I think you are overlooking international convention though as that is not written by the victors it is a series of rules agreed to by several parties and designed to protect individuals in certain circumstances such as the treatment POWs or survivors of sinkings.
Not overlooking International Convention. Those rules are what defines a war crime. It is enforced by the victors. The international convention has no more power to enforce those rules than the loser. If you are talking about the Geneva Covention those rules were written after WWI by... Ta Da! the victors!
There is no difference between the actions of some allied submarine crews and those of the axis yet the allies attempted to charge Donitz over these actions, so while it may be convenient to hide behind a "The victor writes history" argument the simple reality is that a crime is a crime no mater who commits it.
Were the allies charged with a crime? If not, there was no crime. You say that, "allies attempted to charge Donitz over these actions". Was he convicted? If not, then no crime was committed.
In the case of war crimes, it is the victor that decides who is punished. How the history is written is decided after it occurs. A good example of history not being written by the victor can be seen in Japan. Japan still refuses to acknowledge it's war time history
During wars prior to WW2 it was easy to get away with such actions because there was little to know coverage of the incidents however since WW2 increased coverage of such actions have been covered and are perhaps one of the reasons Vietnam and now GW2 are proving to be extremely unpopular.
It is perhaps now more important than ever to be able to justify a war because loss of public support has extremely negative effects on the outcome.
I don't know what GW2 is. Vietnam I served in.
I would hope that increased coverage of war would result in it losing its popularity. The truth is, war is brutal killing and ends when it is no longer
popular by one side or the other or both.
Then the politicians step in and complain how deplorable it all was. It is terrible until they start another one.
Soldiers are trained to kill and in conflicts it is not turned on and off by a flip of a switch. The atrocity is war itself, and the leaders of the countries involved should be executed. They are the ones most responsible. If that was to happen once, I would expect to see a great reduction in war after that.
If war is becoming so unpopular, why is it going on at such a rapid rate?