I’ve great sympathy for Ohlin’s politics, but I am not convinced by his instrumentalization of history. https://twitter.com/pilabuda/status/1198230884769566721

The notion that WWII “led nations [drafters of Geneva 1949]...to draw sharp distinctions between combatants and noncombatants...and to avoid total war at all costs” is a myth.

In fact, drafters accepted the reality of total war and sought to develop means to alleviate/restrict SOME of its means (and attenuate their effects for civilians in particular).

Ohlin’s suggestion that states were particularly vigorous in their attempt to draw a sharp civ-comb distinction misses the point entirely.

Anglo-American drafters (yes, Trump is standing a longer tradition) were in fact doing the very opposite - that is, to undermine the civ-comb distinction. They sanctioned blockade starvation and indiscriminate bombing in the name of protecting liberal democracy.

In other words: we should be much more careful with instrumentalizing Geneva 1949’s history for contemporary political purposes - for which we have much better means available (both historical and legal).