On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society

An atrocity is defined as the killing of a noncombatant (195). However, distinctions between combatants and noncombatants are made fuzzy in modern warfare. This section examines the “full spectrum of atrocity” (195).

To understand atrocities, Grossman considers them as a “spectrum of occurrences” (197). Noble killings, or those when soldiers kill armed enemies in self-defense, are not atrocities but are the standard against which other killings are judged.

In the gray area are ambushes where the enemy is not a threat and given no opportunity to surrender, yet they are not deemed atrocities. In guerrilla warfare, the line between combatants and non-combatants is blurred, making the killing of non-combatants less likely to be deemed an atrocity. Grossman posits a dark area consisting of the execution of enemy prisoners of war and those attempting to surrender on the battlefield. The latter are rarely prosecuted.

The black area, per Grossman, consists of the close-range killing of a non-combatant who poses no threat. That is clearly an atrocity.

Grossman describes types of empowerment through death and atrocity. After the death of a comrade, soldiers are strengthened at times and motivated to fight harder. For this reason, it is poor strategy to murder prisoners of war, as it motivates the enemy to fight.