Who Should Protect Civilians?

War used to be a simple business. Armies fought each other. The ideal, as expressed by Frederick the Great, was to fight so that "the merchant in his counting house and the farmer in his field didn't know the war was in progress."

"Them were the Good Old Days," the Geek sighs. The long ago, long gone days of limited war.

The American War Between the States pointed at the future. Specifically, Sherman's March to the Sea targeted the civilian population in order to sap the political will of Confederate forces and government alike to continue the war. While the "atrocities" committed by Billy's Bummers were exaggerated at the time as well as by later generations of historians, the fact remains that his strategic concept worked.

Bill Sherman apparently had, in the words of Lincoln Steffens, "been over to the future--and it works."

Appearances can be quite misleading. Therein lies the rub.

Technological changes made the waging of war directly on civilian populations more attractive. It did not, as the results of the "round-the-clock" and "worker dehousing" efforts of the US and British air forces demonstrated, make civilian targeting more effective.

It can be fairly argued from the experiences of both World Wars that in the case of total war of national survival, attacks on civilian populations do not undercut the political will of the targeted country sufficiently to bring victory in their wake. The best avenue to victory is the progressive reduction of the enemy's material capacity to wage war.

A close examination of inter-state war between opponents of equal levels of military technology and parity in social and economic organisational complexity shows that the way to victory is the combination of destroying the enemy's forces in the field and his infrastructure's capacity to maintain the war. Kill his soldiers and ruin his industry.

Since civilians have the annoying habit of littering the potential battlefield with farms, villages and cities, it is hard to avoid killing them in the process of going after gun toters and the factories which make the guns and bullets. As a result several approaches have been undertaken over the years to limit civilian damage and death.

The most commonly invoked of these is the doctrine of proportionality. Much beloved by the tender-minded adherents of "just war" philosophy, this doctrine requires that the level and scope of violence employed must not be disproportionate to the military advantage sought. Of course, this is an exceptionally subjective matter requiring judgments as to the appropriateness of the violence and the nature and value of the military advantage.

Another, far less commonly employed but far more pragmatic approach is that of placing responsibility for the defense and protection of civilians upon the government and military force of the target country. At the very least this requires that a government or an entity seeking to act as a government not emplace its military forces or equipment in a civilian context.

When the North Vietnamese government placed critical military facilities such as air defense missile batteries next to hospitals or deep in civilian population centers, the US government responded with a self-defeating action. LBJ ordered that US forces not attack these facilities. In short, the US took on the responsibility of protecting the civilian population of an enemy country. This wrong headed move allowed the North Vietnamese government to enjoy a significant military advantage by having willfully and deliberately placed its citizens at risk.

The problems associated with limiting civilian fatalities become even more complex in internal warfare (insurgency and its partner, counterinsurgency,) interventionary operations and the general category "asymmetrical warfare." The complications all arise from the fact that in this type of war the critical terrain is that comprised by the collective mind of the civilian population of the target area.

Internal wars, interventionary operations and asymmetrical conflicts can be distinguished from conventional inter-state wars by one critical factor. While conventional wars can be seen as real-estate deals, the internal war and its close relatives cannot. The internal war type is best understood as being a contest for the support--or at least the passive acceptance--of one contestant but not the other.

The key to success (or victory if you prefer the more robust term)is the attitude of the uncommitted majority of the target area's population. Each contender in the war wants to assure at the least that the uncommitted majority does not migrate to the other side. At the most each side wants to mobilize a greater percentage of the uncommitted majority to his side.

Far more than conventional inter-state wars, the internal war and its relatives constitutes a fight over human terrain. The civilian is the target. Even when one is busy killing enemy trigger pullers, the overarching goal is to rally support to one's side, or, at the necessary very least, prevent the enemy from gaining greater sympathy and active support from the people in the middle.

As a result of this fundamental reality both sides in an internal war will intentionally target civilians with lethal intent. Insurgents use terror. Counterinsurgents use it as well. Interventionary forces may not go after the folks in the middle with intent, but bombs, shells, bullets hit flesh without distinction.

It is (or should be) no big shock that civilians are at great risk. A very close look at civilian deaths resulting as a direct consequence of military actions in World War II shows that somewhat more died than did soldiers.

The disparity between military and civilian deaths resulting from either military actions or the lethal consequences of deliberate policy is orders of magnitude greater in the internal war. The historical record of internal and interventionary warfare in the 20th and (so far) in the 21st centuries demonstrates that one is far safer to be a shooter in the field than a civilian in the local market, a gunship pilot than an elementary school teacher.

In short, the doctrine of proportionality is as dead as Fredrick the Great's formulation.

There are two reasons for this conclusion. The first has already been laid out. The second is just as important and nearly never formally recognised. In every internal war and in many, if not most interventionary operations, the war is existential.

At the end of the war, only one side will still be standing in somewhat recognisable form. Unless and until a climate of pervasive war weariness sets in, the belligerents wil pursue total victory. Insurgent and counterinsurgent are joined at the hip in that each holds the same idea: victory or death. Internal war is total war.

With stakes this high and the collective mind of the uncommitted civilian majority being the crucial battleground, it should be not at all surprising that civilians are killed in job lots. That's the nature of this kind of war whether anyone likes the idea or not.

Here's the wrinkle. It's one which will tickle the innards of anyone who delights in irony.

Civilians do not like to get killed whether its in the crossfire or by deliberate intent. Also, civilians hate (that term is used advisedly) the side which kills them and not the government or governmental wannabe which fails to protect them.

(This not hard to understand dynamic explains why German and Japanese political will and dedication to the government increased as the weight of Allied bombs increased.)

This fact suggests two important strategic and tactical considerations. The first is that one's chances of victory increase if the responsibility for civilian deaths and general misery can be foisted off on the other side. The second is that few, if any, of the many, many belligerents in the many, many internal wars of the past century have recognised this.

Sherman's brilliant (and it was that, brilliant) strategic concept arose organically from the nature and character of social and familial dynamics in the Confederate states. It was brilliant in that time and place. It was not a universally applicable sovereign recipe for victory.

Ironically, the side which kills the fewest is the side which is most likely to gain support from the uncommitted majority. It is the side most likely to win.

This implies two tactical considerations must be observed. The first is to limit the killing be it advertant or accidental of civilians. That is self-evident. The second consideration is less obvious. It is important that the enemy be frustrated to the extent that he starts killing civilians in an attempt to terrorise his way to greater support and therefore victory.

In Iraq the insurgents of all stripes were forced by the results of the American escalation of ground troops to resort to terror tactics with a very large and highly visible body count. The more the insurgents killed the more actual and potential support they lost. Conversely, when the Americans got better at using their overwhelming firepower in a discriminating way, the more the uncommitted drifted to the government side.

The same dynamic has been evident in Afghanistan. A couple of years ago Taliban shifted from failed attacks on hard targets to a series of very high-vis soft target suicide bombings which caused significant civilian casualties. This was a misguided attempt to undercut the perceived legitimacy of the Karzai government.

As a consequence (clearly unintended by Taliban but quite predictable from the historical experience) civilians rushed to the Karzai government and its foreign supporters. Unfortunately, the US ended the campaign by killing its director.

Following this, a series of American airstrikes created a number of civilian corpses. The consequence (unintended by the American commanders but again drearily predictable from the historically informed) was a swell of hostility directed at Karzai and his foreign supporters.

In Sri Lanka the process is again at work. For at least the fifth time the government seems on the verge of victory against the remarkably persistent and come-back-from-the-grave Tamil Tiger insurgency. The Tigers are confined to a very small portion of Sri Lanka. The Tigers have resorted to forcing civilians to stay in harm's way as a species of human shield.

The government has decreed the existence of a "safety zone" in which fugitive Tamils can seek sanctuary. The Tigers have responded by killing civilians who attempt to reach the sanctuary area.

While the Sri Lankan government and its military on a few occasions shelled the "safety zone," the primary onus for responsibility has been correctly placed on the Tigers. The current trajectory bodes well to produce peace in Sri Lanka for the first time in more than twenty years.

Unless...

Unless outsiders huff and puff too much. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay is bloviating at length alleging that the Sri Lankan government as well as the Tigers are possibly guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The government has vigorously denied this accusation. The Tigers remain silent.

Perhaps the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights feels underemployed given that there are so few governments and non-governmental actors currently abusing human rights today. In any event the war in Sri Lanka will come to an end sooner if the government is allowed to continue its (at long last) successful campaign against the Tigers. It will come to an end sooner if the tail of civilian deaths is pinned on the Tiger.

If Ms Pillay doesn't get over her snit with counterinsurgency Sri Lankan style, a bad potential comes into view. The UN and its High Minded Lofty Thinking cohorts may come to believe that it is their exclusive mission to "protect" civilians wherever an internal war exists.

By its very nature internal war requires civilian death and wretchedness. The limiting factor to this unfortunate reality is defined by the ending of the war. Period. The faster the war comes to an end the fewer civilians will die. The quicker the war ends the fewer will be the number of displaced persons, refugees huddling in miserable camps operated and maintained by the High Minded.

An internal war will end most quickly when one side recognises that it is necessary to intentionally limit death and misery. It will end most quickly when one side understands the necessity of maneuvering its opposition into having responsibility for death and displacement among the uncommitted majority.

Outsiders including the UN have a role to play in limiting civilian deaths. It is incumbent upon the international community generally and any intervenors in the war more particularly to insist that the governmental entities have sole responsibility for protecting civilians under its sway.

The test case for this contention is the Gaza Strip. So far the outsiders of the world have failed the test. The responsibility for protecting the civilian population of the Strip resides solely with Hamas.

Hamas is the de facto government of Gaza. It has a minimal obligation to protect its population. At the absolute least Hamas must refrain from co-locating offensive weaponry with mosques, schools and hospitals. As the imagery demonstrates beyond any rational, reasonable doubt, Hamas has failed completely in this duty.

Hamas gun thugs and rocket shooters placed themselves and their lethal equipment in the midst of civilian heavy locations. They employed human shields in the most crass and cynical manner. Hamas was even worse than the Tamil Tigers in that regard.

Now the ever-so-indignant-and-concerned High Commissioner and her human rights coterie seem hell-bent on performing a replay in Sri Lanka. When will the ambitious High Commissioner seek to do the same in Afghanistan? Iraq?

One hopes the answer is "never." The alternative, the involvement, the threats of prosecution in the International Criminal Court will be counterproductive. Ironically, (and the Geek loves the taste of irony almost as much as chocolate) the consequence of any High Minded involvement will be to prolong the war and increase the net amount of human misery and death.

Internal war has its own logic--a grim and terrible logic to be sure--and we must all get a grip on that. That requires that we accept the necessity of civilian death and seek to limit the number of corpses using the logic of internal war itself. That implies we must both recognise and use the right tactics. Not kill civilians. Place the onus for civilian deaths on the opposition. Insist that governments and insurgent entities with de facto control of an area take the sole responsibility for protecting the population.

The logic of internal war correctly fought and not the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights or the International Criminal Court or the High Minded generally are the last, best hope of the people caught in the middle.