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ID: 069843

Outsmarting technologies: Rhetoric, revolutions in military affairs, and the social depth of warfare / Beire, J Marshall

Beire, J Marshall	Journal Article
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Publication

2006.

Key Words

RMA ; Revolution in military Affairs ; Warfare ; Legitimacy ; Discriminacy ; Simulacra ;
Rhetoric ; Combatants ; Non-Combatants

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ID: 081992

Protecting civilians…or soldiers? humanitarian law and the econ / Smith, Thomas W

Smith, Thomas W	Journal Article
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Publication

2008.

Summary/Abstract

The level of non-combatant casualties in modern Western warfare is determined in large part by the way in which policymakers apportion risk between soldiers and civilians. In the U.S. counterinsurgency in Iraq, a "kinetic" strategy and a muscular doctrine of force protection have lowered the threshold for the use of violence and, in many cases, transferred risk from soldiers to civilians. Particularly in areas deemed hostile, aggressive tactics make up for a shortage of soldiers on the ground and direct violence toward non-combatants. This is not the fog of war: even unintended civilian casualties flow predictably from policy choices. Perceptions of risk increasingly govern U.S. interpretations of its humanitarian obligations under international law, threatening to dilute the doctrine of proportionality and reverse the customary and legal relationship between combatants and non-combatants. Only late in the war has the U.S. administration recalibrated risks and launched a more orthodox counterinsurgency strategy

Key Words

Iraq War ; International Humanitarian Law ; Non-Combatants ; Force Protection ; Economy of Risk ; Risk Transfer

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ID: 165198

Revisionist historiography of Britain’s decolonisation conflicts and political science theses of civilian victimisation in count / Scarinzi, Fausto

Scarinzi, Fausto	Journal Article
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Summary/Abstract

Recent historical research exposed the myth of self-restraint as the distinctive feature of British counterinsurgency during decolonisation. This article shows that the revisionist historiography of British counterinsurgency has important, but unnoticed, implications for political scientists. Specifically, historical scholarship challenges the predictions and causal mechanisms of the main social scientific theses of civilian victimisation in counterinsurgency. Using revisionist historians’ works as a source of data, I test those theses against Britain’s decolonisation conflicts. I find that they do not pass the test convincingly. I conclude that political scientists should be more willing to explore the theoretical implications of new historical evidence on counterinsurgency campaigns.

Key Words

Counterinsurgency ; Historiography ; Theory ; test ; Non-Combatants ; British Decolonisation ;
Civilian Victimisation

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