threaten corporate headquarters with improvised kinetic weapons. Not the local headquarters, the corporate headquarters on Old Earth or where ever.