By Sahr Muhammedally Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, in a letter to the mayor and council of Atlanta before he besieged the town in 1864, wrote, “war is cruelty and you cannot refine it.” As a practitioner whose work focuses on the protection of civilians, I have witnessed indiscriminate attacks on civilians, and both governments and…
Great power conflict has become a main focus of foreign policy over the past few years. Such a shift has been energized in Europe by the necessity to adapt to the resurgence of tensions at its borders, including in the Baltic states, Crimea, and Ukraine. Coupled with increased lethality of military weapons, emerging technologies such…
It’s easy to see why counterinsurgency campaigns tread carefully around local bystanders. It’s no less important in larger-scale war. As the U.S. military shifts its focus from counterinsurgency to large-scale combat against near-peer competitors, the value of preventing civilian harm in the battle for “hearts and minds” has been largely displaced by an emphasis on the speed and decisiveness…