Not just why, but how

Carter is now discussing the problems inherent in the twin principles enshrined in both just war theory: proportionality and discrimination.

Proportionality means that you should use the method that will produce the fewest casualties. But taken to its logical extreme, this would dictate that commanders are obligated to take an objective in a way that kills 100 of their guys and 200 of their guys, instead of in a way that kills 10 of your guys and 1,000 of their guys. Indeed, some proponents of international law do argue this. But it is morally thorny (and you can then start asking what minimizes net casualties over the course of the war, rather than current ones). Moreover, if you have a theory of war that tells commanders they should sacrifice large numbers of their men to save the enemy, you will have a theory of war that is never applied to an actual war.

The problem of discrimination is also difficult. We think of just war theory as telling us that you can't target civilians, but in fact it says you can't target "non-combatants"--that's why you can't shoot prisoners. But this becomes extremely difficult. Who is a non-combatant? The cooks? A general back at headquarters? Infantry troops who happen to be asleep?

He dives a little bit into the issue of prisoner treatment. Like pretty much everyone else in the room, he's an anti-torture hardliner. But he also points out how little most of the people arguing about the Geneva Convention actually know about its provisions. For example, we may all agree that you shouldn't hurt people to get them to cooperate--but the laws of war also forbid giving prisoners so much as a Hershey bar in exchange for cooperation. This makes sense under the logic of the convention, which as much as anything, is a list of ways for warring states to avoid wasting energy on tit-for-tat practices. But it has little to do with the moral intuitions that drive most of us to get angry when people violate the Geneva Convention.

Comments

I hope Carter is a little smarter than to use the examples given here. For example, there is NO doubt, NONE, that a general back at headquarters is a combatant. There is NO doubt, NONE, under international law, the law of land warfare, or anywhere else, that infantry troops asleep are noncombatants. There NEVER has been, EVER. There is NO doubt, NONE, that cooks in the direct service of an army at war are combatants.

This isn't a Golden Gloves boxing match we're talking about, Megan. It's war.

If I were a maneuver commander, at war, I would deliberately bypass alert, awake combat units to kill a sleeping general at his headquarters in a heartbeat. I would also bypass them to kill cooks. This is at the heart of maneuver warfare doctrine: When attacking, bypass the enemy's strengths (his combat arms units) and focus on critical vulnerabilities.

And you know what? Overall casualties are MUCH, MUCH lower that way. Once winning without fighting becomes impossible, then it is my obligation to win by destroying my enemy's ability to make war by crippling his command, control and logistics. In other words, by avoiding contact with his warriors as much as I can, or fixing them in place, and attacking his rear. I have a professional responsibility to AVOID a war of attrition, (using infantry against infantry,) if that's possible. (Natch, the enemy will be doing his best to KEEP me from focusing on his rear, and sometimes we'll lock horns and the result is a battle of attrition until someone surrenders or withdraws.)

The gray areas aren't where you state. The gray areas are really factory workers, civilian clerks and typists who work in the enemy's defense ministry, foreign ministry, and secret police headquarters, and people who work at civilian radio stations and TV stations which are commandeered by the enemy for the purpose of militarily relevant communications and other support for the war effort.

Is it justified, for example, to destroy a building from the air that normally has a hundred civilian typists and copier repairmen and snack bar workers and janitors in it? If you strike it, should you strike it after hours, KNOWING you will only kill the janitors? Or should you strike it during business hours, killing everyone there, including single mother handicapped minority lesbian typists, knowing that if you take out one ministry, the other government buildings will experience a mysterious increase in sick calls and absenteeism.

If you make the strike, will you shorten the war? Will you kill FEWER people overall as a result? That's where the gray area is.

But a General back at the rear? No question. Kill him. AND his driver, AND his radio telephone operator, AND his cook, AND his stenographer, AND his aide de camp, AND his security detail, AND the guys who update his maps and make sure his headquarters has plenty of staplers, acetate and printer toner.

If any "theorist" doesn't understand the importance of focusing my combat power against WEAKNESS, not strength, and the importance of attacking my enemy's command and control nodes and lines of logistics and communication, rather than on his fighters, this is a theorist who needs to find a new line of work.

Posted by Jason Van Steenwyk | July 5, 2008 3:29 PM

Proportionality means that you should use the method that will produce the fewest casualties. But taken to its logical extreme, this would dictate that commanders are obligated to take an objective in a way that kills 100 of their guys and 200 of their guys, instead of in a way that kills 10 of your guys and 1,000 of their guys.

A strong contender for the stupidest - and most immoral - thing I've ever read.

The whole idea of war is to impose your will on others, and the best way to do that is to destroy his ability to resist. And that means to kill as many of your enemies as possible as quickly as possible, so that they give up resistance.

But for those actually assert proportionality (and who doubtless yammer unconvincingly that they "support the troops," even though they're happy to have them killed to protect the enemy), I have a modest proposal: we stick them in the front lines, and tell them that we will apply "proportionality" very rigorously, so as not to wound enemy forces unnecessarily. And if they get killed, no loss. In fact, quite the oontrary.

Posted by Occam's Beard | July 5, 2008 3:40 PM

I always thought (and a quick web search backs me up) that Proportionality requires that likely incidental civilian deaths to an attack on a legitimate military target should be proportional or less to the value of the military target.

It isn't proportional to use a nuclear bomb and destroy half a city to take out the enemy command post, if the same command post could have been taken out with precision bunker buster bombs. It might be proportionate to destroy an orphanage using bunker buster bombs to destroy an enemy command post hidden under the orphanage.

Proportionality has nothing to do with killing enemy combatants, who are valid targets by definition. Like Jason Van Steenwyk, I hope the examples in the speech were of a better standard than the ones you cited.

Posted by Mark Langsdorf | July 5, 2008 3:42 PM

Sorry for the intemperate tenor of my comment. The idea of telling some toddler his daddy isn't coming home because some "war theorist" was concerned about the welfare of enemy soldiers pushed my blood pressure up to about 310/220.

Posted by Occam's Beard | July 5, 2008 3:58 PM

Megan,
The Theory of Just War has its merits, but tells us nothing useful in this context.

As Jason Van Steewyck implies, the Art of War remains as set out by Sun Tzu. Part of that art is to do the minimum damage to your enemy consistent with victory. The reason is that after victory, the enemy's assets become your assets. For a democracy that translates into 'defeated enemies are potential future democrats and allies'.

The laws of war as embodied in many written and unwritten conventions, including those of Geneva, are means of minimising the damage war does to both sides. They are mutually beneficial transaction rules, not ethical or moral imperatives. As many behavioural economics experiments have demonstrated, we get angry when people break such rules.

The fundamental problem with these rules when facing terrorism is that the other side often sees benefit in breaking these rules, and low net cost to them if we break the rules. We cannot rely on the restraining effect of the rules on the other side.

In that situation, our objective remains the same, to defeat the enemy with minimum damage to ourselves, and minimum damage to them consistent with defeating them. The tradeoff between damage to them and damge to us is what it is, is complex and may have multiple joint minima. In practice. all we can do is make our best shot at that trade off when it occurs. However, we count in the damage to ourselves damage to the moral and legal principles that we value and try to live by. That is why so many of us will not accept torture (a concept hard to define, but a practice disgustingly recognisable) and do look to see habeus corpus applied at Guatanamo Bay.

"Proportionality" and "discrimination" are just ways of saying 'minimise the damage'; and botched bases for unworkable rules for the murderous trade-off between damage to us and damage to them.

Posted by David Heigham | July 5, 2008 5:03 PM

However, we count in the damage to ourselves damage to the moral and legal principles that we value and try to live by. That is why so many of us will not accept torture (a concept hard to define, but a practice disgustingly recognisable) and do look to see habeus corpus applied at Guatanamo Bay.

If "not accepting torture" means never torturing at all under any circumstances the resulting damage to our ability to thwart attacks by our enemies could greatly exceed whatever damage to our moral and legal principles would arise from making rare exceptions to a non-torture policy. As long as we are faced with situations in which we have credible reasons to believe our prisoners have information that could be used to avert a catastrophe, torture will be on the table.

Posted by Mixner | July 5, 2008 5:31 PM

Van Steenwyk-
I'm reading posts backwards from the order published, so it's only coming to me now that you're a complete moron.

Yes, you attack the army at its weaknesses. But your examples are asinine. Kill the cooks? Kill the stenographers? And *go out of your way* to do so?! Do you have any clue of what is critical to c2 or logistics?

Posted by Kolohe | July 5, 2008 9:11 PM

Sounds to me that this guy is mistaking what proportionality means, much like some mistaken criticism of Israeli tactical action during the IS-Hezbollah war recently. Those arguments at that time would be useful to look at to avoid rehashing.

With this and the other comment about Geneva Conventions, this guy Carter sounds like he's rehashing old arguments for a new audience; not only wrong, but trite.

Posted by Chap | July 5, 2008 9:22 PM

Well, I've read some of the iraqnow blog, esp the 2003 stuff, so apparently you *do* have a clue on c2 & logistics. So, Wtf?

Posted by Kolohe | July 5, 2008 10:30 PM

To the aptly named Kolohe,

I wouldn't kill them BECAUSE they're cooks. I'd kill them because they are combatants, but combatants who are vital to supporting his combat units, and because they are an easier and softer target for my gunners.

My aim as a practitioner of maneuver warfare is to take my armor brigade and use it to overrun his brigade HQ, his brigade support area, his division HQ and his division support area, and kill or capture everybody in it.

That includes the stenographers, and it includes the cooks.

The less infantry there, the better. It makes my job easier.

Sorry to burst your little china egg, but war is a nasty business. As Sherman said, war is all Hell and you cannot refine it. And the more ruthless you are about overrunning and destroying his support areas, the quicker his maneuver units will surrender and everyone else is better off.

Posted by Jason Van Steenwyk | July 5, 2008 11:58 PM

See this article for an analysis of why proportionality theory would advocate such absurd logical extremes:

http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2006-spring/just-war-theory.asp

Posted by NS | July 6, 2008 12:16 AM

Mixner,

The reality is that in the fog of conflict we will make exceptions to non-torture and other ethical and legal stands we make. And when we see what we have done, we will regret those exceptions because they strike at he heart of what we are defending. We will have damaged ourselves worse than we damaged them. In war, that is the mark of a very bad decision.

Posted by David Heigham | July 6, 2008 10:17 AM

Proportionality means that you should use the method that will produce the fewest casualties

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Posted by AT | July 6, 2008 1:52 PM

The reality is that in the fog of conflict we will make exceptions to non-torture and other ethical and legal stands we make. And when we see what we have done, we will regret those exceptions because they strike at he heart of what we are defending.

I think this claim is not only disproven by actual historical experience, but just doesn't make sense as an ethical argument either. The United States and other liberal democracies such as Britain and France have used and almost certainly will continue to use torture when confronted with serious threats to their national security that may be averted through the use of torture to extract intelligence information. In an ideal world we would never use torture. In an ideal world we would never drop bombs that kill innocent civilians. But we don't live in an ideal world, and "what we are defending" is not our idealized standard of ethical conduct, but the best we can do in a dangerous and uncertain world.

Posted by Mixner | July 6, 2008 3:23 PM

Sorry to burst your little china egg, but war is a nasty business.

I had no illusions otherwise. Your examples are still fundamentally flawed, because the necessary condition for a critical target is irreplaceablity, not softness.

Posted by Kolohe | July 6, 2008 3:40 PM

Auwe, Kolohe!

You don't know what you're talking about.

Ok, I just posted the example of taking my mech brigade and overrunning the enemy's BSA, killing or capturing everyone in it (along with all there stuff.)

You now have two or more combat arms battalions entirely without support, cut off from retreat, and using supplies they don't have every minute, facing whatever forces have been assigned to fix them in place.

You also have a mech brigade screaming at top speed pell mell towards your division rear... forcing them to displace, drop equipment, and operate in a significantly degraded fashion... all the while moving under air and arty attack, which the attacker has massed for the occasion.

Ok, Ace. Try to replace your BSA. And do it in a fashion that is timely enough to effect the fight. When you take into account the all-decisive factor of TIME, tell me how replaceable your soft assets are.

Posted by Jason Van Steenwyk | July 6, 2008 9:36 PM

Actually the question that interests me here is:
What is a cook?

Is the guy in the military field kitchen preparing potato soup a cook? Yes.

Is the civilian contractor back in a major base who is preparing frozen meat for shipping forward to the field kitchen a "cook"? Yes.

Is the factory worker in Idaho who is making MRE's a cook? Why not? The only difference is the shipping distance.

Posted by doctorpat | July 6, 2008 11:31 PM

There are three potential differences:

1. Their status as uniformed soldiers or civilians.

2. Their presence in the sovereign territory of a belligerant state.

3. The time lag between killing them or destroying their facility and the effect on the battlefield.

In the case of a uniformed cook at the BSA, the effects would be felt on the battlefield within a day or two. Five days tops. Which is significant enough, combined with casualties and losses in other support functions, to grease the skids for a maneuver. This is true whether the cook is a uniformed soldier or a contracted civilian. I would argue for the purposes of focusing firepower it makes little difference.

In the case of a factory far from the field of battle, the effects on the battlefield may take weeks or months to be felt, and may not be felt at all. Depending on the anticipated duration of the conflict, then, the party on the offensive may well decide that attacking that particular facility is more trouble than it's worth, and choose to focus combat power closer to the main battle area, where the effects are more immediate.

It does little good to do damage for it's own sake. To get the most of any attack on logistical functions, the attack has to be combined with a maneuver of some kind to exploit the vulnerability. Food service may not be the best example, but will suffice. Electronic warfare may be a better example. Electronic emmission centers (headquarters facilities) may be targeted for attack by air or arty, combined with a simultaneous maneuver that changes the battlefield situation substantially.

The enemy relies on communication to receive battlefield intelligence, and then to process and communicate that information to its own maneuver units to react and prepare, or move to counter. By taking out the nodes of communication, including the RTOs and the guys who update the maps as well as the general in the rear, you cripple the enemy's ability to do this. This makes your maneuver more effective. (Typically, only after this is accomplished do you go after the BSAs more generally, which means also killing or capturing every cook, generator mechanic, wire humper, wrench turner, typist, network operator, analyst, clerk, truck driver, petroleum specialist, crew member, officer, warrant, sergeant or private you can find in the rear area.)

Posted by Jason Van Steenwyk | July 7, 2008 2:10 AM

JVS-
Ok sport, I'll admit my experience and training is in naval vice land combat. Where logistics is the be all and end all, and as such, is mostly discrete and/or integrated, vice difuse and disassociated.

So how bout this. You take your 3rd ID and totally wreck the hell out the soft c4i positions. You take out the cooks, the yeomen, all the various REMF officers. And the front line fighting units are left lightly touched, but unsupported. And the front line commanders see they are unsupported. And take their men and simply *disappear*. Back into the population.

So who gives you a potential tougher insurgency? The guy that was familiar with paprika? or the one familiar with RPG's?

Posted by Kolohe | July 7, 2008 3:53 AM

Lincoln could have used you, Gen. van Steenwyk.

Posted by creech | July 7, 2008 1:10 PM

On the subject of the unread Geneva conventions, it should be reminded that they include things like providing sports facilities to prisoners, along with their more famous and justifiable provisions, and that it was provisions like this that Fredo Gonzales was referring to when he said part of the conventions were "quaint". Slightly OT, but I just think it's worth mentioning when people treat the conventions as holy. It's sort of like the awkward bits of the Bible. It might be better for supporters to admit that they aren't perfect. (Quote follows.)

"While respecting the individual preferences of every prisoner, the Detaining Power shall encourage the practice of intellectual, educational, and recreational pursuits, sports and games amongst prisoners, and shall take the measures necessary to ensure the exercise thereof by providing them with adequate premises and necessary equipment."

Posted by Lane | July 7, 2008 1:14 PM

Kolohe,

You're reaching. Front line infantry/armor units don't disappear into the population intact. Conscripts may go home, where they cease to be a fighting force. Their heavy weapons are left behind. Would you rather fight them now with or later without intact command, communications, armor and artillery? Assuming they fight at all?

Posted by MarkD | July 7, 2008 1:34 PM

Combatants can basically be boiled down to folks who wear the uniform and openly carry arms for the purpose of engaging the enemy. So if the cook is part of the fighting force, with the mere assignment of being a cook, then he's a combatant. If he's a mere contractor with no uniform, then no, he's not.

Note that the Conventions specifically exempt certain people from being combatants--namely, doctors and chaplains (who wear the Red Cross to set themselves apart) and POWs. The rest--IF wearing a uniform--are fair game. (P.S.--doctors can carry weapons for defense of themselves and their patients only. Chaplains can, but some services--the Air Force, for certain--prohibit it as a matter of practice.)

Posted by Adam | July 7, 2008 2:11 PM

Combatants can basically be boiled down to folks who wear the uniform and openly carry arms for the purpose of engaging the enemy.

Wrong.

So if the cook is part of the fighting force, with the mere assignment of being a cook, then he's a combatant.

Ok

If he's a mere contractor with no uniform, then no, he's not.

Wrong. He may very easily be a combatant, but not a category III detainee.

There are lots of people who do not wear a uniform who are fair game. Combatant status has nothing to do with weather or not an individual wears a uniform.

The uniform is one of several considerations in determining weather a combatant is lawful or unlawful. It is not material for determining combatant status.

Posted by Jason Van Steenwyk | July 7, 2008 3:00 PM