Proportionality for Military Leaders
Gary Brown2000
Sign up for access to the world's latest research
checkGet notified about relevant papers
checkSave papers to use in your research
checkJoin the discussion with peers
checkTrack your impact
Abstract
AI
AI
The concept of proportionality plays a crucial role in just war theory, yet it remains poorly understood among military leaders. This paper identifies four distinct forms of proportionality: jus ad bellum proportionality, ongoing proportionality assessment during conflict, jus in bello proportionality, and political proportionality. A better comprehension of these categories is vital for military leaders to provide sound moral advice in decisions related to resorting to war and the conduct of military operations.
Related papers
Strategic Proportionality: Limitations on the Use of Force in Modern Armed Conflicts
International law studies, 2020
The nature of modern armed conflicts, combined with traditional interpretations of proportionality, poses serious challenges to the jus ad bellum goal of limiting and controlling wars. In between the jus ad bellum focus on decisions to use force, and the international humanitarian law (IHL) regulation of specific attacks, there is a far-reaching space in which the regulatory role of international law is bereft of much needed clarity. Perhaps the most striking example is in relation to overall casualties of war. If the jus ad bellum is understood as applying to the opening moments of the conflict, then it cannot provide a solution to growing numbers of casualties later in the conflict. Moreover, if it does not apply to non-international armed conflicts, then it is of little use in relation to alleviating the suffering of war for a vast proportion of conflicts in the past half a century and more. IHL is equally unsuited for dealing with overall casualties, as it may be the case that e...
Proportionality in Perspective: Historical Light on the Law of Armed Conflict
Conflict Studies: Prevention, 2015
Proportionality in Modern Asymmetrical Wars
2010
Proportionality cannot be detached from the question of responsibility: which side » created the situation in which civilians find themselves? From a military as well as a moral perspective, the onus clearly lies with the party that chooses to fight from within civilian concentrations. Once the non-state actor internalizes the fact that his foe is committed to the » protection of civilians, even at the expense of military actions, that actor will use civilians as shields that might protect him from enemy assaults. This is precisely the tactic adopted by Hamas and Hizbullah. Israel's Gaza operation clearly shows that Israeli commanders successfully followed » the requirements of the administrative model of the principle of proportionality. According to newspaper and oral reports, the IDF did require commanders to take humanitarian law into account in the planning stages of the operation. Moreover, legal advisors were involved in the planning of many operations and provided advice regarding specific targets. The right questions were asked, checks were made, and the incidental damage to civilians was on the whole limited.
Can Just Wars Be Fought Proportionately? A Critique of In Bello Proportionality
Journal of Military Ethics, 2023
Proportionality has long been considered a pillar of just war theory, requiring that the goods achieved in an action outweigh the collateral harms it causes. In this article, I argue that the in bello principle of proportionality cannot serve its intended function of limiting the destructiveness of actions during war. I illustrate the features of war that make the in bello proportionality constraint not merely impossible to follow, but perhaps even self-defeating. I conclude by suggesting ways in which theorists and policymakers concerned with justice in war might attempt to respond to this dilemma.
Proportionality in the Afghanistan War
Ethics & International Affairs, 2011
I t is a privilege to be able to add a footnote to Richard Miller's illuminating moral analysis of the war in Afghanistan. I am in substantial agreement with his argument and share his evident frustration with the Obama administration's failure to provide a cogent justification for the continued killing. My contribution to the discussion will be largely theoretical rather than political. Miller rightly observes that "current just war theory does not provide sufficient guidance" in thinking through many of the moral issues raised by the war (p. ). Some of the questions he addresses are concerned with proportionality, a notion whose complexities are only beginning to be appreciated. My modest ambition in this comment is to try to sharpen these questions and provide some assistance in thinking about them, though I am far from understanding them fully myself. Forms of Proportionality My remarks will focus mainly on the issues of proportionality considered in the section of Miller's essay titled "Moral Costs." There Miller draws various distinctions among the harms that result from U.S. military action in Afghanistan. He first distinguishes between harms to noncombatants and harms to combatants.
General Rules Regarding Carrying Out Attacks During an Armed Conflict and the Principle of Proportionality
2019
It was once said that "when the canons roar the laws are silent." This left the conduct of belligerent states during hostilities in the hands of the Generals and the Admirals in the armed conflict. The results of the aforementioned notion resulted into great devastation as the nature of the attacks left not only persons participating in warfare but the civilians and civilian objects in a terrible state of affairs. International Humanitarian Law as a branch of international law seeks to regulate the states engaged in warfare, has however prescribed rules that states should adhere to in carrying out attacks. This paper seeks to discuss the main rules regarding carrying out attacks during an armed conflict. Furthermore, this paper shall asses how the principle of proportionality is assessed and what restraints it imposes. 2.0. Defining An 'Attack' In the context of this paper the term attack will be presumed synonymous to an armed attack. Before one could appreciate the rules which ought to be followed before carrying out an armed attack, one needs to appreciate what exactly amounts to an armed attack. It should be noted that there is no clear definition of what exactly is an armed attack. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) defined an armed attack in the case of Nicaragua v. United States. The ICJ stated that an "armed attack" is one that includes action by regular armed forces across an international border and the sending by or on behalf of a State of armed bands, groups, irregulars or mercenaries, which carry out acts of armed force against another State of such gravity as to amount to an actual armed attack conducted by regular forces, or its substantial involvement therein.
Introduction to International Relations Lecture 6: Military Conflict
Overview. We study the three images of war: human nature, internal organization of states, and the international system. In doing so, we emphasize that ideally war is an instrument of policy, and violence should be a means to an end. We identify several problems with each separate explanation and then note some very interesting arguments pertaining to the distribution of power in the world system.
The Moral Limits of Strategic Attack
2002
American military operations in the post-Cold War era have been punctuated by a twofold desire for casualty avoidance. The first manifestation is a long-standing feature associated with the conduct of war: the preservation of friendly forces. The success of Operation Desert Storm proved that heavy casualties on one's own forces are not necessary for military victory, and, not surprisingly, that conflict indirectly promoted force protection as paramount in subsequent operations. The other manifestation of casualty avoidance is the reduction of noncombatant losses. Of course, the term encompasses noncombatants residing in or belonging to the enemy state as well as those in one's own country. Although the idea of noncombatant immunity has a lengthy history traceable to the earliest warrior codes, the reduction of noncombatant casualties, particularly those of the enemy, has consistently been overshadowed by claims of military necessity. Arguably, the rise of the modern media, v...
Walking the Tightrope of Just War
Analysis 71 (July 2011): 533-544., 2011
A cornerstone of traditional just war theory is that combatants on both sides of any conflict are legitimate targets of attack. This is not because they are engaged in wrongdoing but because they pose a threat to others. So long as they follow the jus in bello rules of proportionality and discrimination, those who fight for an unjust cause and those who fight for a just cause are moral equals: both may permissibly kill and both may permissibly be killed. This is the doctrine of the ‘moral equality of combatants’ (MEC) and it has long been the standard view. A revisionist challenge, however, argues that one is not liable to be killed if one fights for a just cause. People have a presumptive right against being killed, after all, so why should a soldier fighting for a just cause lose that right for posing a justified threat against an unjust enemy? Jeff McMahan makes the case for this revisionist view in Killing in War. He explicitly rejects the MEC and instead endorses an asymmetric view of the morality of combatants. Critics object that this revision makes just war impossible because without the MEC it is impossible to justify our convictions about legitimate and illegitimate targets. In this article, I defend the revisionist view against this objection. My defence, in turn, leads me to propose a new and more adequate account of enemy status.
International Humanitarian Law: The Principle of Proportionality and Military Operations
International Humanitarian Law: The Principle of Proportionality and Military Operations, 2021
International Humanitarian Law (IHL) was developed to limit the subsequent damage of armed conflict on civilians and non-combatants. IHL protects all individuals that are not or no longer involved in armed conflict and and restricts the means employed to carry out warfare. Armed conflict is governed by different principles, one of which is the principle of proportionality which dictates that "Launching an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, is prohibited.". This paper will assess the principle of proportionality and analyze to cases according to the principle of proportionality.
Related topics
Related papers
Proportionality in Military Force at War's Multiple Levels: Averting Civilian Casualties vs. Safeguarding Soldiers
Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, 2012
To what lengths may a state go to protect its soldiers in war? May it design its military operations to further that goal if this significantly increases civilian casualties? International law currently offers no clear answers. Because recent wars have seen many states prioritize soldier safety over avoiding civilian casualties, spirited debate has arisen over the legal defensibility of this practice. This debate currently focuses on an ethics code proposed by two influential Israeli thinkers and allegedly embodied in Israel’s conduct of its 2008–2009 Gaza war with Hamas. This Article shows that current discussion fails to appreciate how judgments about proportionality in the use of military force necessarily differ at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of warfare. It illustrates this with empirical material from recent armed conflicts. If international law is to address war’s inescapable moral complexities, it must be interpreted to reflect the variation in the kind of...
Proportionality in Military Force at War’s Multiple Levels: Averting Civilian Casualties vs. Safeguarding Soldiers, 46 VANDERBILT JOURNAL OF TRANSNATIONAL LAW 747 (2013)
Abstract To what lengths may a state go to protect its soldiers in war? May it design its military operations to further that goal if this significantly increases civilian casualties? International law currently offers no clear answers. Because recent wars have seen many states prioritize soldier safety over avoiding civilian casualties, spirited debate has arisen over the legal defensibility of this practice. This debate currently focuses on an ethics code proposed by two influential Israeli thinkers and allegedly embodied in Israel’s conduct of its 2008–2009 Gaza war with Hamas. This Article shows that current discussion fails to appreciate how judgments about proportionality in the use of military force necessarily differ at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of warfare. It illustrates this with empirical material from recent armed conflicts. If international law is to address war’s inescapable moral complexities, it must be interpreted to reflect the variation in the kind of decisions that soldiers confront at distinct organizational echelons. This approach largely resolves one of the most vexing conundrums that has perennially bedeviled the law of war.
Duty, Obedience, Desert, and Proportionality in War: A Response
Ethics, 2011
This essay responds to four commentaries on my recently published book, Killing in War. It defends the view that soldiers ought to disobey an order to fight in a war that lacks a just cause, argues against the contractarian approach to the morality of war, develops an explanation of how the number of people who are harmed by defensive action can affect whether that action is proportionate in the "narrow" sense, and seeks to rebut the suggestion that an attacker's desert may be relevant to the justification for harming him in selfdefense. * I am grateful to Seth Lazar and the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict for organizing and administering the conference at which the essays in this symposium were first presented. I owe further thanks to Lazar for insightful comments on the notes on which this essay is based, to Henry Richardson for comments on the penultimate draft, and to John Gardner and Cheyney Ryan for helpful correspondence. 1. This use of the term is unorthodox because it omits wars that are unjust for other reasons, e.g., because they are disproportionate. To appreciate why I limit the reference of the term for present purposes, see Saba Bazargan, "The Permissibility of Aiding and Abetting Unjust Wars," Journal of Moral Philosophy (forthcoming).
Proportionality in Counterinsurgency: A Relational Theory
Notre Dame Law Review, Vol. 87, 2011, 2011
At a time when the United States has undertaken high-stakes counterinsurgency campaigns in at least three countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan) while offering support to insurgents in a fourth (Libya), it is striking that the international legal standards governing the use of force in counterinsurgency remain unsettled and deeply controversial. Some authorities have endorsed
The ethics of asymmetric war
Ethics of War: Shared Problems in Different Traditions
One of the oldest and most enduring images of war is that of the game of chess. Although chess is clearly an abstraction, it powerfully embodies a conception of a particular type of war and moreover, it is a conception that has significant moral content. On the chessboard, two equally configured forces, displaying clear and distinguishable uniforms, do battle on a bounded field and in strict accordance with rules that specify how conflict is to commence, how it is to be conducted, and how it is to be terminated.
The equal application of the laws of war: a principle under pressure
International Review of the Red Cross, 2009
The 'equal application' principle is that in international armed conflicts, the laws of war apply equally to all who are entitled to participate directly in hostilities, irrespective of the justice of their causes. The principle, which depends on maintaining separation between jus ad bellum and jus in bello, faces serious challenges in contemporary armed conflicts and discourses. Some variations of the principle may be inevitable. However, it has a firm basis in treaties and in historical experience. It is the strongest practical basis that exists, or is likely to exist, for maintaining certain elements of moderation in war. The rival proposition-that the rights and obligations of combatants under the laws of war should apply in a fundamentally unequal manner, depending on which side is deemed to be the more justified-is unsound in conception, impossible to implement effectively and dangerous in its effects. Volume 90 Number 872 December 2008 * This article is a product of research under the auspices of the Oxford Leverhulme Research Programme on ' The Changing Character of War '. For comments on successive drafts I am grateful to participants in its workshop on Symmetry, Oxford, 23
Proportionality in Self-Defense and War
2010
Introduction Proportionality is a widely recognized constraint on acts of punishment, acts of selfand other-defense, and acts of war. While common sense morality recognizes constraints on acts of these types that are primarily deontological in character, proportionality is thought to be a constraint that is concerned solely with consequences. But I will argue that it too incorporates various essentially deontological elements.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.