Talk:Declaration of war

So no more post-1945 list?

I thought the list of declared wars since WWII was an interesting resource. It put into context the reality of the postmodern "declaration of war," the idea that such declarations have too many legal implications to be useful to most developed nations.

Are we, the people of Wikipedia, abandoning the effort to archive formal declarations of war? I understand the concerns about verifiability. But surely rewriting the list completely would be better than just deleting it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FEA8:623:8800:8139:268F:44F3:DC4C (talk) 05:58, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

The sourcing was so bad that it's probably better to remove it first. There's been no ruling that we can't talk about particular examples. The editor who removed it, though, is probably correct that "lists of examples" are disfavored in articles. If we really wanted we could create an article called List of declared wars after 1945 or something to that effect. But the issue with the list in this article was the sourcing: Many of the examples were sourced to questionable media accounts. There is also a question of what defined a "declared war" within the context of that list; many of the examples were claims by one or the other government that a state of war existed, which in my view doesn't fit the definition of the concept.

And another thing, the definitions section in this article is awful. It's sourced to a single law review article less than 20 years old by an author I've never heard of before in international law circles, which is predominantly about what declarations of war mean within the United States Constitution; and a blog post, that discusses the first article (and touches on a couple of others), written by another American law professor (who appears to have little or no scholarship in international law). Surely, surely, there's something more within the European scholarship, perhaps the Hague Academy of International Law's proceedings, and especially showing the development of the concept over the years. Why are we only seeing information from the late 2000s? Why not the League of Nations era? Why not the early UN era? 69.174.144.79 (talk) 17:13, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Israel-Hamas 2023

As of right now there has not been a formal declaration of war by Israel, as spelled out in Basic Law: The Government. Until this changes, adding Israel to the list is misinformation. Not logged in 2 (talk) 17:56, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Cannot confirm myself whether a formal declaration has been made, but according Basic Law: The Government, it is the governments decision to declare war with the Knesset to be notified "as soon as possible" by the Prime Minister, and it defines the government as the Prime Minister and his ministers. So it is within the Prime Minister's power to declare war, then to notify the parliament. In his words "we are at war not an operation" yet we could do with some more concrete evidence of this being formalized beyond his words. 2600:1006:A020:6D1B:B8AC:D704:567E:CA58 (talk) 23:38, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

To add, the full quotation from the Prime Minister is: "“Citizens of Israel, we are at war. Not an operation, not a round [of fighting,] at war!"

https://www.timesofisrael.com/we-are-at-war-netanyahu-says-after-hamas-launches-devastating-surprise-attack/

And later in the day he says "since the morning Israel has been at war"

https://twitter.com/netanyahu/status/1710631847879717236

Given he has the legal power to declare war on behalf of Israel, what more evidence is necessary to infer that Israel has made a formal declaration of war? 2600:1006:A020:6D1B:B8AC:D704:567E:CA58 (talk) 04:50, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

You can read an article in Hebrew here discussing it. What has technically been declared is a "אירוע חירום אזרחי" or Civil Emergency. It has not yet been reported that war has been declared per Section 40 of the Basic Law: The Government. Not logged in 2 (talk) 18:08, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm fully aware that there are headlines saying things like "Israel declares war on Hamas" but it has not in fact formally declared war per Israeli law. Not logged in 2 (talk) 22:07, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Care to elaborate upon which portions of Israeli law have not yet been fulfilled in a formal declaration? The Prime Minister has outwardly spoken to the nation being in a state of war, and according to Israeli law the Prime Minister has the authority to declare war, and that parliament is to be notified.

Which other elements have not been fulfilled to constitute a formal declaration of war? 2600:1006:A020:6D1B:B8AC:D704:567E:CA58 (talk) 12:56, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

It would seem that the Israeli Prime Minister has now taken the step as outlined by Israeli law to formally declare war.

https://x.com/israelipm/status/1710988418585423898?s=46&t=H3koeNAS0TIAR4vtVle6wQ FatCatSwe (talk) 14:12, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Twitter is not a reliable source. That said, there are multiple sources stating that Israel has formally declared war. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:21, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Although I am no longer able to capture it on the Internet Archive because the page has already been captured 7 times today, the front page of the Washington Post as of writing reads "Israel formally declares war; combined death toll passes 1,000". Here's an archive of a Washington Post article titled "Israel formally declares war against Hamas as hundreds killed on both sides": https://web.archive.org/web/20231008185504/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/08/israel-hamas-war-gaza/

I don't think it gets any clearer than that.

NateNate60 (talk) 18:56, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

The WaPo headline notwithstanding, as posted above the Mekomit newspaper in Israel reported that what has been technically declared is a civil emergency. Order signing is reported here at Ynet. This is not to say that there won't be a formal declaration of war per Section 40 of Basic Law: The Government, just that it has not actually happened yet. Not logged in 2 (talk) 19:04, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

@Not logged in 2 The source you linked to appears to be from yesterday and refers to an emergency declaration. There is an avalanche of reliable secondary sources that are stating quite explicitly that today the Israeli government formally declared war. Some have specifically cited section 40 of the Basic Law. At this point I don't think this is reasonably controvertible. I would ask you to please remove the disputed tag from the entry on the article page. Thank you. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:47, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough then, it's been reported enough that looks like it may have passed muster. I'll remove the tag, but let's keep the discussion open in case there are any clarifications later. Not logged in 2 (talk) 20:07, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

I've removed this entry. Hamas is not a nation state. A declaration of war can only be one nation state on another. This is not a comment on the conflict, but it rather about the subject matter of this article, namely "declarations of war". Politicians frequently 'declare war on', drugs, terrorism, poverty... these are not the declarations of war that are the subject of this article - because, again, the target of the 'war' is not a nation state. If this is to be reinstated it should be Israel vs Gaza or Israel vs Palestine... but they claim not to be at war with those nations, they claim to be targetting Hamas which is not a nation. Marlarkey (talk) 01:47, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Chinese Civil War and Korean War removed from post-WW2 list?

Why were these post-WW2 items removed from the list? Some Hecking Nerd (talk) 16:21, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

"one sovereign state against another"

Do Hamas, SASR and IS count? Or does the wording need to be changed? Smeagol 17 (talk) 15:05, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Cameroon - Ambazonia war: Could not verify

I've combed English-language sources on the internet and could not find a quote or government document where the Cameroon government declared war on the Ambazonia groups, only news sources equating certain statements to a declaration of war. Should be verified with French-language sources or removed from the list. 76.64.122.99 (talk) 07:33, 30 August 2024 (UTC)