Transcript What the Dead can tell us

What the dead can tell us
Some thoughts on the moral and legal
dimensions of Fourth-Generation Warfare
“It bothers me when they say there were
seven guys, so they must all be militants,”
the official said. “They count the corpses
and they’re not really sure who they are.”
Don Radlauer
Institute for the Study of Asymmetric Conflict
On today’s Menu
The importance of moral considerations in 4GW
An outline of Just War Theory
A “Theory of Change”
Jus in Bello in Asymmetric Conflict
Mortality Statistics
What we learn from Mortality Statistics
Conclusion
The importance of moral considerations in 4GW
“Fourth Generation war theory… argues that
the moral level of war is the most powerful, the
physical level is the weakest, and the mental
level lies somewhere in between.”
-William S. Lind
The importance of moral considerations in 4GW
Why might this be? Morality seems to be “hardwired” at a very basic level—an important
survival tool for a social animal.
An experimental verification
Psychologists gave subjects a logical problem
to solve, in two forms.

One was expressed in abstract terms, e.g. “A is greater
than B and B is less than C…”

The other form was logically equivalent, but the problem
was expressed in a moral context: “Suzy told a secret to
Sally, and Sally told it to Benjamin…”
Subjects performed much better on the “moral”
version of the problem, even though the actual
logic involved was identical.
The importance of the moral dimension
It’s clear that morality provides some of the
strongest motivations available; people will
endure considerable sacrifices to fight what
they perceive as evil.
Even strictly materialistic ideologies—notably
Communism—based themselves on moral
principles.
The importance of the moral dimension
4GW is persuasive rather than coercive—and
because of the persuasive power of morality, in
4GW we find that “facts” and logic operate in
service of moral viewpoints.
The importance of the moral dimension
Since the moral dimension is so central to
modern conflict, it’s important to have some
kind of “toolset” for evaluating combatants’
behavior. That toolset is known as “Just War
Theory”.
An outline of Just War Theory
The idea that war has a moral (or immoral)
dimension goes back beyond written history;
certainly by Biblical times it was well
established that deciding to go to war, and
fighting once at war, were governed by moral
considerations.
An outline of Just War Theory
Traditional Just War Theory was generally
grounded in religion—e.g. St. Augustine and
Thomas Aquinas. The field has undergone
something of a renaissance in recent years,
triggered by the Vietnam War; the “godfather”
of modern Just War Theory is Michael Walzer,
author of Just and Unjust Wars.
An outline of Just War Theory
Just War Theory is divided into three distinct segments:
1.
Jus ad bellum deals with the morally defensible reasons
for going to war.
2.
Jus in bello deals with what is morally defensible in
conducting a war.
3.
Jus post bellum deals with the administration of justice
after war ends—essentially it is the (hopefully correct)
enforcement of the principles of jus ad bellum and jus in
bello, and not simply “victor’s justice”.
Why are jus ad bellum and jus in bello kept separate?
An outline of Just War Theory
Jus ad bellum, in its modern form, provides six (or sometimes
seven) requirements that must be met if a war is to be
considered just:
An outline of Just War Theory
1. Just Cause
This is the most prominent requirement. The most obviously
just cause is self-defense; other causes generally considered
just are the defense of others subject to (unjust) attack;
punishment for grievous wrongdoing; and, in recent times,
protecting the innocent from “internal attack” by their own
government or by non-governmental forces—a.k.a. “R2P”. This
can be summed up as “resistance to aggression”, where
“aggression” is defined as “the use of armed force in violation
of someone else's basic rights”.
An outline of Just War Theory
Comparative Just Cause
Some theorists add as a separate criterion, meaning that
where both sides have just grievances, only the side with the
more-just grievance can justly go to war to redress it.
An outline of Just War Theory
2. Right Intention
It is not enough that you have a good cause;
you must actually be motivated by this just
cause, and not by considerations such as
grabbing territory or carrying out revenge.
An outline of Just War Theory
3. Competent Authority
A state can legitimately go to war only on the
basis of decisions taken by appropriately
designated people following appropriate
procedures—typically defined by any particular
nation’s constitution.
An outline of Just War Theory
4. Last Resort
War can be a legitimate resort only after
peaceful means have been exhausted, or are
simply unavailable.
An outline of Just War Theory
5. Proportionality (or “macro-proportionality”)
A war can be just only if its anticipated benefits from a global
perspective outweigh its anticipated harms.
6. Probability of Success
War is legitimate only to the extent that it has a “reasonable”
chance of success. War that is known in advance to be futile is
not justified, even in a just cause.
An outline of Just War Theory
Even in conventional conflicts, jus ad bellum
has not been a great success in preventing
wars.
Jus ad bellum appears to be especially weak
in dealing with asymmetric conflicts.
Even in conventional conflicts, jus ad bellum has not
been a great success in preventing wars
1. Everyone believes that his own cause is
just; and even third parties seem to pick a
“just” side based more on their own
predilections than on any set of objective,
universal standards. (R2P is an exception—
sometimes.)
In asymmetric conflict, both sides usually have
perfectly valid grievances.
Even in conventional conflicts, jus ad bellum has not
been a great success in preventing wars
2. Right intention is so subjective that it is of
almost no use in real-world evaluation of
justice, even for conventional conflicts. (The
capacity to act without ulterior motives was
probably bred out of our species long ago.)
Even in conventional conflicts, jus ad bellum has not
been a great success in preventing wars
3. Competent authority does not exist for nongovernmental actors in asymmetric conflict.
Even if the “competent authorities” governing a
particular organization decide to end a conflict,
it is not uncommon for part of the
organization’s membership to split off in order
to continue the conflict.
Even in conventional conflicts, jus ad bellum has not
been a great success in preventing wars
4. Last resort is one of the few requirements of jus ad
bellum that is genuinely applicable to 4GW; however,
there is still a problem of subjectivity here, as “lastness”
is not really something objectively verifiable. Memes
such as “the other side only understands violence” are
very common, and tend to destroy the ability of the lastresort test to prevent violent conflict.
Even in conventional conflicts, jus ad bellum has not
been a great success in preventing wars
A further problem is that when one side doesn’t
recognize the legitimacy of the other side,
direct negotiations and other peaceful means
of conflict resolution can be perceived as an
acceptance of defeat.
Israel and Hamas are a good example of this.
Even in conventional conflicts, jus ad bellum has not
been a great success in preventing wars
5. Proportionality is problematic even in
conventional conflicts.
The cost-benefit calculations of a war typically
include imponderables such as “deterring
aggression” that are not directly
commensurable with direct costs such as
casualties.
Even in conventional conflicts, jus ad bellum has not
been a great success in preventing wars
Proportionality is thus subject to abuse,
intentional or otherwise—witness the “Domino
Theory” used to justify U.S. involvement in
Vietnam.
On the other hand, what would have happened had Britain and
France engaged in a “disproportionate” war with Germany over
Czechoslovakia?
Even in conventional conflicts, jus ad bellum has not
been a great success in preventing wars
6. In conventional conflict, it is (or should be)
possible to judge probability of success with
reasonable accuracy; certainly it should be
clear to a nation facing overwhelmingly
superior adversaries that such is the case.
Two German counter-examples from WWII: first,
overemphasizing the value of tactics such as blitzkrieg; and
second, underestimating the military capacity of the U.S.
because of the Great Depression. See Paul Kennedy, The
Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.
Military Advantage
In asymmetric conflict, it is more or less
assumed that the governmental side has an
overwhelming advantage in conventional
military terms, at least at the beginning of the
conflict.
Military Advantage
Theorists/advocates of asymmetric warfare
have developed strategies to overcome this
advantage; Mao Zedong (successfully) and
Che Guevara (not so successfully)
promulgated “long war” theories.
The newest flavor of long-war theory is
muqawama, as promulgated by Hassan
Nasralla, Yasser Arafat, et al.
Theory of Change
In an asymmetric conflict, the conventional
military/economic judgment of probability of
success needs to be replaced by a theory of
change: a coherent, realistic notion of how a
given set of means is likely to bring about a
desired end.
Theory of Change
A non-military example:
Head Start programs. “Head Start promotes
school readiness by enhancing the social and
cognitive development of children through the
provision of educational, health, nutritional,
social and other services.”
See, for example, “What is Theory of Change”,
http://www.theoryofchange.org/about/what-is-theory-of-change/
The advantage of a “credible theory of change” test
1.
It forces governments involved in
asymmetric conflict to realize that their
superior physical resources may not be
decisive, or even very useful; and
2.
It forces both sides, at least in theory, to
justify their actions based on actual
evidence and analysis rather than wishful
thinking.
The advantage of a “credible theory of change” test
Functionally, “credible theory of change”
should be equivalent to “probability of
success”—but one hopes that the new
formulation would help to avoid such fatuous
justifications for conflict as “Let the IDF win” or
“This ‘Israel’ that owns nuclear weapons and
the strongest air force in this region is more
fragile than a spider web.”
The story so far…
Jus ad bellum has been of somewhat limited
value in regulating conventional war, and
appears to have failed spectacularly in dealing
with asymmetric/fourth-generation war.
There is some hope, though, that revision and
emphasis of the “last resort” and “probability of
success” (or, in my formulation, “credible theory
of change”) tests can result in a more successful
jus ad bellum standard for asymmetric conflict.
Components of Jus in Bello
Jus in bello is based upon two fundamental
principles: distinction and proportionality.

Distinction requires that combatants make a goodfaith effort to direct fire only at enemy combatant
targets.

Proportionality requires that combatants use force
in such a way as to minimize unnecessary
damage, particularly to noncombatants.
Proportionality
The principle of proportionality is commonly
expressed in two different ways:

An attack must not be carried out if it is known that the
damage to civilians will be out of proportion to the
military advantage to be gained by the attack.

An attack must not be carried out with weapons that are
significantly more destructive than are necessary to
achieve the military objective of the attack.
This is sometimes
referred to as the
principle of minimum
force.
Proportionality
Although proportionality is usually invoked in
relation to damage to civilian targets, it can
also be applied to military targets.
For example, a military formation should not be killed to
the last soldier if it is possible to compel it to surrender.
Jus in Bello in Asymmetric Conflict
Asymmetric conflict presents special
challenges in applying jus in bello:
Obviously, distinction becomes an especially
difficult problem when one’s enemy does not
wear uniforms and carry arms openly, and may
even store weapons in religious sites or use
ambulances to transport fighters or weapons.
When combatants look like everybody,
everybody looks like a combatant.
Jus in Bello in Asymmetric Conflict
Similarly, proportionality (which can be a very
slippery concept even in conventional war)
becomes difficult to judge when combatants
deliberately shelter among a civilian
population, and even more so when terrorists
deliberately target civilians.
Jus in Bello in Asymmetric Conflict
Ultimately, both distinction and proportionality
are matters of information and intention; and
while it is often possible to reconstruct what
information was available, intention can
seldom be judged reliably—at least until we
become telepathic.
This means that the application of jus in bello
to real-world conflicts is largely a problem of
measurement.
Mortality statistics in asymmetric conflict
In one form or another, body counts have been
an aspect of warfare for thousands of years:
“And the women sang to one another as they celebrated, ‘Saul
has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands.’”
(1 Samuel 18:7)
“David arose and went, along with his men, and killed two
hundred of the Philistines. David brought their foreskins, which
were given in full number to the king, that he might become the
king’s son-in-law.” (1 Samuel 18:27)
Mortality statistics in asymmetric conflict
Until recently, though, fatality statistics were
viewed as purely positive: killing large numbers
of the enemy was considered an
unambiguously good thing.
Robert McNamara’s emphasis on quantitative
measures of “progress” in Vietnam brought
mortality statistics to particular prominence—
even though there were some questions about
the reliability of these statistics.
Mortality statistics in asymmetric conflict
This emphasis on body counts as a
quantitative measure of combat has persisted,
even though the quantification of enemy dead
turned out to be an unsuccessful measure of
success in Vietnam. In asymmetric conflict, the
usual emphasis on fatality statistics has some
unfortunate consequences:
Mortality statistics in asymmetric conflict

Numbers, while easy to report on, tend to oversimplify complex realities.

The use of relative fatality statistics feeds into the
incorrect use of “proportionality” to represent the
proportion between the two sides’ fatalities—which
almost inevitably punishes the government side in
a conflict.
So what can mortality statistics tell us about
a conflict? What good are they?
Unlike most other things we can measure,
deaths are relatively concrete.
Even in the Middle East, death generally
happens only once to any given person.
Further, deaths are generally reported, where
non-fatal incidents may make it into the
“papers” only on a slow news day.
Defeating controversy
Certain aspects of fatality reports are
contentious: we often find that one side reports
the death of an “innocent civilian”, while the
other side reports the same person as having
been an armed combatant.
Defeating controversy
However, basic demographic information—
names, ages, genders—is usually noncontroversial, and can be surprisingly
informative when analyzed properly.
Defeating controversy
In a thoroughly-reported conflict like the IsraeliPalestinian one, there is generally a wealth of
reportage on each fatal incident; it may be
necessary to read several accounts of an
incident to “triangulate the biases”, but it is
generally possible to get a pretty good idea of
how any particular person died.
What we would expect to find
Analysis of fatalities begins with a “null
hypothesis”: assuming those killed were killed
completely at random (e.g. by bombing
residential or commercial districts of a town),
what would the demographic profile of the
fatalities look like?
What we would expect to find
In the Gaza Strip, for example, the median age of the
population is around 17; so if people are killed at
random, we would expect roughly half to be younger
than 17, and half to be older.
Further, we would expect a basically 50-50 balance
between male and female victims.
Combatants, at least among the Palestinians, are almost
100% male, and are seldom below the age of 16 or 17.
(13-year-old kids throwing rocks are not combatants, except in
very unusual circumstances!)
What we would expect to find
Thus, if we were to see a consistent pattern of
Palestinian fatalities that closely resembled that of the
Palestinian population as a whole (i.e. median age
around 17, roughly 50% female), we would be justified in
assuming that random killing had accounted for most of
these fatalities—and this, in turn, would give us strong
grounds for believing that their deaths were the result of
indiscriminate fire, disproportionate force, or both.
What the findings show
In fact, we have not seen this pattern in Palestinian
fatalities, except among particular classes of victim such
as passersby killed as “collateral damage” in Israeli
missile strikes aimed at militants.
What the findings show
In general, in any particular period of combat we expect
to see at least two broad categories of fatality:

A “baseline” group with demographics close to those of
the general population;

A combatant-like group of males aged around 17-35, in
excess of their proportion of the “baseline” group;

Sometimes, we see other non-baseline groups—for
example, in the al-Aqsa Intifada, we saw a large number
of boys between 12 and 15 killed, but very few women
and girls of any age.
What the findings show
These demographic categories do not tell us everything,
but they give some good indications of what is going on
in a conflict:
The fact that there are fatalities in the “baseline” group
does not itself imply that war crimes have taken place,
since innocent civilians are frequently killed even when
combatants make good-faith efforts to avoid
unnecessary killing. However, if the “baseline” group is
larger than normal for the type of combat involved,
something is wrong.
(The problem, of course, is defining what is “normal”!)
What the findings show
The fact that there are “excess” male fatalities of
combatant age does not imply that all these people were
in fact combatants.
However, it does give an indication that someone was
attempting to distinguish combatants, or at least “likely
combatants”, from the general population.
The presence of other groups—e.g. young males in the
al-Aqsa Intifada—indicates that something non-random
is going on; but to determine what that is, we need to
learn more about the incidents in which these people
were killed.
Conclusion:
Mortality statistics, used improperly, can create a
distorted image of an asymmetric/fourth-generation
conflict—particularly when combined with incorrect ideas
about the jus in bello principles.
However, when compiled and analyzed properly, fatality
data can provide one of the few tools we have in
reaching an understanding of what’s going on beneath
the “fog of war”.