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Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

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Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#151

Post by impossiblefork »

mmooss wrote: post #116
impossiblefork wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once there's violence targeting you, the solution is to bring real weapons and resolve it using ordinary military tactics, that is, you kill the operator.

That sounds bold and exciting, but it's clearly false and terrible advice. Violence, like warfare, is politics by other means. Every expert knows that law of warfare - the first law of warfare, in a sense - that it ends when and only when there is political agreement. Even in warfare, violence just buys time and changes your political position. In countries with rule-of-law, you can use the political / legal system t…

Once there's violence targeting you, the politics is over and a different kind of problem solving begins.

If someone has attacked you and there has been no apology or attempt to solve the situation, he must be eliminated. Once he's done it, he may well try again, in which case you might die. Better then to get rid of him.

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#152

Post by _heimdall »

killjoywashere wrote: post #136
pclmulqdq wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police also regularly use tear gas against US citizens. These are weapons that would violate the Geneva convention, but we're okay with them to disperse a crowd.

Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) (a follow-on to the 1925 "Geneva Convention") allows for the use of riot control agents (like tear gas) for law enforcement purposes. https://www.opcw.org/our-work/what-chemical-weapon

I think that's inline with what the point the GP was trying to make. Tear gas would otherwise fall into the definition of a weapon that would violate the Geneva Convention if not for the specific earmark that its okay for law enforcement to use it.

Its a bit of a logical loop based only on definitions. Its not against the convention because the law includes the exception, but the exception otherwise goes against the principles of the convention.

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#153

Post by pclmulqdq »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #137
sa46 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Geneva Convention bans all chemical weapons. Part of the rationale for a total ban is to avoid escalating to more dangerous chemical agents. Helpful r/AskHistorians thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gwtj89/the_c...

> Part of the rationale for a total ban is to avoid escalating to more dangerous chemical agents Chemical weapons are tactically useless for modern militaries [1]. You’re pretty much always better off pounding with high explosives. And there isn’t a known path to escalation potential. If there were, everyone would be developing it. [1] https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...

Chemical weapons are tactically useless to the American combat doctrine, as described in that article. As we have seen, the Russian doctrine (and Ukraine's doctrine) relies on much more brute force to push a meter at a time and much more indiscriminate damage. It's hard to imagine chemical weapons being useless.

He makes the mistake of looking at how the US military fights and thinking that is the only way to fight a war. Incidentally, if you looked at how the Roman army used short swords and concluded that "long swords are useless for fighting a war," I bet he would have something to say about it.

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#154

Post by ncallaway »

mdhb wrote: post #14

I don’t think governments should have access to the “make the protestors immediately go away” button that they can just hit whenever they want.

The problem with these devices, for the government, is that the people _might_ come back, but this time with tools designed to defeat these devices (such as guns as explosives). If that happens, it can be very bad (for both parties).

Overuse of these kinds of things is...dangerous for the government

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#155

Post by s1artibartfast »

conception wrote: post #132
pclmulqdq wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police also regularly use tear gas against US citizens. These are weapons that would violate the Geneva convention, but we're okay with them to disperse a crowd.

Generally if you do it to your own people the world is fine with.. just about anything.

Serbia is currently using it on its own people, and yet we here we are reading about it and discussing, with no small amount of outrage.

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#156

Post by nkmnz »

impossiblefork wrote: post #117
tpm wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be rational if you would think killing a few (or a lot of) protesters will intimidate the rest of the country into submission. It didn't, but it could have.

But nobody thinks that way. If they can kill your friends, they can round you up afterwards and kill you. Once it gets to that point, there's no reason not to immediately organize a military response.

Almost every single authoritarian thinks that way. That’s how they stay in power. Please google Volksaufstand (1953), Hungarian Uprising (1956), Prague Spring (1968), Tiananmen (1989), Vilnius Massacre (1991)…

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#157

Post by hahamaster »

grujicd wrote: post #68
casenmgreen wrote: post #20

Serbia is one of the Russian-controlled Governments, along with Hungary and Georgia; these are the countries where we expect to see such attacks made to suppress protest. (USA is not controlled, any more than say China is controlled, but is an authoritarian regime (so no real elections), so there's a shared world view, and here also I would expect to see much the same.)

It's incorrect that Serbia has Russian-controlled government. Why would you say that? We're quite capable of having our own independent dictator, thank you. If anything, Vučić was widely supported by EU. One of our problems is that there's almost no pressure on government from any external side - not from US, not from EU, not from Russia, not from China. Opposition is entirely internal.

[flagged]

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#158

Post by ty6853 »

killjoywashere wrote: post #136
pclmulqdq wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police also regularly use tear gas against US citizens. These are weapons that would violate the Geneva convention, but we're okay with them to disperse a crowd.

Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) (a follow-on to the 1925 "Geneva Convention") allows for the use of riot control agents (like tear gas) for law enforcement purposes. https://www.opcw.org/our-work/what-chemical-weapon

Suppressing protests in US isn't usually law enforcement, its purpose is to violate the law and suppress speech.

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#159

Post by [deleted] »

spacecadet wrote: post #143
camilo2025 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are aware that these LRAD systems have been used against US citizens, aren't you?

My American Citizen score card: LRAD + Tear gas 2009 Tear gas 2017 Tear gas 2021 Still got the exhausted canister from 2009 as a souvenir. Carry a bottle of water, the tear gas rinses out quickly.

[deleted]

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#160

Post by lor_louis »

zozbot234 wrote: post #60
hettygreen wrote: post #8

Is there any counter measure for this? Hardcore hearing protection? Noise cancelling headphones? Handheld sound insulation "shield"?

Use some thick metal plate as a shield and let it reflect the sound back towards the source, most likely. Or something foamy, like mattresses or the like, to just attenuate it. But I don't think any of that would protect you if you're facing 160 dB (though it would indeed be useful if you're farther from the source); the appropriate tactic then is indeed to disperse uniformly over a larger area and make it infeasible…

That's the exact same circumstances that lead to the development of guerilla warfare. I don't know how you'd go around creating a "highly visible gimmick" that has any lasting impact though.
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