War Crime Wednesday - Swords on the Modern Battlefield

At some point, you may have heard that swords are classified as a war crime. This is a myth that often gets floated around but is just that, a myth. Swords have been used in war for about 5,000 years, starting in the Bronze Age and persisting through the Second World War. The idea that swords are a war crime likely stems from the Imperial Japanese military who have a well-documented history of abusing prisoners and civilians, which is a war crime. Swords just so happened to be a tool used for this cruelty.

A war crime is defined by its potential to cause unnecessary suffering. The key word here is not ‘suffering’ but instead ‘unnecessary.’ Modern battlefields often have combatants as far as 150 yards away from each other (assuming they see each other at all) so a sword will likely never be necessary. This means that any modern usage of a sword on an individual is almost certainly against civilians or prisoners. Which, as we have established, is where it becomes a war crime.